Chemnitz in the context of "European Capital of Culture"

The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: Kurfürstentum Sachsen or Kursachsen), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 initially centred on Wittenberg that came to include areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. It was a major Holy Roman state, being an electorate and the original protecting power of Protestant principalities until that role was later taken by its neighbor, Brandenburg-Prussia.

In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles IV designated the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg an electorate, a territory whose ruler was one of the prince-electors who chose the Holy Roman emperor. After the extinction of the male Saxe-Wittenberg line of the House of Ascania in 1422, the duchy and the electorate passed to the House of Wettin. The electoral privilege was tied only to the Electoral Circle, specifically the territory of the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.

The Saxon Uplands, Saxon Hills or Ore Mountain Foreland (German: Erzgebirgsvorland) is a strip of countryside of about 200 m to 500 m above sea level (NN) high, in the German state of Saxony. It lies immediately north of the German Ore Mountains and runs mainly through the areas of Zwickauer Land, Zwickau, Chemnitzer Land, Chemnitz, Mittelsachsen and the country south of Dresden. It borders on the Upper Pleißeland to the extreme west, the Ore Mountain Basin in the south and the Mulde Loess Hills to the north and east.

Immediately north of the Western and Central Ore Mountains lie the cities of Zwickau and Chemnitz in the Ore Mountain Basin, whose western extension, the Upper Pleißeland is usually considered part of the basin today. Northeast of Chemnitz a narrow strip of land, the Mulde Loess Hills (Mulde-Lösshügelland) is squeezed in between the Dresden Basin (Elbtalkessel) and the eastern section of the Ore Mountains.

Halle (Saale), or simply Halle (German pronunciation: [ˈhalə] ), is the second largest city of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is the sixth-most populous city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Magdeburg as well as the 31st-largest city of Germany.

With around 226,000 inhabitants, it is less populous than the state capital, Magdeburg. With Leipzig, the largest city of Saxony, Halle forms the polycentric Leipzig-Halle conurbation. Leipzig/Halle International Airport lies between the two cities, in Schkeuditz. The Leipzig-Halle conurbation is at the heart of the larger Central German Metropolitan Region.

Plauen (German pronunciation: [ˈplaʊən] ; Upper Sorbian: Pławno; Czech: Plavno) is a town in Saxony, Germany with a population of around 65,000. It is Saxony's 5th most populated city after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the largest city in the Saxon Vogtland region (Sächsisches Vogtland).

The city lies on the upper reaches of the White Elster River, a tributary of the Saale, in the Central Vogtlandian Hill Country. Plauen is the southwesternmost city of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. It is the county seat of the Vogtland District. Plauen directly borders Greiz in Thuringia to the north, and it is also situated near the Saxon border with Bavaria (Franconia) and the Czech Republic (Bohemia).

Zwickau (German pronunciation: [ˈtsvɪkaʊ] ; Upper Sorbian: Šwikawa) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,.

The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: Zwickauer Mulde; progression: Mulde→ Elbe→ North Sea), and lies in a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. Zwickau is the seat of the Zwickau District, the most densely populated district in the new states of Germany.