HAMBURG
Country: Germany
Coordinates: 53° 33' N
10° 00' E
Altitude: 3 m
Area: 755,16 km2
Population: 1 745 000
Density of Population: 2 300/km2
Website: www.hamburg.de
Mayor: Ole von Beust
The free Hanseatic city of Hamburg is the second biggest city in Germany, having 1,7 million inhabitants. It is also one of the 16 countries of the Federal Republic of Germany, so Hamburg is then a city as well as a state.
Economically and culturally, Hamburg is also a centre of the entire Northern Germany.
As for the area covered by the city, Hamburg is seven times larger than Paris and two and a half times larger than London. The living standard in Hamburg is particularly high.
Having a living space area of 30 square metres per inhabitant, Hamburg provides the largest average living space area of all cities in the world. Only 14% of the city area is covered by green fields and recreational parks.
Hamburg has 2.302 bridges which is more than Venice and Amsterdam have all together. Having 90 consulates, Hamburg takes the second position in the world, right after New York.
As a centre of trade, Hamburg has always been open to the world and this has been reflected in the way citizens of Hamburg think.
Cultural events in the city of Hamburg take place in the Art Gallery, the National Opera and the Music Club at Reeperbahn.
There are 31 theatres, 6 musical scenes, 10 music halls and 50 state-owned or private museums in Hamburg. Out of the total of 4 000 restaurants, up to 2 400 of them offers foreign cuisine menus.
Banks of the Labe river and the Alster lake explicitely invite for walks. Sight-seeing tours at the dockside are impressive and show panorama of Hamburg from a different viewpoint.
In the middle of the city heart there is a big lake called Alster. A sight-seeing tour on the lake of Alster ends directly in the city centre where there are many shops and coffee houses on the streets. Modern underground and bus routes make city travelling easy, fast and cheap.
The environs of Hamburg is particularly charming. The fruit farming region of Altes Land with its traditional farming houses is just cut out for bus or bike trips. The historical old town is only half an hour far away from the regions of Stade or Lüneburg. It takes an hour of a car or train ride to get to Lübeck or to the beaches of the North Sea.
