There are eleven metropolitan regions in Germany [1] consisting of the country's most densely populated cities and their catchment areas. They represent Germany's political, commercial and cultural centres. The eleven metropolitan regions in Germany were organised into political units for planning purposes.
Based on a narrower definition of metropolises commonly used to determine the metropolitan status of a given city, [2] only four cities in Germany surpass the threshold of at least one million inhabitants within their administrative borders: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne.
For urban centres outside metropolitan areas that are a similar focal point for their region, but on a smaller scale, the concept of the Regiopolis and the related concepts of regiopolitan area or regio were introduced by urban and regional planning professors in 2006. [3]
Sorted alphabetically:
The five most important regions, collectively often called the Big Five, [4] [5] are frequently compared with other European metropolitan regions (EMR) in terms of investment and market development. [6] They are (from north to south): Hamburg, Berlin, the polycentric Ruhr-Düsseldorf-Cologne region (collectively referred to as Rhine-Ruhr), Frankfurt and Munich. The Globalization and World Cities Study Group (GaWC) considers Frankfurt and Munich as "α" (alpha) global cities, whereas the others are classified as "β" (beta) global cities. [7]
Each of them forms types of clusters and achieves varying levels of performance in areas, including business activity, human capital, information and technology exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. [8]
rank | metropolitan region (EMR) | core cities | states | population as by EMR [9] (2006) | population as by ESPON [10] (2007) | GDP per capita in € [11] (2006) | GMP in billion € [9] (2006) | HQs of MNC (FG500 [12] ) | annual passenger traffic (2008) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Rhine-Ruhr EMR | K, DO, D, E, DU | NW | 11.47 million | 12.19 million | 29,486 | 338.21 | 13 | 30.80 million |
Ruhr | DO, E, DU, BO | 5.26 million | 5.38 million | 25,266 | 132.90 | 4 | 2.30 million (DTM) | ||
Düsseldorf | D, W, MG | 3.12 million | 3.07 million | 34,658 | 108.13 | 5 | 18.15 million (DUS) | ||
Cologne/Bonn | K, BN | 3.09 million | 3.07 million | 31,448 | 97.18 | 4 | 10.35 million (CGN) | ||
2 | Frankfurt/Rhine-Main EMR | F, WI, MZ, DA, OF, HU | HE, RP, BY | 6.0million | 4.15 million | 35,000 | 193.20 | 4 | 57.44 million (FRA, HHN) |
3 | Berlin/Brandenburg EMR | B, P, CB | BE, BR | 5.95 million | 4.02 million | 21,981 | 130.78 | 1 | 21.40 million (TXL, SXF) |
4 | Stuttgart EMR | S, RT, ES, HN | BW | 5.29 million | — | 31,909 | 168.80 | 3 [13] | 9.93 million |
Stuttgart | S, ES | 2.67 million | 2.67 million | 35,492 | 94.76 | 3 [13] | 9.93 million [14] (STR) | ||
5 | Munich EMR | M, A, IN, LA, RO | BY | 5.20 million | 3.27 million | 39,155 | 203.61 | 7 | 34.73 million |
Munich [15] | M, FS | 2.59 million [16] | 2.67 million | 47,943 | 124.35 [16] | 7 | 34.73 million (MUC) | ||
6 | Central German EMR | L, DD, C, HAL, EF | SN, ST, TH | 4.36 million | — | 21,482 | 93.66 | 0 | 4.88 million |
Leipzig/Halle | L, HAL | 1.50 million | 1.21 million | no data | no data | 0 | 2.46 million (LEJ) | ||
Dresden | DD, PIR | 0.70 million [17] | 0.88 million | no data | no data | 0 | 1.86 million (DRS) | ||
7 | Hamburg EMR | HH, HL | HH, SH, NI | 4.27 million | 2.98 million | 33,210 | 141.81 | 2 | 12.84 million (HAM) |
8 | Hanover-Braunschweig- Göttingen-Wolfsburg EMR | H, BS, GÖ, WOB, SZ, HI | NI | 3.91 million | — | 27,251 | 106.55 | 3 | 5.74 million |
Braunschweig/Wolfsburg | BS, WOB, SZ | 1.00 million [18] | 1.00 million | no data | no data | 1 | 0.10 million (BWE) | ||
Hanover | H | 1.12 million * | 1.00 million | no data | no data | 2 | 5.64 million [19] (HAJ) | ||
9 | Nuremberg EMR | N, FÜ, ER, BT, BA | BY | 3.51 million | — | 29,955 | 105.14 | 0 | 4.27 million |
Nuremberg/Furth/Erlangen | N, FÜ, ER | 1.29 million | 1.58 million | no data | no data | 0 | 4.27 million [20] (NUE) | ||
10 | Bremen/Oldenburg EMR | HB, OL, HBx, DEL, WHV | HB, NI | 2.37 million | 1.08 million | 27,046 | 64.10 | 0 | 2.49 million (BRE) |
11 | Rhine-Neckar EMR | MA, LU, HD, WO | BW, RP, HE | 2.36 million | 2.93 million | 29,891 | 70.54 | 1 | 0 |
metropolitan regions in Germany | 57.74 million | 29,412 | 1,698.23 | 34 | 168.75 million | ||||
Germany | 80.22 million | 28,212 | 2,322.20 | 37 | 191.02 million [21] |
highest score of all metropolitan regions
highest score of all metropolitan areas
Cologne is the largest city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and over 3.1 million people in the Cologne Bonn urban region. Cologne is also part of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, the second biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union. Centered on the left (west) bank of the Rhine, Cologne is located on the River Rhine, about 35 km (22 mi) southeast of the North Rhine-Westphalia state capital Düsseldorf and 25 km (16 mi) northwest of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.
