Erlangen is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 113,758 inhabitants (as of 30 June 2019), it is the smallest of the eight major cities in Bavaria. The number of inhabitants exceeded the threshold of 100,000 in 1974, making Erlangen a major city.

Together with Nuremberg, Fürth, and Schwabach, Erlangen forms one of the three metropoles in Bavaria. With the surrounding area, these cities form the European Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg, one of 11 metropolitan areas in Germany. The cities of Nuremberg, Fürth, and Erlangen also form a triangle on a map, which represents the heartland of the Nuremberg conurbation.

An element of the city that goes back a long way in history, but is still noticeable, is the settlement of Huguenots after the withdrawal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Today, many aspects of daily life in the city are dominated by the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Siemens technology group.

Jehovah's Witnesses registered their first meeting in Erlangen on 22 March 1923, but the police did not approve it. After the ban in April 1933 there was increased repression, which led to the murder of member Gustav Heyer in the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre on 20 January 1942. The Gustav-Heyer-Straße in Bruck has been a reminder of this since 2000. 1948 saw the reorganization of the community, which split into two subcommunities in 1975. In 1980 the Jehovah's Witnesses built their own assembly room ("Kingdom Hall") in Bruck.

Points of interest:

• The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg was founded in 1742 by Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, in the city of Bayreuth, but was relocated to Erlangen the next year. Today, it features five faculties; some departments (Economics and Education) are located in Nuremberg. About 39,000 students study at this university, of which about 20,000 are located in Erlangen.
• The Botanischer Garten Erlangen is a botanical garden maintained by the university.