Hamburg

Hamburg or in full Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg), is a city in the north of Germany on the banks of the River Elbe, 18 km away from the North Sea.

With a population of about 1.73 million (1730000) it is the biggest German city after Berlin and the sixth largest city of the European Union. The religion is about 37% Protestant, 10% Catholic, 8% Muslim, 38% agnostic, 2% Pagan.

Since it was an important member of the Hanseatic League, the city's official name still includes Hansestadt (Hanseatic city). Other German cities that do the same today are: Lübeck, Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, Bremen, Greifswald and Demmin. The membership in this trade alliance has influenced the architecture of the city to a great extent. It has also left some marks in the region around the city. Strategic bombing in World War II devastated the city.

In 2017 a consulting company ranked it 17th for best place to live in the world.

The area of Hamburg is 755.16 km2. It has an oceanic climate (Cfb in the Koeppen climate classification).

Economy
Hamburg's harbour is, by shipments, the second largest harbour in Europe (after Rotterdam) and among the ten largest in the world. It is a very important gate to the countries along the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe.

There are about 120,000 businesses in Hamburg. The company Airbus has an assembly plant for large civil aircraft in Hamburg. 30,000 people are employed in Hamburg's aircraft industries. There are only two other locations worldwide in this scale, Seattle in the United States and Toulouse in France.

About half of Germany's nationwide newspapers and magazines are made in Hamburg. Germany's most-viewed television news Tagesschau is broadcast from Hamburg.

Hamburg's red-light district (in Sankt Pauli) is the largest in Europe.

Sister cities

 * 🇷🇺 Russia, Saint Petersburg, since 1957
 * 🇫🇷 France, Marseille, since 1958
 * 🇨🇳 China, Shanghai, since 1986
 * 🇩🇪 Germany, Dresden, since 1987
 * 🇳🇮 Nicaragua, León, since 1989
 * 🇯🇵 Japan, Ōsaka, since 1989
 * 🇨🇿 Czech Republic, Prague, since 1990
 * 🇺🇸 United States, Chicago, since 1994

Related pages

 * Berlin
 * Munich
 * Cologne
 * Frankfurt/Main
 * Düsseldorf