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The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union
European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 European Union member state, located primarily in Europe. It was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community....
 for a period of one calendar year
Calendar year

According to the Gregorian calendar, the calendar year begins on January 1 and ends on December 31.Generally speaking, a calendar year begins on the New Year of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's day....
 during which it is given a chance to showcase its cultural
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
 life and cultural development. A number of Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an cities have used the City of Culture year to transform their cultural base and, in doing so, the way in which they are viewed internationally.

European Capital of Culture programme was initially called the European City of Culture and was conceived in 1983 by Melina Mercouri
Melina Mercouri

Melina Mercouri , born Maria Amalia Mercouri , was an Academy Award-nominated Greeks Actor, Singing and politician. She is considered one of the greatest female figures of modern era in Greece, being an actress of international fame and a politician who left her mark on Culture of Greece....
, then serving as Greek
Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
 Minister
Minister (government)

A minister is a politician who holds significant public office in a national or regional government. Senior ministers are members of the Cabinet , usually led by a monarch, Governor-General, or president....
 of Culture
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
.






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The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union
European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 European Union member state, located primarily in Europe. It was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community....
 for a period of one calendar year
Calendar year

According to the Gregorian calendar, the calendar year begins on January 1 and ends on December 31.Generally speaking, a calendar year begins on the New Year of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's day....
 during which it is given a chance to showcase its cultural
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
 life and cultural development. A number of Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an cities have used the City of Culture year to transform their cultural base and, in doing so, the way in which they are viewed internationally.

History

The European Capital of Culture programme was initially called the European City of Culture and was conceived in 1983 by Melina Mercouri
Melina Mercouri

Melina Mercouri , born Maria Amalia Mercouri , was an Academy Award-nominated Greeks Actor, Singing and politician. She is considered one of the greatest female figures of modern era in Greece, being an actress of international fame and a politician who left her mark on Culture of Greece....
, then serving as Greek
Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
 Minister
Minister (government)

A minister is a politician who holds significant public office in a national or regional government. Senior ministers are members of the Cabinet , usually led by a monarch, Governor-General, or president....
 of Culture
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
. Mercouri believed that at the time, culture was not given the same attention as politics and economics and a project for promoting European cultures within the member states should be pursued. The European City of Culture programme was launched in the summer of 1985 with Athens
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
 being the first title-holder. During the German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 Presidency of 1999, the European City of Culture programme was renamed the European Capital of Culture. For 2008, the European Capital of Culture was awarded to Liverpool.

List of European Cities/Capitals of Culture


Past years

  • 1985: Athens
    Athens

    Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
  • 1986: Florence
    Florence

    Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
  • 1987: Amsterdam
    Amsterdam

    Amsterdam is the Capital of the Netherlands and List of cities in the Netherlands with over 100,000 people of the Netherlands, located in the Provinces of the Netherlands of North Holland in the west of the country....
  • 1988: West Berlin
    West Berlin

    West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945....
  • 1989: Paris
    Paris

    Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
  • 1990: Glasgow
    Glasgow

    Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and List of largest United Kingdom settlements by population in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's Scottish Lowlands....
  • 1991: Dublin
    Dublin

    Dublin is both the largest city and capital of Republic of Ireland. It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin Region....
  • 1992: Madrid
    Madrid

    Madrid is the Capital and largest city of Spain. It is the Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its Madrid metropolitan area is the Largest urban areas of the European Union in the European Union after Paris aire urbaine, Greater London Urban Area, a...
  • 1993: Antwerp
  • 1994: Lisbon
    Lisbon

    Lisbon is the Capital and largest city of Portugal. It is also the seat of the Lisbon and capital of the Lisbon region. Its municipalities of Portugal, which matches the city proper excluding the larger continuous conurbation, has a municipal population of 564,477 in , while the Lisbon Metropolitan Area in total has around 2.8 million inha...
  • 1995: Luxembourg
    Luxembourg (city)

