Backnang
Encyclopedia
Backnang is a town
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

, roughly 30 kilometers northeast of Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

. Its population has increased greatly over the past century, from 7,650 in 1900 to 35,761 in 2005.

Backnang was ceded to Württemberg by the Baden
Grand Duchy of Baden
The Grand Duchy of Baden was a historical state in the southwest of Germany, on the east bank of the Rhine. It existed between 1806 and 1918.-History:...

 (Zähringer family) in 1325. Backnang has been known as Gerberstadt due to several tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...

 and leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

 factories
Factory
A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...

, and wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

 and cloth mills that dominated Backnang's industries. Today, all of these have vanished and, instead, telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

 companies like Ericsson
Ericsson
Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...

 (formerly AEG
AEG
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....

, Telefunken
Telefunken
Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...

, ANT
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

, Bosch
Robert Bosch GmbH
Robert Bosch GmbH is a multinational engineering and electronics company headquartered in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. It is the world's largest supplier of automotive components...

 and Marconi
Marconi Company
The Marconi Company Ltd. was founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 as The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company...

) and Tesat-Spacecom dominate the town's industries. The Stiftskirche, formerly the church of Backnang Abbey
Backnang Abbey
Backnang Abbey , dedicated to Saint Pancras, was a house of Augustinian canons regular in Backnang, Baden-Württemberg, Germany....

, dates back to the 12th century.

Backnang's cultural highlight is the annual Strassenfest during the last weekend in June. It has been founded as a street festival where local sports and cultural clubs offered drinks and foods. The traditional opening of the Strassenfest is marked with cannon shots from the picturesque city tower at 6 p.m. on Friday and ends with the Zapfenstreich on the following Monday at 11 p.m. The Strassenfest tends to attract more than 100,000 spectators.

Another cultural highlight in Backnang is the annual Murr-Regatta organized by the Jugendzentrum (youth center). It is generally held two weeks after the street festival. The Regatta is a race down the river Murr in self-made boats. Besides the prize for the fastest boat, an environmental prize is awarded to the crew that collects the most rubbish along the way, an originality prize is given to the most creative crew, and a drunkenness prize to the most inebriated crew.

The local Jugendzentrum (youth center) is remarkable as it has been independently self-administered by Backnang's youth and young adults for more than 30 years. It hosts numerous concerts and contributes events to the cultural life of Backnang.

International relations

Backnang's twin towns
Town twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...

 include:
Chelmsford, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 Annonay
Annonay
Annonay is a commune in the north of the Ardèche department in the Rhône-Alpes region in southern France. It is the most populous commune in the Ardèche department, although it is not the capital, which resides in the smaller town of Privas.-Geography:...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Bácsalmás
Bácsalmás
Bácsalmás is a small town in southern Hungary in the region of Bácska close to the border with the Vojvodina region of Serbia, with a population of 7,694 people.- History :In the Middle Ages, the region came under the control of the Magyars who absorbed the Slavic and the...

, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...


People from Backnang

  • Andreas Hinkel
    Andreas Hinkel
    Andreas Hinkel is a German footballer who currently plays for German Bundesliga club SC Freiburg.He is a right back and has 21 caps for Germany....

    , Celtic F.C.
    Celtic F.C.
    Celtic Football Club is a Scottish football club based in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, which currently plays in the Scottish Premier League. The club was established in 1887, and played its first game in 1888. Celtic have won the Scottish League Championship on 42 occasions, most recently in the...

     and Germany
    Germany national football team
    The Germany national football team is the football team that has represented Germany in international competition since 1908. It is governed by the German Football Association , which was founded in 1900....

     footballer.

External links

  • http://www.backnang.de - Official homepage
  • http://www.juzebacknang.com
  • http://www.backnang24.de/murr-regatta
  • http://www.traumzeit-theater.de/TraumZeit-Theater-KalanagMuseum.htm - Kalanag Museum
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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