Germany started the commemorative coin series "Die 16 Bundesländer der Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (The 16 States of the Federal Republic of Germany) in 2006, which will continue until 2021. The year in which the coin for a specific state is issued coincides with that state's Presidency of the Bundesrat. The coins issued are:
Year Number State Design
2006 1 Schleswig-Holstein Holstentor in Lübeck
2007 2 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Schwerin Castle
2008 3 Hamburg St. Michael's Church
2009 4 Saarland Ludwigskirche in Saarbrücken
2010 5 Bremen City Hall and Roland
2011 6 North Rhine-Westphalia Cologne Cathedral
2012 7 Bavaria Neuschwanstein Castle near Füssen
2013 8 Baden-Württemberg Maulbronn Abbey
2014 9 Lower Saxony St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim
2015 10 Hesse St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt am Main
2016 11 Saxony Zwinger Palace in Dresden
2017 12 Rhineland-Palatinate Porta Nigra in Trier
2018 13 Berlin Charlottenburg Palace
2019 14 Saxony-Anhalt Cathedral of Magdeburg
2020 15 Thuringia Wartburg Castle in Eisenach
2021 16 Brandenburg Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam
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The 2011 coin, representing North Rhine-Westfalia, shows the cathedral of cologne on the revers and the european 2 Euro pattern on the avers.
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Cologne Cathedral (German: Kölner Dom, officially Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus, Latin: Ecclesia Cathedralis Sanctorum Petri, English: High Cathedral of Saint Peter) is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is a renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1996. It is Germany's most visited landmark, attracting an average of 20,000 people a day and currently the tallest twin-spired church at 157 m (515 ft) tall.
Construction of Cologne Cathedral commenced in 1248 and was halted in 1473, leaving it unfinished. Work restarted in the 19th century and was completed, to the original plan, in 1880. The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and has the second-tallest spires. The towers for its two huge spires give the cathedral the largest façade of any church in the world. The choir has the largest height to width ratio, 3.6:1, of any medieval church.
Cologne's medieval builders had planned a grand structure to house the reliquary of the Three Kings and fit its role as a place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor. Despite having been left incomplete during the medieval period, Cologne Cathedral eventually became unified as "a masterpiece of exceptional intrinsic value" and "a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe".
Source: Wikipedia
Picture of coin are GNU-free Wikipedia media