🇩🇪 Hamburg, officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is the second-largest city in Germany after Berlin. The city lies on the River Elbe and two of its tributaries, the River Alster and the River Bille. Hamburg is one of Germany's 16 federated states.
The official name reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League and a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Before the 1871 unification of Germany, it was a fully sovereign city state, and before 1919 formed a civic republic headed constitutionally by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten. Beset by disasters such as the Great Fire of Hamburg, North Sea flood of 1962 and military conflicts including World War II bombing raids, the city has managed to recover and emerge wealthier after each catastrophe.
Hamburg is Europe's third largest port, after Rotterdam and Antwerp. Major regional broadcaster NDR, the printing and publishing firm Gruner + Jahr and the newspapers Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are based in the city. Hamburg is the seat of Germany's oldest stock exchange and the world's oldest merchant bank, Berenberg Bank. Media, commercial, logistical, and industrial firms with significant locations in the city include multinationals Airbus, Blohm + Voss, Aurubis, Beiersdorf, and Unilever. Hamburg is also a major European science, research, and education hub, with several universities and institutions. The city enjoys a very high quality of living, being ranked 19th in the 2019 Mercer Quality of Living Survey.
Hamburg hosts specialists in world economics and international law, including consular and diplomatic missions as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the EU-LAC Foundation, and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, multipartite international political conferences and summits such as Europe and China and the G20. Both former German chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Angela Merkel were born in Hamburg.
Hamburg is a major international and domestic tourist destination. The Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 2015. Hamburg's rivers and canals are crossed by around 2,500 bridges, making it the city with the highest number of bridges in Europe. Aside from its rich architectural heritage, the city is also home to notable cultural venues such as the Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle concert halls. It gave birth to movements like Hamburger Schule and paved the way for bands including the Beatles. Hamburg is also known for several theatres and a variety of musical shows. St. Pauli's Reeperbahn is among the best-known European entertainment districts.
1Geography Hamburg is at a sheltered natural harbour on the southern fanning-out of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the northeast. It is on the River Elbe at its confluence with the Alster and Bille. The city centre is around the Binnenalster ("Inner Alster") and Außenalster ("Outer Alster"), both formed by damming the River Alster to create lakes. The islands of Neuwerk, Scharhörn, and Nigehörn, 100 km (60 mi) away in the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park, are also part of the city of Hamburg.
The neighborhoods of Neuenfelde, Cranz, Francop and Finkenwerder are part of the Altes Land (old land) region, the largest contiguous fruit-producing region in Central Europe. Neugraben-Fischbek has Hamburg's highest elevation, the Hasselbrack at 116.2 metres (381 ft) AMSL. Hamburg borders the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony.
1Economy The gross domestic product (GDP) of Hamburg was 119.0 billion € in 2018, accounting for 3.6% of German economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €59,600 or 197% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 132% of the EU average. The city has a relatively high employment rate, at 88 percent of the working-age population, employed in over 160,000 businesses. The median gross salary in 2021 was €47,544, which is 9.29% higher than the median gross salary in Germany overall.
1Banking Hamburg has for centuries been a commercial centre of Northern Europe, and is the most important banking city of Northern Germany. The city is the seat of Germany's oldest bank, the Berenberg Bank, M.M.Warburg & CO and Hamburg Commercial Bank. The Hamburg Stock Exchange is the oldest of its kind in Germany.
1Transport: Port The most significant economic unit is the Port of Hamburg, which ranks third to Rotterdam and Antwerpen in Europe and 17th-largest worldwide with transshipments of 8.9 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of cargo and 138.2 million tons of goods in 2016. International trade is also the reason for the large number of consulates in the city. Although situated 110 km (70 mi) up the Elbe, it is considered a sea port due to its ability to handle large ocean-going vessels.
1Industrial production Heavy industry of Hamburg includes the making of steel, aluminium, copper and various large shipyards such as Blohm + Voss. Hamburg, along with Seattle and Toulouse, is an important location of the civil aerospace industry. Airbus, which operates the Hamburg-Finkenwerder assembly plant in Finkenwerder, employs over 13,000 people.
1HafenCity The HafenCity is Europe's largest urban development project and is located in the Hamburg-Mitte district. It consists of the area of the Great Grasbrook, the northern part of the former Elbe island Grasbrook, and the warehouse district on the former Elbe island Kehrwieder and Wandrahm. It is bordered to the north, separated by the customs channel to Hamburg's city centre, west and south by the Elbe and to the east, bounded by the upper harbor, Rothenburgsort. The district is full of rivers and streams and is surrounded by channels, and has a total area of about 2.2 square-kilometers.
HafenCity has 155 hectares in the area formerly belonging to the free port north of the Great Grasbrook. Residential units for up to 12,000 people are planned to be built on the site by around the mid-2020s, and jobs for up to 40,000 people, mainly in the office sector, should be created. It is the largest ongoing urban development project in Hamburg.
Construction work started in 2003, and in 2009 the first part of the urban development project was finished with the completion of the Dalmannkai / Sandtorkai neighborhood – which is the first stage of the HafenCity project. According to the person responsible for the development and commercialization of HafenCity, HafenCity Hamburg GmbH, half of the master plan underlying structural construction is already completed, whereas the other half is either under construction or is in the construction preparation stages.
1Tourist Industry In 2017, more than 6,783,000 visitors with 13,822,000 overnight stays visited the city. The tourism sector employs more than 175,000 people full-time and brings in revenue of almost €9 billion, making the tourism industry a major economic force in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Hamburg has one of the fastest-growing tourism industries in Germany. From 2001 to 2007, the overnight stays in the city increased by 55.2% (Berlin +52.7%, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern +33%).
A typical Hamburg visit includes a tour of the city hall and the grand church St. Michaelis (called the Michel), and visiting the old warehouse district (Speicherstadt) and the harbour promenade (Landungsbrücken). Sightseeing buses connect these points of interest. As Hamburg is one of the world's largest harbours many visitors take one of the harbour and/or canal boat tours (Große Hafenrundfahrt, Fleetfahrt) which start from the Landungsbrücken. Major destinations also include museums.
The area of Reeperbahn in the quarter St. Pauli is Europe's largest red light district and home of strip clubs, brothels, bars and nightclubs. The singer and actor Hans Albers is strongly associated with St. Pauli, and wrote the neighbourhood's unofficial anthem, "Auf der Reeperbahn Nachts um Halb Eins" ("On the Reeperbahn at Half Past Midnight") in the 1940s. The Beatles had stints on the Reeperbahn early in their careers. Others prefer the laid-back neighbourhood Schanze with its street cafés, or a barbecue on one of the beaches along the river Elbe. Hamburg's famous zoo, the Tierpark Hagenbeck, was founded in 1907 by Carl Hagenbeck as the first zoo with moated, barless enclosures.
In 2016, the average visitor spent two nights in Hamburg. The majority of visitors come from Germany. Most foreigners are European, especially from Denmark (395,681 overnight stays), the United Kingdom (301,000 overnight stays), Switzerland (340,156 overnight stays), Austria (about 252,397 overnight stays) and the Netherlands (about 182,610 overnight stays). The largest group from outside Europe comes from the United States (206,614 overnight stays).
The Queen Mary 2 has docked regularly since 2004, and there were six departures planned from 2010 onwards.
1Creative industries Media businesses employ over 70,000 people. The Norddeutscher Rundfunk which includes the television station NDR Fernsehen is based in Hamburg, including the very popular news program Tagesschau, as are the commercial television station Hamburg 1, the Christian television station Bibel TV and the civil media outlet Tide TV. There are regional radio stations such as Radio Hamburg. Some of Germany's largest publishing companies, Axel Springer AG, Gruner + Jahr, Bauer Media Group are located in the city. Many national newspapers and magazines such as Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are produced in Hamburg, as well as some special-interest newspapers such as Financial Times Deutschland. Hamburger Abendblatt and Hamburger Morgenpost are daily regional newspapers with a large circulation. There are music publishers, such as Warner Bros. Records Germany, and ICT firms such as Adobe Systems and Google Germany.
A total of about 2,000 companies are located in Hamburg that are active in the music industry. With over 17,000 employees and a gross value added of around 640 million euros, this industry is one of the strongest in the city. The Interessengemeinschaft Hamburger Musikwirtschaft and the Clubkombinat represent the companies in the industry. The interests of Hamburg musicians* are represented, for example, by RockCity Hamburg e.V.
Hamburg was one of the locations for the James Bond series film Tomorrow Never Dies. The Reeperbahn has been the location for many scenes, including the 1994 Beatles film Backbeat. The film A Most Wanted Man was set in and filmed in Hamburg. Hamburg was also shown in An American Tail where Fievel Mousekewitz and his family immigrate to America in the hopes to escape cats.
