Wilhelmshaven Airfares (WVN) - Germany

Wilhelmshaven, Germany - City Overview and Airfare Information

Wilhelmshaven

Coordinates: 53°31′N 8°8′E

Wilhelmshaven is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated at the western coast of the Jadebusen, which is a bay of the North Sea. Population: 83,238 (2006).

After the war the harbour was used not only for military purposes, but for economy and tourism as well. Today, Wilhelmshaven is Germany's main naval base at the North Sea again. It is also the third largest German port (after Hamburg and the combined ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven) with mainly oil products being loaded and unloaded. Besides the military, chemical industries and a refinery are the main employers of Wilhelmshaven which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the western part of Germany. The oil terminal and the refinery are connected with other German industrial centres by pipelines. Wilhelmshaven also provides an Applied Sciences University (Fachhochschule) for engineering and business sciences.

Economical hopes rest in four major development projects:

• the JadeWeserPort project for a deep water container port to be constructed 2006 - 2010, capable to even berth the largest container vessels presently under construction
• the further development of the chemical industry
• the construction of an LNG-Terminal
• the proposed coastal highway (Küstenautobahn) connecting north-western German industrial centres at the Elbe, Weser, and Ems rivers.

In Wilhelmshaven there is an aquarium with native animals from the North Sea, the information centre of the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park. The town's landmark is the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke ('Emperor Wilhelm Bridge'), which crosses an inlet of the Jadebusen. It was built in 1908; with a length of 159 m it was once the greatest swing bridge of Europe. The main exhibits of the Navy Museum are the former German Navy destroyer Mölders (D186), a submarine, and some smaller warships as well as an exhibition of German naval history from the 19th century onwards.

• Vichy, France, since 1965
• Norfolk, USA, since 1976
• Dunfermline, Scotland, since 1979
• Qingdao), People's Republic of China, since 1992
• Bad Harzburg, Germany since 1988
• Bydgoszcz, Poland, since 1990s