Its purpose is to ensure coordinated actions and developments within the urban region as well as its representation on a national and international level.

Due to its central location within Germany and Europe, Frankfurt is a major air, rail and highway transport hub.

Frankfurt is also home to many cultural and educational institutions including the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University and Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, many museums (e.g. Städel, Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Goethe House), and two major botanical gardens, the Palmengarten, which is Germany's largest, and the Botanical Garden of the Goethe University.

In 2011, the human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Frankfurt as seventh in its annual "Quality of Living" survey of cities around the world.

[6] A unique feature of Frankfurt is its skyline with a significant number of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings in the city centre.

Because of the city's skyline, Germans sometimes refer to Frankfurt as Mainhattan, a portmanteau of the local Main River and Manhattan.