Born in Bonn in December 1770, Lud­wig van Beethoven continues to attract culture vultures and city trippers alike. Bonn Information offers a 16-stop walking tour that follows the great composer's youthful footsteps through the streets of the Electoral City. In 2020, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birthday will be marked across the re­gion and nationwide by events with an international appeal. The festivities and activities will extend throughout the anniversary year, starting on 16 December 2019 and ending on 17 December 2020, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's christening.

With around 450,000 square metres of retail space, Bonn is the shopping hub of the Bonn/Rhein-Sieg/Ahrweiler Region. Around 500 retailers in the attractively designed city centre offer an extensive upmarket range of medium and long-term consumer goods. As an A location, the city centre has an aggregate sales area of around 135,000 square metres. A moderate increase of 35,000 square metres in the inner city will counter competition from the increasingly strong surrounding area. In spring 2017, for instance, the building known as the "Südüberbauung" opposite Bonn Central Station was demolished. It will be replaced by the Ten Brinke Group's "Maximiliancenter", which is due for completion at the end of 2018 and will have Primark as its anchor tenant. With the redevelopment of the area north of the station known as the "Bonner Loch", an "urban repair" that has been discussed for 40 years is also being tackled. Baptising the project "Urban Soul – Triad for Bonn", the investors "die developer" plan a vibrant, typical downtown mix of retail premises, office space, apartments, hotel and gastronomy.

For the fourth time since 2012, the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) conducted a biennial study for the Berenberg private bank in 2018 examining the cultural life of Germany's 30 largest cities. Bonn took sixth place in the rankings ahead of Düsseldorf (in seventh place) and Cologne (in ninth place). Credited with a diverse and comprehensive cultural landscape, Bonn was actually found to have a larger per capita number of museum exhibitions than any other city in the study.

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In the last two decades, Bonn has successfully acquired a new international profile. As the German UN city, the second political hub of the country and a major centre of German development cooperation, the city has evolved into an internationally renowned forum for the discussion of future global issues. The environment for the successful development of international organisations and institutions also needs to meet international standards. The Bonn International School does just that, catering for around 800 students, who currently represent 74 nationalities and are taught by teachers from 17 countries.