Jena
, city,
Thuringia
Land
(state), east-central
Germany
. It lies on the
Saale River
, east of
Weimar
. First mentioned in the 9th century as Jani, it was chartered in 1230 and belonged to the margraves of
Meissen
from the mid-14th century. The house of
Wettin
, which held the margraviate and (after 1423) the electorate of
Saxony
, was divided in 1485, and Jena fell to the dukes of the Ernestine branch. From 1672 to 1690 it was the centre of the duchy of Saxe-Jena, and it remained a ducal residence until 1918. Napoleon won a notable victory over the Prussian army on the heights north of Jena in 1806 (
see
Battle of Jena
).
A rail junction, Jena is a major centre for optical and precision instruments and glass products. The city has a significant
pharmaceutical industry
and several biotechnology and microelectronics firms.
The city’s
Friedrich-Schiller University
was founded by the elector
John Frederick
the
Magnanimous
in 1548 as an academy and was raised to university status in 1577. It flourished under the duke Charles Augustus, patron of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, from 1787 to 1806, when the philosophers
Johann Fichte
,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
, and
Friedrich von Schelling
and the writers
August von Schlegel
and
Friedrich Schiller
were on its teaching staff. It was long in the forefront of German universities in the liberal acceptance of new ideas. The evolutionist
Ernst Haeckel
was prominent at the university in the mid-19th century, and
Karl Marx
received a
doctor’s degree
in absentia in 1841. A prominent landmark in Jena is the university’s tower (400 feet [122 metres]).
Jena suffered severe damage in
World War II
, but it has been restored. Notable structures are the old university buildings, the 14th-century town hall, and St. Michael’s Church (1438?1528). Numerous towers remain from the
medieval
fortifications. University buildings (1906?08) occupy the site of the old ducal palace where Goethe wrote his novel
Hermann und Dorothea
. The city is also home to the
Max Planck
Institutes for Biogeochemistry, Chemical Ecology, and Economics. There are botanical gardens, a planetarium, and civic and university museums. Pop. (2003 est.) 102,634.