Magdeburg, Germany

Magdeburg is the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, sitting on the Elbe River with roughly 540,000 residents and a history first documented in 805. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor, is buried in Magdeburg Cathedral, a 1209 structure that became the first Gothic cathedral east of the Rhine and the oldest cathedral in Germany. From the 968 Archdiocese of Magdeburg, the Magdeburg Rights town law code spread to around 1,000 cities across eastern Europe. In 1729 Otto von Guericke demonstrated his Magdeburg hemispheres vacuum experiments here, and the 2005 Green Citadel by Friedensreich Hundertwasser stands as his largest completed work. What remains hidden beneath these layers of imperial and scientific history still draws archaeologists to the city center.