Hamburg

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Coat of Arms of Hamburg

Hamburg Jungfernstieg in 1895

Hamburg or full Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, in German) is a city in the North of Germany on the banks of the River Elbe, 180 km away from the North Sea.

With a population of about 1.73 million (1730000) it is the biggest German city after Berlin and the sixth largest city of the European Union. The religion is about 37 % Protestant, 10 % Catholic, 8 % Muslim, 38 % agnostic, 2% Pagan.

The area of Hamburg is 755.16 km².

Since it was an important member of the Hanseatic League, the city carries the prefix Hansestadt (Hanseatic city) in its official name. Other German cities that do the same today are: Lübeck, Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, Bremen, Greifswald and Demmin. The membership in this trade alliance has influenced the architecture of the city to a great extent. It has also left some marks in the region around the city.

Hamburg 1800

Many Italian football (soccer) fans love the city for a completely different reason. The local soccer team (Hamburger SV) managed to beat Juventus and win the European cup this way.

[edit] Economy

Hamburg's harbour is, by shipments, the second largest harbour in Europe and among the ten largest in the world. It is a very important gate to the countries along the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe.

The company Airbus has an assembly plant for large civil aircrafts in Hamburg. 30,000 people are employed in Hamburg's aircraft industries. There are only two other locations world-wide in this scale, Seattle in the United States and Toulouse in France.

About half of Germany's nation-wide newspapers and magazines are made in Hamburg. Germany's most-viewed television news Tagesschau is broadcasted from Hamburg.