Weimar is one of the great cultural sites of Europe, a town of literature, music, theatre, educative art and museums, since it was the home to such cultural giants as Cranach, Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Liszt, Wieland, Nietzsche  and Herder. In spite of its fame and concentration of cultural monuments (nearly every renowned residence has been converted into a museum), Weimar is surprisingly small, the historical section of the town  can be crossed  in ten minutes and the majority of the museums and other attractions can be visited in two days. Weimar attracts annually more than 1.5 million visitors.

The Goethe-Shiller statue in front of the German National Theatre by the sculptor Ernst Rietschel dedicated in 1857 is now the symbol for the city of culture Weimar.

Weimar's current population is approximately 62,000. Although the oldest record of the city dates to the year 899 and  in 13 cent. Weimar had town status; Weimar became important only in the 16th cent. , when it was made the capital of the duchy  of Saxe-Weimar.

It developed as a cultural center of international importance, under Elector John Frederick I. The painter Lucas Cranach, the elder, worked there (16th cent.).Johann Sebastian Bach worked for ten years in Weimar as court organist and concertmaster, drawn to the town by the excellent churches and organs.

Under Dowager Duchess Amalia  and her son, Charles Augustus , Weimar reached the peak of its fame as a cultural center. After the arrival  of Goethe at the court, Weimar and Goethe became virtually synonymous. Goethe not only made Weimar the literary capital of Europe during his lifetime, but he also attracted such men as Herder and Schiller, established and directed the Weimar theater. It has been a site of pilgrimage for the German intelligentsia since Goethe first moved to Weimar. In the times of its greatness there used to come great people of European fame such as, first of all Adam Mickiewicz or the famous Polish pianist Mrs. Szymanowska. At Weimar Herder through the influence of Goethe became court preacher  and  the leading theorist of German romanticism and a contributor to the most brilliant court of the era.

Virtuoso pianist and eminent teacher Franz Liszt came to Weimar in 1848, at the invitation of Duke Carl August, and was instructed to make Weimar "the Athens of the North." Franz Liszt was musical director of the Weimar state theater.  Liszt with princess Carolyne-Sayn-Wittgenstein created "the New German School" of music from their controversial salon in a thirty-room house known as the Altenburg. Liszt's traditions of virtuosity and excellence are continued today in Weimar's music conservatory, the Franz Liszt Hochschule for Musik.

Richard Wagner  hid in Weimar before his exile to Switzerland.  In Weimar, the careers  Hans von Bulow  and virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim were launched.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche spent the final years of his life and died at Weimar, there are founded  the important Nietzsche Archives.

The Weimar State (Court )theater ( now the German National Theatre) since its founding  has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. This is now the fourth theatre to stand on this place. In the first building Goethe directed the theatre for 26 years. This was the site  where "Egmont", "Maria Stuart", "Die Braut von Messina", "Wilhelm Tell", "Wallenstein" and "Tasso" had their premieres. Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, often referred to as Wagner's "Italian" opera, was first performed (1850) in Weimar.   It includes one of the most familiar pieces of music in westernised society: the wedding march now know in English as 'Here comes the bride'.  The list of those who conducted opera at the Weimar Court Theater includes Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ferruccio Busoni, and Richard Strauss. When the Weimar Republic was established in in 1919, shortly after the first world war, the new parliament went to Weimar far from the violence in Berlin. In the theatre was the seat of the national assembly which established the republican government known as the “Weimar Republic”(1919-1933) and adopted the constitution of the first German Republic called the "Weimarer Verfassung". Since then the theatre has been called the German National Theatre.

The Marketsquare was formed  during 13cent. , has remained unchanged since the 16th century. Around the Marketsquare  are famous buildings such as the Town Hall, Municipal Building, Cranach and Elephant Hotel and so on. Rathaus- Town Hall It was built in 1396, but was burnt down and built again in 1841 into a neo-gothic style.

The city houses the Goethe, Schiller,  Liszt and Cranach houses, the Park an der Ilm with Goethe's Gartenhaus, the Cranach Haus, the Nietzsche archives, the Goethe and Schiller archives, the German national theatre and the Bauhaus museum, the 18th century palaces: Rotes Schloss, Gelbes Schloss, Neues Schloss, Schloss Belvedere and Schloss Tiefurt, a state college of music and an academy of art and architecture, state archives, libraries and art collection, the tombs of Goethe, Schiller, and Nietzsche, the parish church, with the graves of Lucas Cranach and Herder and with an altarpiece by Cranach.