Sister cities of Nordhausen

Nordhausen is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the Nordhausen district and the urban centre of northern Thuringia and the southern Harz region with a population of 42,000. Nordhausen is located approximately 60 km (37 miles) N of Erfurt, 80 km (50 miles) W of Halle, 85 km (53 miles) S of Braunschweig and 60 km (37 miles) E of Göttingen.

Nordhausen was first mentioned in the year 927 and became one of the most important cities in central Germany during the later Middle Ages. In the early 13th century, it became a free imperial city, so that is was an independent and republican self-ruled member of the Holy Roman Empire. Due to its long-distance trade, Nordhausen was prosperous and influential with a population of 8,000 around 1500, that was the third-largest in Thuringia after Erfurt, today's capital, and Mühlhausen, the other free imperial city in the Land. Later, World War II brought much harm to Nordhausen: in the nearby KZ Mittelbau-Dora 60,000 forced labourers had to work in the arms industry, where 20,000 of them died because of the bad conditions and in April 1945, most of the city was destroyed by Royal Air Force bombings with 8,800 victims (more than 20% of the population) and the loss of most of the historic buildings, which made it to the most destroyed city in Thuringia in WW II.

Nordhausen was once known for its tobacco industry and is still known for its distilled spirit, Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. Furthermore, it hosts the Fachhochschule Nordhausen with 2,500 students and is a starting point of the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways, which are intensely frequented by tourists traveling through the Harz mountains.

The city is situated at Zorge river, a tributary of the Helme river within the fertile region of Goldene Aue (golden floodplain) at the southern edge of the Harz mountains.