Dresden is situated in the south-eastern part of the Free State of Saxony, which borders not only on other German regions (Bavaria, Thuringia etc), but also on the Czech Republic and Poland.

Dresden is characterised by delightful surroundings and is one of Germany's cultural-historical pearls. In the year 2006 the city on the river Elbe will be celebrating its 800th anniversary. Dresden's cultural flair is today based above all on its blend of architectural sights, world famous collections and living traditions in music and the fine, performing and applied arts.

In the last years Dresden has developed into a European centre for modern, high-tech industries by means of building the chip factory of Infineon Technologies and the microprocessor works of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). At the same time, Dresden is at the forefront of developments in biotechnologies and bio-research. There are nine universities, academies and colleges. The most students are enrolled at the Dresden University of Technology.

With 64 per cent of its area devoted to woods and green spaces, Dresden can be considered one of the greenest cities in Europe. Centuries of far-sighted urban planning have ensured that Dresden can be perceived as an integral part of the
Elbe valley landscape.

Dresden attracts visitors from all over the world!


Healthy Cities
The most important programmes of Dresden Healthy Cities Project, Phase III, were based of ideas and activities from Phase II.

The foundation of the "First Dresden Health and Senior Sports Association", that originate from a Healthy Cities Project, can be seen as the most successful Healthy Cities activity. Five years ago the association was set up by volunteers with support of the HCP. The objectives of the organisation are promoting the health and optimal functioning of the senior residents and maintaining the social contacts. Now the Health and Senior Sports Association is counting 500 members, is offering 20 different programmes for everybody (low prices) and is running without financial support.

To the second important initiative of the HCP belong several different activities, symposiums and events regarding gender mainstreaming. The strategy was gender considerations to integrate more into programmes for health promotion and protection. In contrast to common understanding we paid particularly attention to men's health. It can be seen just as success, that a communal hospital founded a men's health centre short time after realising men's health days by HCP.

All programmes and projects developed or initiated by the HCP have been based on analyses of the Dresden City Health Profile. The elaborating of this health report belongs to the main tasks. Two profiles were developed during Phase III. The last Profile addressed the socio-economic and environmental conditions as well as presented the most important indicators of the local health status.

In the scope of the German Healthy Cities Network we have been working at the fourth Health Profile. In this German project, 10 cities from former East Germany agreed basic health indicators in order to draw a comparison between the cities.