Cologne Cologne Cologne (; , , ) is the largest city of Germany's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and its 1,075,935 (2016) inhabitants make it the fourth most populous city in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. The largest city on the Rhine, it is also the most populous city both of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, which is Germany's largest and one of Europe's major metropolitan areas, and of the Rhineland. Centred on the left bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about southeast of North Rhine-Westphalia's capital of Düsseldorf and northwest of Bonn. It is the largest city in
History of the Jews in Cologne offices, and the Roman administration went into crisis and the emperor had to look for alternatives. It became necessary for the Cologne Council to use a decree of Emperor Constantine the Great of 321, which permitted Jews to be appointed to the "curia". This is the first evidence of the existence of a Jewish community in the town of Cologne. The emperor's decree was passed down in the "Codex Theodosianus" (439), which indicates the existence of a firmly established Jewish community in Cologne in 321 and 331. A partial translation of the "Codex" reads: "We allow all town councils to