The City of Hamburg
Hamburg, one of the 16 states of the federation, is the second largest city in Germany with its 1.7 million inhabitants. In this sense it is a city as well as a state. Hamburg is also culturally and commercially the centre of Northern Germany. The metropolitan region consists of 3.5 million people, for whom Hamburg is the shopping and cultural metropolis.

The municipal area with its 755 km² is seven times the size of Paris and 2.5 times that of London. For this reason Hamburg has an exceptionally high standard of living and housing. With 30 m² living space per person, Hamburg enjoys the largest average personal living space of all big cities in the world. In fact, 14% of the city is made up of green and recreation areas.

Hamburg has always been an open-minded commercial centre, something that has always determined the mentality of the people living here. The port of Hamburg is the focal point for the trade concluded with Eastern and Northern Europe and is the second largest container harbour in Europe and seventh world-wide. The city if only 120 km from the sea and can therefore accommodate the largest container ships the world has to offer. Hamburg’s ideal inland location and excellent rail, water and highway connections makes it one of the most attractive harbours available.

As a commercial and transport metropolis, Hamburg can boast a total of 90 consulates. 460 enterprises from Asia alone maintain their European headquarters in Hamburg or have a branch office here. Right now the Hafencity, an extremely modern, completely new city district of commerce and industry, is under construction along the harbour side of the Elbe River.

Hamburg is also home to highly specialized industry. It is a leader in medicine and biotechnology as well as harbouring one of the global centres of airplane manufacture: here is where the large-scale Airbus A380 is being constructed.

Last updated: 30.08.06