1Health Hamburg has 54 hospitals. The University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, with about 1,736 beds, houses a large medical school. There are also smaller private hospitals. On 1 January 2011 there were about 12,507 hospital beds. The city had 5,663 physicians in private practice and 456 pharmacies in 2010.
1Education Nineteen universities are located in Hamburg, with about 100,589 university students in total, including 9,000 resident students. Six universities are public, including the largest, the University of Hamburg (Universität Hamburg) with the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, the University of Music and Theatre, the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, the HafenCity University Hamburg and the Hamburg University of Technology. Seven universities are private, like the Bucerius Law School, the Kühne Logistics University and the HSBA Hamburg School of Business Administration. The city has also smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions, such as the Helmut Schmidt University (formerly the University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg). Hamburg is home to one of the oldest international schools in Germany, the International School of Hamburg.
1Hamburg is rated Beta + by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) which evaluates and ranks the relationships between world cities in the context of globalisation. Beta level cities are cities that link moderate economic regions to the world economy.
Hamburg is the #30 city in the world according to the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) which evaluates and ranks the competitiveness of the major financial centres of the world according to a wide range of criteria – Human Capital, Business, Finance, Infrastructure and Reputation.
Hamburg is ranked #50 by the Global Urban Competitiveness Report (GUCR) which evaluates and ranks world cities in the context of economic competitiveness. Hamburg was ranked #107 by the Nomad List which evaluates and ranks remote work hubs by cost, internet, fun and safety. Hamburg has a population of over 1,899,160 people. Hamburg also forms the centre of the wider Hamburg metropolitan area which has a population of over 5,300,000 people. Hamburg is the #282 hipster city in the world, with a hipster score of 2.8243 according to the Hipster Index which evaluates and ranks the major cities of the world according to the number of vegan eateries, coffee shops, tattoo studios, vintage boutiques, and record stores. Hamburg is ranked #64 for startups with a score of 6.897.
To set up a UBI Lab for Hamburg see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork
Twin Towns, Sister Cities Hamburg has links with:
🇳🇿 Auckland, New Zealand 🇨🇳 Changning, China 🇺🇸 Chicago, USA 🇹🇿 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 🇩🇪 Dresden, Germany 🇳🇮 León, Nicaragua 🇫🇷 Marseille, France 🇯🇵 Ōsaka, Japan 🇨🇿 Prague, Czech Republic 🇨🇳 Qingpu District, China 🇭🇷 Rijeka, Croatia 🇷🇺 Saint Petersburg, Russia 🇨🇳 Shanghai, China 🇭🇺 Tököl, Hungary 🇨🇱 Valdivia, Chile 🇦🇹 Vienna, Austria 🇯🇵 Yokohama, Japan🇩🇪 Neubrandenburg 53.558
🏴 Scunthorpe 53.592
🇩🇪 Norderstedt 10
🇩🇪 Bad Kissingen 10.067
🇩🇪 Wilhelmsburg 9.992
🇩🇪 Neumünster 9.983
🇩🇪 Hildesheim 9.951
🇨🇲 Nkongsamba 9.933
🇩🇪 Werra-Meißner 9.933
Locations Near: Hamburg 9.99304,53.55
🇩🇪 Wilhelmsburg 9.992,53.519 d: 3.4
🇩🇪 Norderstedt 10,53.7 d: 16.7
🇩🇪 Pinneberg 9.8,53.633 d: 15.8
🇩🇪 Buchholz in der Nordheide 9.867,53.317 d: 27.3
🇩🇪 Winsen (Luhe) 10.217,53.367 d: 25.2
🇩🇪 Geesthacht 10.37,53.443 d: 27.7
🇩🇪 Elmshorn 9.65,53.75 d: 31.7
🇩🇪 Bad Oldesloe 10.367,53.8 d: 37.1
🇩🇪 Bad Segeberg 10.317,53.917 d: 46
Antipodal to: Hamburg -170.007,-53.55
🇹🇴 Nuku'alofa -175.216,-21.136 d: 16383.7
🇦🇸 Pago Pago -170.701,-14.279 d: 15648
🇼🇸 Apia -171.76,-13.833 d: 15596
🇵🇫 Papeete -149.566,-17.537 d: 15638.8
🇺🇸 Hilo -155.089,19.725 d: 11742.2
🇺🇸 Maui -156.446,20.72 d: 11654.3
🇺🇸 Maui County -156.617,20.868 d: 11640.6
🇺🇸 Wailuku -156.505,20.894 d: 11636.1