Hamburg Germany

Description: Hamburg, officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is the second-largest city in Germany, after Berlin, and 8th-largest in the European Union, with a population of over 1.9 million. The Hamburg Metropolitan Region has a population of over 5.1 million and is the ninth-biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union. At the southern tip of the Jutland Peninsula, Hamburg stands on the branching River Elbe at the head of a 110 km (68 mi) estuary to the North Sea, on the mouth of the Alster and Bille. Hamburg is one of Germany’s three city-states alongside Berlin and Bremen, and is surrounded by Schleswig-Holstein to the north and Lower Saxony to the south. The Port of Hamburg is Germany’s largest and Europe’s third-largest, after Rotterdam and Antwerp. The local dialect is a variant of Low Saxon.

Population: 1,788,152

Demographics: According to the Statistical Office for Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, the number of people with a migrant background is at 34% (631,246). Immigrants come from 200 countries. 5,891 people have acquired German citizenship in 2016. Hamburg has the largest Portuguese community in Germany with about 30,000 people with Portuguese diaspora. Many Portuguese sailors and merchants came to Hamburg since the 15th century due to its port. Hamburg has a large Afghan community with about 50,000 people of Afghan diaspora, which makes Hamburg not only the largest Afghan community in Germany, but also in Europe.

History: The name Hamburg comes from the first permanent building on the site, a castle which the Emperor Charlemagne ordered constructed in AD 808. It rose on rocky terrain in a marsh between the River Alster and the River Elbe as a defence against Slavic incursion, and acquired the name Hammaburg, burg meaning castle or fort. The origin of the Hamma term remains uncertain, but its location is estimated to be at the site of today’s Domplatz. In 1529, the city embraced Lutheranism, and it received Reformed refugees from the Netherlands and France. When Jan van Valckenborgh introduced a second layer to the fortifications to protect against the Thirty Years’ War in the seventeenth century, he extended Hamburg and created a “New Town” (Neustadt) whose street names still date from the grid system of roads he introduced. Upon the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Free Imperial City of Hamburg was not incorporated into a larger administrative area while retaining special privileges (mediatized), but became a sovereign state with the official title of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Hamburg was a Gau within the administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1934 until 1945. During the Second World War, the Allied bombing of Hamburg devastated much of the city and the harbour. The city was surrendered to British Forces on 3 May 1945, in the Battle of Hamburg, three days after Adolf Hitler’s death. After the Second World War, Hamburg formed part of the British Zone of Occupation; it became a state of West Germany in 1949. On 16 February 1962, a North Sea flood caused the Elbe to rise to an all-time high, inundating one-fifth of Hamburg and killing more than 300 people. The inner German border – only 50 kilometres (30 mi) east of Hamburg – separated the city from most of its hinterland and reduced Hamburg’s global trade. Since German reunification in 1990, and the accession of several Central European and Baltic countries into the European Union in 2004, the Port of Hamburg has restarted ambitions for regaining its position as the region’s largest deep-sea port for container shipping and its major commercial and trading centre.

Elevation: 9 m

Climate: Oceanic climate. Average annual temperature in Hamburg is 11 C (51 F), the average for July is 17 C (62 F), the average for January is 1 C (32 F).

Attractions: Speicherstadt, Port Of Hamburg, Alter Elbtunnel, Shmidt Tivoli, Hamburg Town Hall, International Maritime Museum, Chocoversum

Airports: Hamburg Airport HAM

Distance To City Centre: 15 km

Commute Length: 25 min

Average Transportation Cost: 45 EUR

Traffic Hours: 7:30 am – 9:30 am, 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm