Wilhelmshaven Germany

Wilhelmshaven stands on the Jade Bight, a bay on Germany's North Sea coast. Although a castle and church were built here in the 14th century, the latter of which still stands, the present-day city is relatively modern. It was founded in 1869 by King William I of Prussia, and prior to German unification was a Prussian enclave within the Duchy of Oldenburg. The town developed as a shipbuilding centre and became a major naval base: the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was launched here, and on April 28, 1945, 200 ships of the Kriegsmarine surrendered here to the Canadian First Army. Today Wilhelmshaven is Germany's only deep-water port, and retains a large naval base, as well as an import terminal for crude oil, which is transported by pipelines to refineries in Hamburg and the Rhine-Ruhr district. Places of interest in the town include botanical gardens, an aquarium and the German Navy Museum, where historic ships and exhibits related to 19th- and 20th-century maritime history are on display. Perhaps the most distinctive landmark is the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke, a twin-span swing bridge dating from 1905. Just outside the city is the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park, listed by UNESCO since 2009 as a World Heritage Site. Encompassing a wide variety of marine habitats, such as mudflats, salt marshes, sand dunes and river estuaries, it is home to 4,000 different species of animals and plants, and every year millions of seabirds rest or breed here.