North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a state (Land) in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in Germany. Apart from the city-states, it is also the most densely populated state in Germany. Covering an area of 34,084 km2 (13,160 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest German state by size.
The Ruhr, also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km2 and a population of over 5 million (2017), it is the largest urban area in Germany and the third of the European Union. It consists of several large cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west, and Lippe to the north. In the southwest it borders the Bergisches Land. It is considered part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of more than 10 million people, which is the third largest in Western Europe, behind only London and Paris.
Düsseldorf Airport, known as Düsseldorf International Airport until March 2013, is an international airport serving Düsseldorf, the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is about 7 kilometres north of downtown Düsseldorf and some 20 kilometres southwest of Essen in the Rhine-Ruhr area, Germany's largest metropolitan area.
The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region is the largest metropolitan region in Germany, with over ten million inhabitants. A polycentric conurbation with several major urban concentrations, the region covers an area of 7,110 square kilometres (2,750 sq mi), entirely within the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region spreads from the Ruhr area (Dortmund-Bochum-Essen-Duisburg) in the north to the urban areas of the cities of Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Leverkusen, Cologne, and Bonn in the south. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European Blue Banana makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas such as the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region.
The Hamburg Metropolitan Region is a metropolitan region centred around the city of Hamburg in northern Germany, consisting of eight districts in the federal state of Lower Saxony, six districts in the state of Schleswig-Holstein and two districts in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern along with the city-state of Hamburg itself. It covers an area of roughly 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 sq mi) and is home to more than 5.1 million inhabitants.
The Central German Metropolitan Region is one of the officially established metropolitan regions in Germany. It is centered on the major cities of Leipzig and Halle, extending over Central German parts of the states of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Saxony. The Central German metropolitan region is the only one located entirely within the former East Germany. The "region" is not actually a metropolitan area in the geographic sense of the word as an agglomeration of nearby urban areas, rather it is a registered association, the Europäische Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland e.V. whose membership is composed of towns, cities, municipalities, and companies, colleges and chambers of commerce in the central German geographic area, whose representatives vote upon new members. For example, Jena joined the Metropolitan Region in 2009. The registered association owns the management company Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland Management GmbH. As such it forms a planning and marketing framework for the region while retaining the legal independence of its members.
The Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn is a polycentric and electrically driven S-bahn network covering the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region in the German federated state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This includes most of the Ruhr, the Berg cities of Wuppertal and Solingen and parts of the Rhineland. The easternmost city within the S-Bahn Rhine-Ruhr network is Unna, the westernmost city served is Mönchengladbach.
The Stuttgart Metropolitan Region is a metropolitan region in south-west Germany consisting of the cities and regions around Stuttgart, Heilbronn, Tübingen/Reutlingen. These cities are arranged into three agglomeration areas. The population of the area is about 5,300,000 and it is one of the biggest regions in Germany. This area covers an area of ca 15,000 km2.
Rapid transit in Germany consists of four U-Bahn systems and 14 S-Bahn systems. The U-Bahn, commonly understood to stand for Untergrundbahn, are conventional rapid transit systems that run mostly underground, while the S-Bahn or Stadtschnellbahn are commuter rail services, that may run underground in the city center and have metro-like characteristics in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin which they only have to a lesser extent in other cities. There are also over a dozen semi-metro or Stadtbahn systems that are rapid transit in the city center and light rail outside.
Germany is a country in Central and Western Europe that stretches from the Alps, across the North European Plain to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and is seventh-largest country by area in the continent. The area of Germany ranked 63rd and covers 357,600 km2 (138,070 sq mi), consisting of 349,250 km2 (134,846 sq mi) of land and 8,350 km2 (3,224 sq mi) of waters, smaller than Japan but larger than Republic of the Congo.
The Cologne Bonn Region is a metropolitan area in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany, covering the cities of Cologne, Bonn and Leverkusen, as well as the districts of Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, Oberbergischer Kreis, Rhein-Erft-Kreis and Rhein-Sieg-Kreis. The region covers an area of 3,839 km2 with 3.13 million inhabitants. The city centres of Cologne and Bonn are 24 kilometres apart as the crow flies. At the outer city limits, there are only 8 kilometres between Cologne-Libur and Bonn-Geislar.
Köln Airport-Businesspark is a railway station in Gremberghoven, Cologne in western Germany. It is served by the S12 line of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn.
Köln Steinstraße is a railway station situated at Porz, Cologne in western Germany on the Sieg and East Rhine Railways. It is served by the S12 line of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 5 station.
Porz (Rhein) is a railway station situated at Porz, Cologne in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on the Sieg and East Rhine Railways. It is served by the S12 line of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 4 station.
The Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, often simply referred to as Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main area or Rhine-Main area, is the third-largest metropolitan region in Germany after Rhine-Ruhr and Berlin-Brandenburg, with a total population exceeding 5.8 million. The metropolitan region is located in the central-western part of Germany, and stretches over parts of three German states: Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Bavaria. The largest cities in the region are Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Worms, Hanau, and Aschaffenburg.
The Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Düsseldorf and all of Germany, officially renamed in 2018, and formerly known as Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Central Europe, is a Serbian Orthodox Church diocese in Germany. It has its headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Arab Germans, also referred to as German Arabs or Arabic Germans, are ethnic Arabs living in Germany. They form the second-largest predominantly Muslim immigrant group.
The Munich Metropolitan Region is one of eleven metropolitan regions in Germany, consisting of the agglomeration areas of Munich, Augsburg, Ingolstadt, Landshut, Rosenheim and Landsberg am Lech. It is Germany's fifth most populous metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan-Region, the Frankfurt Rhine-Main-Region, the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan-Region and the Stuttgart Metropolitan-Region.
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