[11] Events in Leipzig in 1989 played a significant role in precipitating the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly through demonstrations starting from St. Nicholas Church.

The immediate effects of the reunification of Germany included the collapse of the local economy (which was dependent on the highly polluting heavy industry), severe unemployment, and urban blight.

[20] Another, somewhat old-fashioned epithet is Pleiß-Athen (Athens on the Pleiße River), hinting at Leipzig's long academic and literary tradition, as the seat of one of the oldest German universities and a centre of the book trade.

Like many cities in Eastern Germany, Leipzig has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), with significant continental influences due to its inland location.

[32] Leipzig was first documented in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg as urbs Libzi (Chronicon, VII, 25) and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165 by Otto the Rich.

It was the largest battle in Europe before the First World War and the coalition victory ended Napoleon's presence in Germany and would ultimately lead to his first exile on Elba.

[41][46] During the German invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, in September 1939, the Gestapo carried out arrests of prominent local Poles,[47] and seized the Polish Consulate and its library.

[39] During the war, Leipzig was the location of five subcamps of the Buchenwald concentration camp, in which over 8,000 men, women and children were imprisoned, mostly Polish, Jewish, Soviet and French, but also Italian, Czech and Belgian.

The United States turned the city over to the Red Army as it pulled back from the line of contact with Soviet forces in July 1945 to the designated occupation zone boundaries.

[54] In the mid-20th century, the city's trade fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member.

During the period of the German Democratic Republic, services became the concern of the state, concentrated in East Berlin; creative business moved to West Germany; and Leipzig was left only with heavy industry.

The centrally planned heavy industry that had become the city's specialty was, in terms of the advanced economy of reunited Germany, almost completely unviable, and closed.

[13] As unemployment rocketed, the population fell dramatically; some 100,000 people left Leipzig in the ten years after reunification, and vacant and derelict housing became an urgent problem.

[63] Leipzig forms the centrepiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland public transit system, which operates in the four German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Brandenburg.

The affordability, diversity and openness of the city have attracted many young people from across Europe, leading to a trendsetting alternative atmosphere, resulting in an innovative music, dance and art scene.

[77] The historic central area of Leipzig features a Renaissance-style ensemble of buildings from the sixteenth century, including the old city hall in the marketplace.

As Leipzig grew considerably during the economic boom of the late-nineteenth century, the town has many buildings in the historicist style representative of the Gründerzeit era.

The city's musical tradition is also reflected in the worldwide fame of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, under its chief conductor Andris Nelsons, and the Thomanerchor.

Leipzig has for thirty years been home to the Wave-Gotik-Treffen (WGT), which is currently the world's largest Gothic festival, where thousands of fans of goth music gather in the early summer.

The cover photo for the Beirut band's 2005 album Gulag Orkestar, according to the sleeve notes, was stolen from a Leipzig library by Zach Condon.

Red Bull took over a local 5th division football club SSV Markranstädt in May 2009, having previously been denied the right to buy into FC Sachsen Leipzig in 2006.

Handball-Club Leipzig is one of the most successful women's handball clubs in Germany, winning 21 domestic championships since 1953 and 2 Champions League titles.

The university's notable former students include writers Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Erich Kästner, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, political activist Karl Liebknecht, and composer Richard Wagner.

Many noted writers have graduated from this school, including Heinz Czechowski, Kurt Drawert, Adolf Endler, Ralph Giordano, Kerstin Hensel, Sarah and Rainer Kirsch, Angela Krauß, Erich Loest, and Fred Wander.

After the Reunification of Germany, immense efforts to restore and expand the traffic network have been undertaken and left the city area with an excellent infrastructure.

At the same time, it is an important supra-regional junction in the Intercity-Express (ICE) and Intercity network of the Deutsche Bahn as well as a connection point for S-Bahn and regional traffic in the Halle/Leipzig area.

The most important construction project in regional transport was the four-kilometer-long city tunnel, which went into operation in December 2013 as the main line of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland.

Passenger flights are operated to and from the major German hub airports, European metropolises and holiday destinations, especially to the Mediterranean region and North Africa.

In the first half of the 20th century, the construction of the Elster-Saale canal, White Elster, and Saale was started in Leipzig in order to connect to the network of waterways.

– Frosch, a university student in Goethe's Faust, Part One Ich komme nach Leipzig, an den Ort, wo man die ganze Welt im Kleinen sehen kann.