Oktoberfest is almost coming again! Four months from now and it is already starting. For this year's October festival, it will start on September 19 to October 4, 2009. For those who are interested to come, you can already start to book your hotels or the seats inside the beer tents. I know this year will be another great festival since it is one of the biggest and famous one in the world history! Please find below some facts and data about the festival. I already visited it one time last year! I truly had fun!

"The Oktoberfest is known as the Largest Volksfest (People's Fair) in the World.[5] In 1999 there were six and a half million visitors[6] to the 42 hectare Theresienwiese. 72% of the people are from Bavaria. 15% of visitors come from foreign countries like the surrounding EU-countries and other non-European countries including the United States, India, Japan, Brazil and Australia.

Besides the Oktoberfest, there are other public festivals that take place at the same location, in April/May: The Munich Frühlingsfest (Spring Festival) and Winter Tollwood in December with 650,000 visitors.

After the Oktoberfest the next people fairs in size in Germany are the Cranger Kirmes in Herne(Wanne-Eickel) (the largest fair in Northrhine-Westphalia) with 4,7 million visitors, the Rheinkirmes in Düsseldorf (called Largest Fair on the Rhine) and the Freimarkt in Bremen (the oldest fair in Germany, held since 1035, and the biggest fair in Northern Germany) with about 4 million visitors per year each, followed by the Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart with about 3 million visitors each year and the "Schützenfest Hannover", the world's largest marksmen's Fun Fair in Hanover with about 2 million visitors per year... wikipedia