The three pillar industries of Frankfurt are finance, exhitibions and transport; it is the transport hub of Germany. Frankfurt has been Germany's financial capital for centuries. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is Germany's largest, the site of 85% of Germany's turnover in stocks, and one of the world's biggest. Frankfurt is also the home of the European Central Bank and the German Bundesbank. Many large trade fairs also call Frankfurt home.

During WWII, Frankfurt was heavily bombed, though the city quickly recovered.

Frankfurt is often called "Bankfurt" or "Mainhattan" (derived from the local Main River). It is one of only three European cities that have a significant number of high-rise skyscrapers. The others being Paris and London. The city of Frankfurt contains the tallest skyscraper in Europe, the Commerzbank. In Germany, only Frankfurt and Düsseldorf have high-rise skyscrapers.

Frankfurt is renowned for its finance industry, on par with London and Paris, as well as for its central location in Western Europe, surrounded by the most populous areas of Europe. It has a first-class infrastructure and a major international airport: Frankfurt International Airport. Frankfurt has a huge number of institutions, among them its university, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, as well as a number of museums, most of them lined up along the Main river on the Museumsufer (museum shore) and a large botanical garden, the Palmengarten. The best known museums are the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, or short Städel, and the Naturmuseum Senckenberg. The Museum für moderne Kunst (Museum of Modern Art) and Schirn Kunsthalle (Schirn Art Galery) are also notable.