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Bremen has been governing itself since 1358, when it joined the Hanseatic League and began acquiring the stubbornly independent civic identity it has never relinquished. The city-state of Bremen, which also encompasses the port of Bremerhaven 60 kilometers to the north, is the smallest German state and one of only three that are city-states. The Marktplatz at the center of the old town is one of the great medieval squares of northern Europe: Roland's Column, erected in 1404 as a symbol of civic freedom, stands 10 meters tall before the Gothic Town Hall, and both were awarded UNESCO World Heritage status in 2004 as outstanding examples of the assertion of civic rights against feudal authority.

The Bottcherstrasse, a narrow alley off the Marktplatz, was entirely reconstructed between 1922 and 1931 by Ludwig Roselius, a Bremen coffee merchant who invented decaffeinated coffee and made a considerable fortune selling it under the Kaffee HAG brand.

He hired expressionist artists to create a street of red brick buildings that functions as an outdoor gallery of early 20th-century German art. The Schnoorviertel, a short walk from the Marktplatz, is a surviving medieval quarter of fishermen's cottages now housing cafes, galleries, and craft shops. The Brothers Grimm collected the story of the Town Musicians of Bremen, a donkey, dog, cat, and rooster who journeyed here for a better life, and their bronze statue on Obernstrasse outside the Town Hall has had its donkey's nose polished bright from decades of tourists rubbing it for luck.