Hamburg

Hamburg (/ˈhæmbɜːrɡ/; German pronunciation: [ˈhambʊʁk], local pronunciation [ˈhambʊɪ̯ç]; Low German/Low Saxon: Hamborg [ˈhambɔːx]), officially Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg (Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg), is the second largest city in Germany and the eighth largest city in the European Union. It is also the thirteenth largest German state. Its population is over 1.7 million people, and the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighbouring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 5 million inhabitants. The city is situated on the river Elbe.

The official name reflects its history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, a city-state, and one of the 16 states of Germany. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a fully sovereign state. Prior to the constitutional changes in 1919, the stringent civic republic was ruled by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten.

Hamburg is a transport hub and is an affluent city in Europe. It has become a media and industrial centre, with plants and facilities belonging to Airbus, Blohm + Voss and Aurubis. The radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk and publishers such as Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel-Verlag are pillars of the important media industry in Hamburg. Hamburg has been an important financial centre for centuries, and is the seat of the world's second oldest bank, Berenberg Bank.

Information

Information (shortened as info) is that which informs. In other words, it is the answer to a question of some kind. It is also that from which data and knowledge can be derived, as data represents values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of real things or abstract concepts. As it regards data, the information's existence is not necessarily coupled to an observer (it exists beyond an event horizon, for example), while in the case of knowledge, the information requires a cognitive observer.

At its most fundamental, information is any propagation of cause and effect within a system. Information is conveyed either as the content of a message or through direct or indirect observation of some thing. That which is perceived can be construed as a message in its own right, and in that sense, information is always conveyed as the content of a message.

Information can be encoded into various forms for transmission and interpretation (for example, information may be encoded into a sequence of signs, or transmitted via a sequence of signals). It can also be encrypted for safe storage and communication.

Hamburg University of Applied Sciences

The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences is an institution of higher education and applied research located in Hamburg, Germany. Formerly known as Fachhochschule Hamburg the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1970. In terms of student enrollment, the HAW is the second largest university in Hamburg, with a student body of 14,928 (data as of 2013).

History

Hamburg University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1970 as the Fachhochschule Hamburg. Four engineering schools and six vocational schools were brought together with the goal to develop a new form of higher education. The focus was to be on the application of knowledge, with degree programmes that included placements in industry, laboratory work and practice-related projects.

The Fachhochschule Hamburg started with thirteen departments; its Business School was founded in 1994.

In 1998, as part of the increased internationalisation within higher education in Germany, the Conference of Ministers of Education & Cultural Affairs allowed the Fachhochschulen to add "university of applied sciences" to their name. In 2001 the Fachhochschule Hamburg decided to take this a step further and changed its German name to Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg (HAW Hamburg) mirroring the English name, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.

Hamburg Airport

Hamburg Airport (IATA: HAM, ICAO: EDDH), known in German as Flughafen Hamburg, is the international airport of Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. It is located 8.5 km (5.3 mi) north of the city center in the Fuhlsbüttel quarter and serves as a base for Germanwings, Condor and easyJet. Hamburg Airport is the fifth-busiest of Germany's commercial airports measured by the number of passengers and counted 15,610,072 passengers and 158,398 aircraft movements in 2015 and is named after Helmut Schmidt. As of October 2015, it featured flights to 88 destinations of which three are long-haul routes to Dubai, Newark and Tehran.

History

Early years

The airport was opened in January 1911 from private funding by the Hamburger Luftschiffhallen GmbH (HLG), making it the oldest airport in the world which is still in operation. The original site comprised 45 hectares and was primarily used for airship flights in its early days. In 1913, the site was expanded to 60 hectares, the northern part being used for airship operations, while the southeast area was used for fixed-wing aircraft.

Seat of local government

In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre, (in the UK or Australia) a guildhall, a Rathaus (German), or (more rarely) a municipal building, is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city or town council, its associated departments, and their employees. It also usually functions as the base of the mayor of a city, town, borough, or county / shire.

By convention, until the mid 19th-century, a single large open chamber (or 'hall') formed an integral part of the building housing the council. The hall may be used for council meetings and other significant events. This large chamber, the 'town hall', (and its later variant 'city hall') has become synonymous with the whole building, and with the administrative body housed in it. The terms 'council chambers', 'municipal building' or variants may be used locally in preference to 'town hall' if no such large hall is present within the building.

The local government may endeavor to use the town hall building to promote and enhance the quality of life of the community. In many cases, "'town halls' serve not only as buildings for government functions, but also have facilities for various civic and cultural activities. These may include art shows, stage performances, exhibits and festivals. Modern town halls or "civic centres" are often designed with a great variety and flexibility of purpose in mind.