Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle (also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish from Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia) is the largest town in the German Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. It lies in the southern part of the state, on the river Saale. Population: 243,045 (2001).

Sights

• Giebichenstein Castle, first mentioned in 961, west of the city centre on a hill above the Saale river.
• Moritzburg, a newer castle, built in 1503; residence of the bishops of Magdeburg; destroyed in the Thirty Years' War, then a ruin for centuries, rebuilt in 1904; today an Art Gallery.
• Cathedral, a steepleless building, originally a church within a Dominican monastery (1271).
• Halle-Neustadt, Mostly built in the 1960s Halle-Neustadt lies just to the West of Halle. A classic example of how mean, state sponsored housing, on a huge scale, combined with brutalist architecture and "one-size-fits-all" social engineering failed to achieve its aims – but did convice most of the people that lived there that moving to another city was a good idea. Halle-Neustadt is sometimes referred to as "Hanoi" – in an ironic play on words referring to the heavily bombed capital of Vietnam (Ha-Neu: abbreviation for Halle-Neustadt – German pronunciation: hanoi).