Jena is a city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a population of about 110,000. Jena is a centre of education and research. The University of Jena was founded in 1558 and had 18,000 students in 2017 and the Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena serves another 5,000 students. Furthermore, there are many institutes of the leading German research societies.