LEIPZIG, city of Germany, the first town of the Land of Saxony in size and commercial importance, 7o m. N.W. of Dresden and III m. S.W. of Berlin by rail, and 6 m. from the Prussian frontier. It lies 35o ft. above sea-level in a plain, just above the junction of three small rivers, the Pleisse, the Parthe and the Elster, which flow in various branches through or round the town. Leipzig in point of trade and industries ranks among German cities immediately after Berlin and Hamburg. It possesses the third largest German university, and is seat of the supreme tri bunal of the German republic. It consists of the old, or inner city, and of the inner and outer suburbs. Many villages have been in corporated with the city, and with these accretions the population in 1933 amounted to Antiquities.—The old town has narrow streets and numerous houses of the i6th and 17th centuries, with high-pitched roofs. Upon the market square the four main business streets converge, and its north side is occupied by the old Rathaus, a Gothic edifice built in 1556. Behind the market square and the main street lies a labyrinth of narrow streets interconnected by covered courtyards and alleys, with extensive warehouses and cellars. The whole, in the time of the great fairs, is packed with merchandise and thronged with a motley crowd. Close to the old Rathaus is Auer bach's Hof, built about 1530 and immortalized in Goethe's Faust. It has a curious old wine vault (Keller) which contains a series of mural paintings of the i6th century, representing the legend on which the play is based. Near by is the picturesque Konigshaus, for several centuries the palace of the Saxon monarchs in Leipzig. In the south-west corner of the inner town lay the Pleissenburg, or citadel, modelled, according to tradition, on that of Milan, and built early in the 13th century. Here Luther in 1519 held his mo mentous disputation. The round tower was long used as an ob servatory and the building as a barrack. With the exception of the tower, the citadel has been removed and its site is occupied by the new Rathaus. The business of Leipzig is chiefly concentrated in the inner city, but the headquarters of the book trade lie in the eastern suburb. Upon the Augustusplatz is the main building of
the university. The oldest church, in its present form, is the Paul inerkirche, built in 1229-40, and restored in 190o, with a curiously grooved cloister; the largest in the inner town is the Thomas kirche, with a high-pitched roof dating from 1496, and memorable for its association with J. Sebastian Bach, who was organist here. On the east is the Johanneskirche, round which raged the last con flict in the battle of 1813, when it suffered severely from cannon shot. In it is the tomb of Bach, and opposite its main entrance is the Reformation monument, with bronze statues of Luther and Melanchthon. Here is the new Gewandhaus, or Konzerthaus, built in 188o-84, the old Gewandhaus, or Drapers' hall, in the inner town having again been devoted to commercial use as a market hall during the fairs. Immediately opposite to it is the new university library. Between the university library and the new Gewandhaus stands a monument of Mendelssohn. Immediately to the east of the school of arts is the building of the supreme tribunal of the German republic, the Reichsgericht, which was built in 1888-95, and bears a dome crowned by a bronze figure of Truth. In the centre of the book-trade quarter stand close together the modern Buchhandlerhaus (booksellers' exchange), the great hall decorated with allegorical pictures by Sascha Schneider, and the Buchgewerbehaus, a museum of the book trade. The city also has an astronomical observatory.
Education, etc.—The university of Leipzig, founded in 1409 by a secession of 400 German students from Prague, is one of the most influential in the world. It has large revenues derived to a great extent from house property in Leipzig and estates in Saxony. To the several faculties also belong various collegiate buildings, notably, to the legal, that of the Collegium beatae Vir ginis in the Petersstrasse, and to the philosophical the Rothe Haus on the promenade facing the theatre.