The city was a focal point of the German Enlightenment and home of the leading literary figures of Weimar Classicism, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller.

Later, artists and architects such as Henry van de Velde, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, and Walter Gropius came to the city and founded the Bauhaus movement, the most important German design school of the interwar period.

Archaeological finds dating back to the Thuringii epoch (3rd to 6th centuries) show that the Weimar part of the Ilm valley was settled early.

Hence, the new small town was relatively marginal in a regional context, also due to the fact that it was located far from relevant trade routes, such as the Via Regia.

Now Weimar became equal to other Wettinian cities like Weißensee and grew during the 15th century, with the establishment of a town hall and the current main church.

On the other hand, this time brought another construction boom to Weimar, and the city got its present appearance, marked by various ducal representation buildings.

Liszt organized the premiere of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin (1850) as well as the world première of Saint Saëns' opera Samson et Delilah (1877) in the city.

During the German Revolution of 1918–19 the last reigning grand duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, William Ernest, had to abdicate and went in exile to Heinrichau in Silesia.

[6] Since the calm and centrally located Weimar had a suitable place of assembly (the theatre), hotels and infrastructure, it was chosen as the host city.

In 1920, the federal state of Thuringia was founded by an association of eight former microstates (Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Reuss-Gera and Reuss-Greiz) and Weimar became its capital.

The Bauhaus in Weimar lasted from 1919 to 1925, when it moved to Dessau, after the newly elected right-wing Thuringian council put pressure on the school by withdrawing funding and forcing its teachers to quit.

This Gauforum [de], designed by Hermann Giesler, was the only Nazi governmental building completed outside Berlin (though there were plans for all German state capitals).

[8] The Buchenwald concentration camp provided slave labour for local industry, including the Wilhelm-Gustloff-Werk arms factory.

[9] The city centre was partially damaged by US Air Force bombing in 1945 with some 1,800 people killed and many historic buildings destroyed.

[10] The residents of Weimar were ordered to walk through Buchenwald, to see what had been happening so close to the city, as documented in Billy Wilder's film Death Mills.

Due to its fame and importance for tourism, Weimar received more financial subsidies from the GDR government and remained in better condition than most East German cities.

In 1991, the city hosted the first trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland giving its name to the Weimar Triangle format.

The city's topography creates a microclimate caused through the basin position with sometimes inversion in winter (quite cold nights under −20 °C (−4 °F)).

Weimar abuts the district of Weimarer Land with the municipalities Berlstedt, Ettersburg, Kleinobringen, Großobringen and Wohlsborn in the north, Kromsdorf, Umpferstedt and Mellingen in the east, Vollersroda, Buchfart, Hetschburg, Bad Berka and Troistedt in the south and Nohra, Daasdorf am Berge, Hopfgarten and Ottstedt am Berge in the west.

Finally, there are the Plattenbau settlements, constructed during the GDR period, Weststadt and Nordstadt as well as two industrial areas in the north and west.

[17] The most important regions of origin are rural areas of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony as well as foreign countries like Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.

After 1990, suburbanization occurred for a short time and the rural districts of Weimar saw significant growth as part of the larger city.

The Roman Catholic parish church of Weimar is dedicated to the Sacred Heart and was built between 1888 and 1891 in historicist forms imitating Florence Cathedral.

There is also a student club in the city centre which also features disco and live music events on Friday- and Saturday nights (Kasseturm).

[citation needed] On the other hand, the federal government started early in the 1990s to subsidize the foundation of new companies, but it took long time before the economic situation got stabilized around 2006.

Other services like retail, trade fairs and specialized hospitals are more brought by the near neighbour cities Erfurt and Jena with their infrastructure.

In freight transport exists an intermodal terminal in Vieselbach (Güterverkehrszentrum/GVZ) with connection to rail and Autobahn, 15 km (9.3 mi) west of Weimar.

A bypass road around Weimar was built in the 2000s in the north and west; the eastern and southern continuation are in discussion, but not in definite planning because of some difficulties in routing.

Both connect points of tourist interest, the first along the Ilm valley from the Thuringian Forest to the Saale river and the second close to medieval Via Regia from Eisenach via Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar, and Jena to Altenburg.

An hourly bus route serves the Buchenwald Memorial and oldtimer buses operate in the city's historical centre.