Every design for Neu-Ulm

Neu-Ulm faces Ulm across the Danube, on the river's right bank and at the very western edge of Bavaria, so a short walk over a bridge takes you into another state. Together the two towns form a single centre straddling the border, with the Ulmer Münster on the far bank, yet Neu-Ulm has always kept its own identity as the seat of its own district and a university town.

Few towns can date their beginnings so precisely. When Ulm passed to Württemberg in 1810, the land on the right bank stayed Bavarian: a handful of houses, taverns, fields and the village of Offenhausen. The name Neu-Ulm first appears in 1814. The Bundesfestung Ulm brought growth from 1841, the railway to Augsburg followed in 1853, and King Ludwig II made it a town in 1869. The water tower built in 1900 is still a landmark today, and the Edwin-Scharff-Museum adds art to the story.

If you remember the US Army years, or arrived afterwards in the new quarter at Wiley, you know how much this town has changed, and that it was never just the other side of Ulm.