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The Saxons – A people unto themselves
Spatial distribution
Not everyone who lives in Saxony is a “Saxon.” There are Vogtlanders, Sorbs, Erzgebirgers, Meisseners, Oberlausitzers, Lower Silesians and many more. Many have their own traditions and dialects, but all are at home in Saxony.
With a total population of 4.3 million and an average population density of 233 inhabitants per square kilometre, Saxony is in the middle ranks of Germany’s non-city states in terms of population size and density. Saxony has three densely populated areas, the upper Elbe Valley between Pirna and Meissen, the city of Leipzig and the area between Chemnitz and Zwickau in the south-west.
Religion
Just over a quarter of people living in Saxony (25.1%) belong to one of the two main Christian churches. Since this is the motherland of the Reformation, the dominant denomination is Protestantism.
The Sorbs – Much more than folklore
Saxony and neighbouring Brandenburg are home to a national minority of western Slavs, the Sorbs. Visitors to the Lausitz region first become aware of this when they see road signs, place names and names above shops written in two languages. Their cultural centre is Bautzen and Saxony’s constitution expressly grants their culture state protection.
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Saxony: Baroque Meets High Tech
 Saxony: Baroque Meets High Tech
High Tech Baroque The
Saxon Cities History
Geography
The Saxons Saxony's Government Saxony on the Web
Links and Sister Cities
Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther
1811- 1887
Walther helped establish the Lutheran Church in the U.S. Mid-West. Born in Saxony, he attended the Gymnasium in Schneeberg and studied at the Lutheran College in Leipzig. After graduation, he began ministering at a small church, but encountered problems because his strictly orthodox preaching ran afoul to the Rationalist teaching of the state church. Walther decided to lead a group of Saxon Lutherans to the New World, where they landed in New Orleans before moving up the Mississippi River to Missouri in 1839. Walther's Saxon colonists named a number of their new settlements after familiar towns in their former homeland. Walther's leadership, as a man of the church, as an educator, and a community leader, was a key factor in the survival of the colony. He went on to have wide influence with Lutherans in St. Louis and serve as the first president of the Missouri synod. |
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