Munich

Munich exists because monks needed a market where the Salzburg salt road crossed the Isar River—750 years later, that same precision engineering mindset built BMW, Siemens, and Europe's largest insurance cluster.

In 1157, Henry the Lion granted Benedictine monks the right to establish a marketplace at the Isar crossing—München means 'home of the monks.' The bridge and fortified market attracted the Wittelsbach dynasty, who made it their capital in 1255 and shaped the city for 700 years. But Munich's modern character came from King Ludwig I (1825-1848), whose architects gave the city its neoclassical face and its identity as Bavaria's cultural heart.

For most of its history, Bavaria was agricultural—Munich a pleasant royal seat, not an industrial center. The transformation came after World War II: Siemens relocated here from bombed Berlin, BMW rebuilt its aircraft engine factory into an automobile empire, and Allianz with Munich Re created the world's largest insurance and reinsurance cluster. The 1960s Bavarian economic miracle turned a Catholic agrarian state into a technology hub. This wasn't accident: the CSU government deliberately attracted electronics, aerospace, and automotive industries while protecting local culture—conservative modernity as strategy.

Today Munich's €86,000 GDP per capita roughly doubles Germany's average, making it the EU's wealthiest major city. The metro area's 1.6 million people enjoy under 4% unemployment. BMW, Siemens, Allianz, and Munich Re all maintain headquarters here; the city leads Germany in patents per capita. But Munich's success creates its own problem: housing costs rival London, and the same conservative culture that preserved quality of life resists the disruption that might keep it competitive.

By 2026, BMW's Neue Klasse electric vehicle launch will test whether Munich's precision-engineering culture can survive the automotive industry's existential transition—or whether Tesla and Chinese competitors will do to Munich what Munich once did to Detroit.