Tim Olson, Robb Olson, Jordan Lemke, Danae Schafers, Kyle Pirron
- Saarland [You're here]
- Lower Saxony
- Bremen
Saarland
Paraphrased from Wikipedia-
1. Saarland
is located on the western border of Germany, and also shared a border with
France and Luxembourg. It officially
became a state in west Germany in 1957, but it was formed as the Territory of
the Saar Basin by the league of nations following World War 1. Prior to this formation it did not exist as a
unified country.
2. The last tabulated population for Saarland is
1,012,000 people. When the city states
of Germany are disregarded, Saarland is the smallest of all the other states,
having a total area of only 2570 square kilometers.
3. For the majority of the time since 1955, the
governing party in Saarland has been the CDU, known as the Christian Democratic
Union. From the time period between
1985-1999 the SDP, Social Democratic Party of Germany, held the majority of the
seats in the Landtag. Saarland employs a
Parlimentary style government, with a Minster-president, a Vice
Minister-president, 5 other Ministers, and a Head of the State
Chancellery. All of the ministers
besides the Minster-president are responsible for another office. For example, Stephan Toscani is the Minister
for Finance and European Affairs.
Paraphrased from the UNESCO website
4. The most
famous World Heritage site that is located in Saarland Is the Völklingen
Ironworks. This is the only remaining
iron manufacturing facility that dates as far back as the 1800’s that is still
intact today. They no longer produce
iron, but all the buildings are kept intact to show how the iron industry used
to operate. This facility mainly produced
girder iron and railway sleepers from iron ore mined in Luxembourg. Currently
all six blast furnaces are intact and can be seen by visitors. The last construction that was done on the
site was when the coking plant was rebuilt and enlarged in 1935. Two other notable items that are still
standing today are is the coal tower that was built in 1898 and the conveyer
system that was built in 1911.
Paraphrased from the Saarland State Website.
5. Arguably
the largest industries in Saarland today are the automotive industry and the
steel industry. Saarland is even
referred to as “Auto Land”. There are
over 40,000 people employed in the automotive industry in Saarland alone. As far as volume goes, the popular American
Automaker, Ford, has a factory in Saarlouis which is produces almost 2000
vehicles every day. Also, over half of the
components for the BMW X3 are produced in Saarland. This shows that both high end sports cars and
economical cars are produced in factories in Saarland. The steel industry is also booming in
Saarland. The biggest company that is
talked about for their steel industry is Dillinger Hütte. If it weren’t for Dillinger Hütte supplying
all the steel, the bridge of Millau in the South of France couldn’t have been
constructed.
From IMDb and Wikipedia
6. One famous german was Max Ophüls,
who was born in 1902 and started his career as an actor. He eventually became a director and had a
part in 27 movies. Also Erich Honecker is from Saarland, his is the former leader of the GDR (German Democratic Republic). He was the leader of East Germany from 1971 until just before the Berlin Wall was torn down. He was also the prime organizer of building the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Paraphrased from germanFoods.org -
7. One famous saying that is known in Saarland is
“Hauptsach’ gudd gess!” which translates to “the most important thing is to eat
well!” Saarland is known as a potato
lovers paradise.
