The name means ropewalk, a reminder that ropes for sailing ships were once made along this stretch of Hamburg. Today the Reeperbahn is the heart of the city's nightlife in the St. Pauli district and its best-known red-light street, nicknamed the sinful mile. Rope makers settled here in 1626, when the trade was moved out beyond the city walls onto the country road towards Altona. For most of the 17th and 18th centuries this was a working ropewalk rather than a place of entertainment. As the nearby port grew, so did the amusements. By the 19th century dance halls, beer halls, theatres and brothels had spread along the road, drawing dockworkers and sailors and giving St. Pauli its lasting reputation. The street is under a kilometre long, around 930 metres, yet it is packed with bars, clubs, theatres and shows. Side streets such as the Grosse Freiheit and squares like the Spielbudenplatz are among its busiest spots. A famous landmark is the Davidwache, a small police station on the corner of Davidstrasse that has appeared in countless films and photographs. Off it runs the Herbertstrasse, screened from view, where sex workers display themselves in windows. The Reeperbahn holds an important place in music history. In the early 1960s the Beatles served a kind of apprenticeship in its clubs, including the Star-Club, playing hundreds of hours on stage, and a square nearby was named Beatles-Platz in their honour. Alongside the nightlife there is older culture, from the St. Pauli Theater, founded in 1841 and among the oldest in Germany, to the Panoptikum waxworks of 1879. Each year the area hosts the Reeperbahn Festival, one of Europe's largest club festivals. Drawing tens of millions of visitors a year, the street remains as contradictory as ever, at once a working entertainment district, a tourist magnet and a piece of Hamburg folklore, busiest of all on weekend nights.

Type: Street

Address: Hamburg, Germany, 20359