It's the most populous country in the European Union, it shares borders with
nine other countries and it's an economic powerhouse.
These are just three of the things that you will learn about Germany.
Hello everyone. Welcome to the GEOfocus channel and my name is Paul.
Before I get started I want to say thanks to all of you who have already
supported Langfocus and GEOfocus on Patreon, if you haven't seen my Patreon page yet
please have a look and see what you think.
If you value my channels then please consider becoming a patron.
Okay and on to the main topic. Today we are talking about Germany.
The Federal Republic of Germany is one of the most important countries in Europe.
With a population of 81.5 million people
it is the most populous country in Europe and it is an economic powerhouse.
In fact, it has the largest economy in Europe
and it has the fourth largest economy in the whole world.
Germany is located in Western and Central Europe and it shares land borders
with nine other countries. It is bordered by Denmark to the north,
by the Netherlands to the northwest, by Belgium and Luxembourg to the west,
by Switzerland to the southwest, by Austria to the southeast,
by the Czech Republic to the east and also by Poland to the east.
It has a total land area of 357,012 km².
That makes it the 62nd largest country in the world
and that makes it slightly bigger than the Republic of Congo
and slightly smaller than Japan.
This is the current map of Germany but Germany used to be much bigger at one point.
Here is a map of Germany prior to World War I. Its land area was more
than 50 % larger than it is now, occupying land that included much of
present-day Poland and Denmark. Germany has a number of different geographic
regions with differing landforms. The northernmost third of the country lies
at a lower elevation and is characterized by rivers, wetlands,
sandy soil in the northeast and marsh light conditions in the northwest
near the border with the Netherlands. Moving south to the central area
there are more areas of forest.
Moving further south the elevation increases as we enter the southern areas
which are characterized by hills and mountains,
some of which were created by volcanic activity.
The highland region extend to the east and lead into the Ore Mountains
on the Czech border. The east central part of the country, south of Berlin, is similar
to the north of the country with rivers, wetlands and sandy conditions.
And then of course there are the highest, most mountainous areas in the German Alps.
There is quite a dramatic variety of elevations in Germany.
The highest elevation is 2,962 m in the Alps
and the lowest elevation is 3.54 m below sea level in the northern lowlands.
One of Germany's most important features is the Rhine River.
It begins in the southeastern Swiss Alps, defines part of the borders
between Switzerland and its neighbours Liechtenstein and Austria, then flows
into Germany and forms part of the border between Germany and France,
then it flows through the Rhineland of Western Germany, then into the Netherlands
where it drains into the North Sea.
It is the second longest river in Central and Western Europe
after the Danube River which is another important feature of Germany.
Beginning in the Black Forest in southwestern Germany
the river flows for 2,860 km through Germany
then travels through nine more countries before draining into the Black Sea.
The climate of the country is a combination of temperate oceanic climate
in the western portions of the country,
on the one hand resulting in mild winter and summer temperatures and a temperate
continental climate in the eastern portion of the country resulting in more
extreme summer and winter temperatures.
Then, of course, there are the alpine regions in the south which are colder
and get more precipitation. Something which snowboarders and skiers are very happy about.
There is no consistent dry season in Germany and it can rain at any time of the year.
I've only been to Germany once and that was just at Frankfurt airport
to change planes and I looked outside and it was pouring rain and that was in the summer.
The Federal Republic of Germany is comprised of 16 states.
Two of these states, Berlin and Hamburg, are city states or "Stadtstaaten",
one other is the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen which is kind of like a city state.
It consists of two cities: Bremen and Bremerhaven.
There are 13 other area states. In German they are called "Flächenländer".
These are: Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Hessen or Hesse,
Niedersachsen or Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Nordrhein-Westfalen or North Rhine-Westphalia, Rheinland-Pfalz or Rhineland-Palatinate,
Saarland, Sachsen or Saxony, Sachsen-Anhalt or Saxony-Anhalt,
Schleswig-Holstein, Thüringen or Thuringia, Bayern or Bavaria.
