Trossingen
Encyclopedia
Trossingen is a town in Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It is situated in a region called Baar
Baar (region)
The Baar is a plateau that lies 600 to 900 metres above sea level in southwest Germany. It is bordered by the southeastern edge of the Black Forest to the west, the southwestern part of the Swabian Alb known as the Heuberg to the east, and the Randen mountain to the south.The Baar contains the...

, between the Swabian Alb
Swabian Alb
The Swabian Alps or Swabian Jura is a low mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, extending 220 km from southwest to northeast and 40 to 70 km in width. It is named after the region of Swabia....

 and the Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....

. Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 is about an hour away, Lake Constance
Lake Constance
Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...

 about half an hour, and the source of the river Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

 can be reached in about twenty minutes by car.

Trossingen is renowned as a "music town". Although it has around 15,000 inhabitants, the town is home to the renowned 'University of Music Trossingen' http://www.mh-trossingen.de (with its famous Early Music department), which is one of Baden-Württemberg's five state conservatories, and there are several other institutions specializing in musical education, like the 'Bundesakademie für musikalische Jugendbildung' http://www.bundesakademie-trossingen.de and the 'Hohner Konservatorium' http://www.hohner-konservatorium.de.

In 1830 Christian Messner from Trossingen a cloth maker and weaver copied a Harmonica bought to Trossingen by his next door neighbor and clockmaker, from Vienna, the beginning of musical instrument production in the town.
He had such success with making such instruments, that eventually his brother and some relatives also started to build harmonicas. From 1840 on his nephew Christian Weiss started to work on his own, so by 1855 two registered Businesses were in existence -
Christian Messner & Co. and Württ. Harmonikafabrik Ch. WEISS. Trossingen is also the home of the worlds oldest harmonica manufacturer, C.A Seydel Sohne, founded in 1847.

See German Wikipedia page about Christian Messner :de:Christian Messner.

In 1857 the Matthias Hohner
Hohner
Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a company specialising in the manufacture of musical instruments. Founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner , Hohner is identified especially with harmonicas and accordions. The Hohner company has invented and produced many different styles, and most of the...

 company was founded. Today, Hohner harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

s and accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

s are well known all over the world. Trossingen houses the German Harmonica Museum.

Trossingen also has a historic railway: the Trossinger Eisenbahn.

At the edge of town, in a former clay quarry, several dozens of skeletons, complete and partial, of the prosauropod dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

 Plateosaurus
Plateosaurus
Plateosaurus is a genus of plateosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period, around 216 to 199 million years ago, in what is now Central and Northern Europe. Plateosaurus is a basal sauropodomorph dinosaur, a so-called "prosauropod"...

 engelhardti
were found during excavations in the early 20th century. The local museum Auberlehaus houses several original bones.

International relations

Trossingen is twinned
Town twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...

 with:
  • Cluses
    Cluses
    Cluses is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.Citizens are known as Clusiens. The commune is situated in the Arve Valley, on the river which bears the same name...

    , in France
  • Beaverton
    Beaverton, Oregon
    Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...

    , in Oregon, USA
  • Windhoek
    Windhoek
    Windhoek is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level. The 2001 census determined Windhoek's population was 233,529...

    , the capital of Namibia

External links

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