Kiel, Germany

Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, sits on the Baltic Sea at the eastern end of the 98-kilometer Kiel Canal, the world's busiest artificial waterway with roughly 30,000 ships passing through each year. Founded in 1233 by Count Adolf IV, the city of about 247,000 residents hosts the University of Kiel, established in 1665 and counting Max Planck among its alumni. Each June, Kieler Woche, the world's largest sailing event, draws approximately three million visitors to the harbor. The 1907 Kieler Förde ferry still runs daily across the fjord, while the 1918 sailors' mutiny that erupted here sparked the German Revolution and toppled the monarchy.