    The city of Luxembourg , also known as Luxembourg City , is a Communes of Luxembourg with List of cities in Luxembourg, and the Capital of the Luxembourg....
  • 1996: Copenhagen
    Copenhagen

    Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban area with a population of 1,153,615 . Copenhagen is situated on the Islands of Zealand and Amager....
  • 1997: Thessaloniki
    Thessaloniki

    Thessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the List of largest cities and second largest cities by country in Greece and the capital of Macedonia , the nation's largest Regions of Greece....
  • 1998: Stockholm
    Stockholm

    is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish Government of Sweden, the Parliament of Sweden, and the official residence of the Swedish Monarchy of Sweden....
  • 1999: Weimar
    Weimar

    Weimar is a city in Germany. It is located in the States of Germany of Thuringia , north of the Th?ringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle, Saxony-Anhalt and Leipzig....
  • 2000: Avignon
    Avignon

    Avignon is a Communes of France in the Vaucluse Departments of France in southeastern France with an estimated mid-2004 population of 89,300 in the city itself and a population of 290,466 in the aire urbaine at the 1999 census....
    , Bergen, Bologna
    Bologna

    Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, in the Po Valley , between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, exactly between the Reno River and the S?vena River....
    , Brussels
    Brussels

    Brussels , officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is the de facto capital city of the European Union and the largest urban area in Belgium....
    , Helsinki
    Helsinki

    Helsinki is the Capital and largest List of cities and towns in Finland of Finland. It is in the southern part of Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, by the Baltic Sea....
    , Krakow
    Kraków

    Krak?w , in English also spelled Krakow or Cracow , is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland, with a population of 756,336 in 2007 ....
    , Prague
    Prague

    Prague is the Capital and World's largest cities of the Czech Republic. Its official name is Hlavn? mesto Praha, meaning Prague, the Capital City....
    , Reykjavík
    Reykjavík

    is the Capital and largest city of Iceland. Its latitude at 64?08' N makes it the world's most northern national capital city. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxafl?i Bay....
    , Santiago de Compostela
    Santiago de Compostela

    Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain of Galicia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located in the north west of Spain in the A Coru?a , it was the "European City of Culture" for the year 2000....
  • 2001: Porto
    Porto

    Porto , also Oporto in English, is Portugal's second city and capital of the Norte, Portugal NUTS II region. The city is located in the estuary of the Douro river in northern Portugal....
    , Rotterdam
    Rotterdam

    Rotterdam ; city and municipality in the Netherlands province of South Holland, situated in the west of the Netherlands. The municipality is the List of cities in the Netherlands with over 100,000 people in the country, with a population of 584,046 on 1 January 2007 and comprises the southern part of the Randstad, the List of metropolitan are...
  • 2002: Bruges
    Bruges

    Bruges is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
    , Salamanca
    Salamanca

    Salamanca is a city in western Spain, the capital of the province of Salamanca , which belongs to the autonomous community of Castile and Leon ....
  • 2003: Graz
    Graz

    Graz , with a population of around 290,000 as of 2008 , is the List of cities and towns in Austria#List of cities and towns by population size in Austria after Vienna and the capital of the federal state of Styria ....
  • 2004: Genoa, Lille
    Lille

    Lille is a city in northern France. It is the principal city of the Urban Community of Lille M?tropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille....
  • 2005: Cork
    Cork (city)

    Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the Ireland third most populous city after Dublin and Belfast. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the Provinces of Ireland of Munster....
  • 2006: Patras
    Patras

    Patras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens....
  • 2007: Sibiu
    Sibiu

    Sibiu is one of the largest cities in Transylvania, Romania with a population of about 175,000. It straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt River....
    , Luxembourg
    Luxembourg (city)

    The city of Luxembourg , also known as Luxembourg City , is a Communes of Luxembourg with List of cities in Luxembourg, and the Capital of the Luxembourg....
     and the Greater Region
    Greater Region

    The Greater Region of Saarland-Lorraine -Luxembourg -Rhineland-Palatinate-Wallonia-French Community of Belgium- and German-speaking Community of Belgium has not found a specific shortcut yet....
  • 2008: Liverpool
    Liverpool

