Bristol

Bristol is a southwestern British trade and port city, with around 450,000 inhabitants. It lies along the Bristol Channel, at the mouth of the River Avon in the county of Avon, and is about a two-hour train ride away from London. Bristol is a vibrant city of seafaring and trading traditions, whose historic harbour, with its docks, warehouses, churches, merchant houses, and bars, still dominates the cityscape. The city has a major university for all disciplines, an art academy, and a polytechnic. Economic fields of interest are, among others, electrical power generation, aircraft construction, automobile manufacturing (an important one being Rolls Royce), microelectronics, space flight systems, chemical industry, glass manufacturing, tobacco processing, and chocolate making.

How it began:The partnership between Bristol and Hanover

As one of the first Anglo-German town twinnings after the Second World War, the partnership between Bristol and Hanover is of special importance to the reconciliation between the two former enemies. In 1947, a group of five Englishmen travelled together with the Germanist Professor August Closs to Hanover on a "goodwill mission", described by John Michael Veale in his book “60 Years of Bristol and Hanover - A Personal Recollection". This legendary first encounter and the intense commitment of the participants led to numerous contacts and friendships in the following years. In 1983, Hanover was named as Bristol’s citizen of honour. Today there is a lively exchange, through social and cultural activities, youth meetings, travels between the Bristol Hanover Council and the Hanover-Bristol-Society, and also through joint media projects of the Watershed Media Centre Bristol and the media centre “Medienhaus Hannover”.

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