Wolfsburg

Wolfsburg
	Wolfsburg
	; Wolfsburg
	Administration
Country	Germany
State	Lower Saxony
District	Urban district
City subdivisions	16 Ortschaften,; 40 Stadtteile
Lord Mayor	Rolf Schnellecke (CDU)
	Basic statistics
Area	204.02 km2 (78.77 sq mi)
Elevation	63 m (207 ft)
Population	120,493 (31 December 2006)
- Density	591 /km2 (1,530 /sq mi)
	Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	WOB
Postal codes	38400–38448
Area codes	05361, 05362, 05363, 05365, 05366, 05367, 05308
Website	www.wolfsburg.de Coordinates: 52°25′23″N 10°47′14″E / 52.42306°N 10.78722°E

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Weser watershed with Wolfsburg (right center).

Wolfsburg is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the River Aller northeast of Braunschweig (Brunswick) and is mainly notable as the headquarters of Volkswagen. Wolfsburg is bordered by the districts of Gifhorn and Helmstedt.

[edit] History

Wolfsburg was founded in 1938 as Stadt des KdF-Wagens (English: City of the KdF Car), a planned town around the village of Hesslingen in the District of Gifhorn in order to house the workers of the Volkswagen factories. During World War II there were also jeeps, airplanes and other military equipment built, mainly by forced workers and POWs at these factories.

In 1945 the city was renamed Wolfsburg after the castle of the same name located in the city, which was founded about 1300 on the bank of the Aller river. Today there is another castle at the place, which was built after 1600. In 1951, Wolfsburg was separated from the District of Gifhorn, and became an urban district. In November 2003, Wolfsburg was renamed Golfsburg for one week to celebrate the 5th generation of the Volkswagen Golf.

[edit] Main sights

Wolfsburg lacks historical buildings, and the sights include new attractions like the Autostadt (a huge open air museum about automobiles, owned and operated by Volkswagen), a planetarium, the Phaeno Science Center, the largest hands-on science museum in Germany, and an excellent private art museum (Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg) specialized in modern and contemporary art.

Until the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, Wolfsburg was simply a place along the road to Berlin just inside West Germany.

With the opening in 2000 of Autostadt and that of Phaeno, as well as restaurants and a Ritz Carlton Hotel, tourism increased.

[edit] Sport

The most famous professional sports club in the city is VfL Wolfsburg, a football club that was established in 1945. They are the current German champions, having won the 2009 Fußball-Bundesliga. Hockey team EHC Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams is also based in the city.