Lübeck is unique and wonderful. This is why UNESCO declared the existing cityscape to be a World Cultural Heritage Site in 1987. The water-enclosed Old Town with its roughly 1,800 listed buildings, historical alleyways and criss-crossed lanes is not, however, just pretty to the eye, but is also the hub of an extremely lively, major city with roughly 214,000 inhabitants.Formerly as Free Hanseatic City, an independent state, Lübeck is now, in terms of size, the largest city in the region of Schleswig Holstein and claims for itself the title of the cultural capital of the north.