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Comment by ranit | Hacker News Reader

Off-topic. What's up with Frankfurt? 3 of 5 cloud companies compared here have Frankfurt listed as their European data center location.

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Location of DE-CIX, primary european internet exchange (according to themselves the one with the largest throughput worldwide, but AFAIK that's disputed)

Thanks. This explains.

And why european primary internet exchange point is here? Because this city is an international financial center https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13798598 I've been there. Men and women in suits leaving work at 8 pm. Heartquaters of some big German banks etc. International buisness center.

It's either DE-CIX or AMS-IX. I believe AMS have more members and higher average throughput, but CIX have higher potential throughput.

AMS-IX in Amsterdam is primary EU IX.

The heart of € is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Central_Bank

International airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Airport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt

International finacial center. Like second financial center of Europe after London.

the underlying explanation of all the other answers is: "its on the Rhine and quite north". The Rhine is historically the most important river of the area, so big cities and populations sprang on it. And, strangely, the Rhine is/was an important connexion to the UK, hence the importance of Frankfurt even on a quite large scale.

Today it still makes sense to go there because Germany is the wealthiest country around, and from there you can serve the entire Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam-Frankfurt area, which includes a lot of people: http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-143547/Population-de...

edit: before I get punched by an autist, Frankfurt not ON the Rhine, but it has an incredibly quick access to the Rhine without being subject to its floods.

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