    Liverpool [] is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a History of borough status in England and Wales in 1207 and was granted City status in the United Kingdom in 1880....
    , Stavanger
    Stavanger

    is a city and municipalities of Norway in the counties of Norway of Rogaland, Norway. Stavanger was established as a municipality 1 January 1838 . The rural municipalities of Hetland and Madla merged with Stavanger 1 January 1965....
     and Sandnes
    Sandnes

    is a List of cities in Norway and Municipalities of Norway in Rogaland Counties of Norway, Norway. It is part of the traditional districts of Norway of J?ren....


Current year

  • 2009: Vilnius
    Vilnius

    Vilnius is the largest city and the Capital of Lithuania, with a population of 555,613 as of 2008. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality....
      Linz
    Linz

    Linz is the third largest city of Austria and capital of the States of Austria of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately 30 km south of the Czech Republic border, on both sides of the river Danube....


Future years

According to the official EU
European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 European Union member state, located primarily in Europe. It was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community....
 website. From 2014 to 2019, only the countries have been chosen, based on the rotation system.
  • 2010: Essen
    Essen

    Essen is a city in the center of the Ruhr Area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Located on the Ruhr River, its population of approximately 579,000 makes it the 7th- or 8th-largest-city in Germany....
     (on behalf of the Ruhr Area
    Ruhr Area

    The Ruhr Area, is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km? and a population of some 5.3 million, it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany....
    ), Istanbul
    Istanbul

    Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population, and List of cities proper by population in the world with a population of 12.6 million....
    , Pécs
    Pécs

    P?cs , , is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya ....
  • 2011: Turku
    Turku

    Turku is a List of towns in Finland situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of Aura river. It is located in the region of Finland Proper in the Province of Western Finland....
    , Tallinn
    Tallinn

    Tallinn is the capital and largest city in the Republic of Estonia and of Harju County. It occupies a surface of 159.2 km? in which 397,617 inhabitants live....
  • 2012: Guimarães
    Guimarães

    Guimar?es is a city and List of municipalities of Portugal in northwestern Portugal in the province of Minho and in the Braga . In the 9th century, V?mara Peres was able to expel the Moors and founded a fortified town under his own name Vimaranis which later became Guimaranis, present day Guimar?es....
    , Maribor
    Maribor

    Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia. The population of Maribor is approximately 133,000 . Maribor lies on the river Drava at the meeting point of the Pohorje mountain, the Drava Valley, the Drava Plain, and the Kozjak and Slovenske gorice hill ranges....
  • 2013: Marseille
    Marseille

    "Marseille" is the second-largest city of France and forms the third-largest aire urbaine, after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population recorded to be 1,516,340 at the 1999 census and estimated to be 1,605,000 in 2007....
     - Provence
    Provence

    Provence is a region of southeastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative regions of France of Provence-Alpes-C?te d'Azur....
    , Košice
    Košice

    Ko?ice Being the economic and cultural centre of eastern Slovakia, Ko?ice is the seat of the Ko?ice Region and Ko?ice Self-governing Region, the Slovak Constitutional Court of Slovakia, three universities, various dioceses, and other institutions....
  • 2014: ,
  • 2015: ,
  • 2016: ,
  • 2017: ,
  • 2018: ,
  • 2019: ,


See also

  • American Capital of Culture
    American Capital of Culture

    The non-governmental organization "American Capital of Culture Organization" selects one city in the Americas annually to serve as the American Capital of Culture for a period of one year....
     – a similar initiative among the American countries
  • Arab Capital of Culture – a similar initiative among Arab
    Arab

    An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
     countries
  • Europalia
    Europalia

    Europalia is a cultural organization, established in Brussels, Belgium in 1969. Europalia wants to highlight the culture of member States of the European Community, by organizing festivals of art and culture at the heart of Europe....

External links

  • is hired for the Capital of Culture protection
  • Visit Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008
  • News stories from Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008




Spain




Poland