The most populous state is North Rhine-Westphalia
with a population of over 17.6 million people.
The capital city of this state is Düsseldorf which has a population of about 605,000 people.
That makes it the seventh largest city in Germany.
That doesn't sound like a very big city considering that it's situated in the most populous state in Germany
but Düsseldorf is actually part of a gigantic metropolitan area called the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan area
which altogether has a population of over 11.3 million people.
It is an uninterrupted mega city that is considered polycentric
that means it doesn't just have one central city with a bunch of suburbs,
it actually has several central cities.
Another well-known city located within this mega city is Cologne with over 1 million inhabitants
and if you've ever wondered then yes.
The men's fragrance cologne does come from Cologne, Germany.
Other important German cities you've probably heard of include
Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt and of course Berlin.
The largest city in Germany is Berlin,
the capital city of Germany and one of Germany's city states.
It has a population of 3.5 million, making it the second largest city in the EU after London.
And its metro area has a population of 5,871,022 people.
But some of those people lie outside the borders of the city state.
Today Berlin is simply the capital of Germany but prior to 1989
the situation was not so simple.
After World War II and until 1989, Germany was a divided country with two capitals.
Bonn was the provisional capital of West Germany and East Berlin was the capital of East Germany.
West Berlin was part of West Germany but it was completely seperated
from the rest of West Germany and was completely surrounded by East German territory.
Beginning in 1961, West Berlin was enclosed by the Berlin Wall.
The wall divided the city until 1989 when it was torn down during
mass civil unrest and signal to the end of the communist regime in East Germany.
For more than four decades, East Germany was under communist rule
while West Germany was busy building a free market economy.
Since the reunification of Germany in 1990
the two areas have mostly been successfully reintegrated
but there are still some lingering effects of the division.
For example, there is a lower percentage of young people living in the former areas of East Germany.
That's because after the reunification educated young people left East Germany
and went to the more economically developed West German areas
and still to this day the average income in the former East German areas is lower
than the average income in the former West German areas.
It is only about 3/4 of the average income in the former West German areas.
The language of Germany is of course German.
There is the Standard German language but Germany also has a number of distinct dialect
some of which, for example, Low German in the north are different enough
to be considered seperate languages.
For more information about German and its dialects,
check out my video on the Langfocus channel right here.
If you visit Germany you will likely hear some foreign languages as well.
That's because Germany is the second biggest destination for migrants
in the world, after the United States. Around 16 million people in Germany are of
foreign or immigrant descent. That's around 20 % of the population.
This proportion of foreign or immigrant residents will likely increase
in the coming years as Germany accepts more migrants and refugees from the Middle East.
Around 7 million of the 16 million people are non-citizens.
The biggest group amongst them are Turkish people.
Many were brought to Germany as guest works to work in factories short-term
but ended up staying long-term in the country.
About 61 % of Germany's population is Christian
that includes 29.5 % practising Roman Catholicism
and 27.9 % practising a form of Protestant Evangelicalism
and 3.3 % practise other forms of Christianity.
34 % of the country are non-religious and about 5 % of the country are Muslims.
That's the number which has been increasing due to quite large scale Muslim immigration.
Germany is an economic powerhouse which produces world-famous automobiles like
BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. Clothing from companies like Adidas and Puma.
Beer from companies like Beck's brewery and industrial machines used all around the world.
Chances are that you use German products every day without even realizing it.
This German ingenuity is nothing new and steps all the way back to German composers
like Bach and Beethoven whose influence is boundless.
Thank you for watching the GEOfocus channel.
If you have any additional information about Germany that you want to share
then please share it in the comments down below and also be sure
to subscribe to GEOfocus and Langfocus.
And check out my Patreon page if you think that my content is valuable.
Thank you for watching and have a nice day.