Kiel Week

What it is

Kiel Week is one event with two faces. On the water it is one of the biggest sailing meetings anywhere, with around five thousand sailors and two thousand boats taking part. On land it is a summer festival, with stages for bands, street comedy, a children's area, and food from many countries sold on the market square. The races use classes from small dinghies to ocean-going yachts, and the festival is free to walk through. Visitors number around three million each year, arriving from all over Germany and from neighbouring countries.

Origins and history

The first race, sailed in June 1882, set off from Düsternbrook; twenty yachts took part, one of them Danish. Its success kept it going annually. Kaiser Wilhelm II came to watch in 1889 and returned often. The event took the name Kiel Week in press reports in 1894. Kiel hosted the Olympic sailing contests in 1936 and again in 1972. Racing stopped during both world wars, and the British army organised the first postwar sailing week in 1945 under the name Kiel-Week. Since 1948 the festival has also commissioned a poster each year.

The tall ships parade

Since 1972 more than a hundred traditional ships and hundreds of yachts have sailed in the Windjammerparade, a parade of large sailing ships that takes place on the day before the closing day. The first such gathering was arranged that year for the Olympic Games held in Kiel. It was the biggest coming-together of tall ships since the windjammer era, and its success made the parade a yearly fixture. A sail training organisation, Clipper DJS, grew out of it. The German training ship Gorch Fock often leads the line.

Music and the shore

The shore programme spreads along the Kiellinie on the west bank of the fjord, then across the Hörn bridge to the Germania harbour, and into the city centre around the Rathausplatz, the Alter Markt, Dänische Straße and the Schloßpark. Bands play free on public stages, paid for by sponsors, many of them in regional media and telecommunications. The International Market on the Rathausplatz sells dishes from many countries, and street performers work in the squares. Children have their own programme at the Spiellinie, which became permanent in 1974.

Posters and collecting

Kiel Week has run a poster competition since 1948. A jury of graphic designers invites artists to submit designs, and the chosen image advertises that year's festival. The contest has a strong reputation: many designs have won national and international awards. Over the decades the work of designers such as Anton Stankowski, Hans Hillmann and Wim Crouwel has carried the event's name. Cards and other objects printed with the year's motif often become collector's items soon after they appear. Enamel plaques were made for competitors even before the Second World War, as keepsakes of the races.

How Kiel Week is kept

The week opens on a Saturday with a bell-ringing ceremony called the Glasen, followed by the Holstenbummel. Music runs across the city stages, with a Soundcheck concert on the Friday before the opening. Racing is centred on the Olympic harbour at Schilksee, where most of the sailing takes place. On shore there is street theatre, a children's programme on the Spiellinie, and an international market at the Rathausplatz. The tall ships parade sails on the second Saturday, the day before the closing Sunday, which ends with fireworks over the fjord at eleven at night.

When and where

Kiel Week falls in the last full week of June. The official opening is on the Saturday before that week, so the programme runs from one weekend to the next. The closing fireworks are fired on the Sunday evening, and the tall ships parade takes place the day before, normally on the second Saturday of the event.

It is held in Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, and stretches along the Kiel Fjord. Racing happens at the Olympic harbour of Schilksee and out on the water, where most boats lie too far offshore to be watched from land. The shore programme runs along the Kiellinie, through the city centre and across the Hörn.

What Kiel Week means

For the city and the region, the regatta marks the arrival of summer and the place sailing holds in local life. It was suspended through two world wars, and its return after 1945 signalled that ordinary days were back. The tall ships parade, first staged in 1972, honours the era of working sailing ships and gives people a chance to see such vessels gathered together on the fjord.

Questions people ask about Kiel Week

See also

DreidelA four-sided top spun for small stakes, most often by Jewish families at HanukkahEgg rollingA spring game of rolling decorated hard-boiled eggs down hills or along lawnsChristmasA festival of Jesus's birth, kept on 25 December with gifts, lights and shared mealsGood FridayA solemn Christian holy day commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.

Good reading and sources

• World's biggest sailing event casts offDeutsche Welle, Article
• World's biggest sailing event casts offDeutsche Welle, Article

• Kiel Week on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.