Hamburg (German pronunciation: [ˈhambʊʁk]; Low Saxon: Hamborg, ['haˑmbɔːχ]) is the second largest city in Germany and with Hamburg Harbour, its principal port, Hamburg is also the second largest port city in Europe, no. 9 in the world-ranking of ports and the largest city in the European Union which is not a national capital. A large part of the port is a fenced-in duty-free area.
The official name Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; Low Saxon: Free un Hansestadt Hamborg) refers to Hamburg's membership in the medieval Hanseatic League and the fact that Hamburg is a City State and one of the sixteen Federal States of Germany.
Hamburg is situated on the southern tip of Jutland Peninsula, geographically centred (a) between Continental Europe and Scandinavia and (b) between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The city of Hamburg lies at the junction of the river Elbe with the rivers Alster and Bille and the city centre is beautifully set around two lakes, the Binnenalster ('Inner Alster') and the Aussenalster ('Outer Alster').
Hamburg is an international trade city and one of the commercial and cultural centres of Northern Germany.
Politics and administrationThe Brgerschaft (City Assembly) is the parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which is elected by the citizens of Hamburg every four years.
The Erster Brgermeister (First Mayor with first in the sense of primus inter pares, first among equals) is head of the senate (which forms the executive branch of government) and gets elected by the city assembly and is thus head of the city state. The current mayor is Ole von Beust (see also List of mayors of Hamburg). He is, after Klaus Wowereit in Berlin, the second openly homosexual mayor of a city in Germany.
The state and administrative city cover 750 km with 1.8 million inhabitants, while another 0.8 million live in neighboring urban areas. The Greater Hamburg Metropolitan Region (Metropolregion Hamburg) includes some districts in the adjacent federal states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony and covers an area of 18,100 km with a population of just over 4 million.
Hamburg is organised into seven districts (Bezirke) comprising 104 neighbourhoods (Stadtteile):
Three small islands in the North Sea also belong to the City State of Hamburg: Neuwerk, Scharhrn and Nigehrn.
February 29, 2004 state electionOle von Beust was able to form a majority CDU government without the support of partners. His former coalition partners FDP, Offensive and Ronald Schill, who split with several friends from the Offensive, failed to return to the Brgerschaft.
The most significant economic basis for Hamburg is the harbour, which ranks 2nd in Europe and 9th worldwide with transshipments of 9 million standard container units (TEU) and 115 million tons of goods in 2004. International trade is also the reason for the large number of consulates in the city. Although situated 90 kilometres up the Elbe, due to its ability to handle sea ships it is considered a sea harbour.
Hamburg follows third after Seattle and Toulouse in the list of the most important locations of the civil aerospace industry worldwide. Airbus, which has one of its two assembly plants in Hamburg, and related companies employ over 30,000 people in or near the city.
Other important industries are media businesses, most notably three of Germany's largest publishing companies, Axel Springer AG, Gruner + Jahr and Heinrich Bauer Verlag. About half of Germany's national newspapers and magazines are produced in Hamburg. There are also a number of music companies (the largest being Warner Music Germany) and Internet businesses (e.g. AOL, Adobe Systems and Google Germany).
Heavy industry includes the making of steel, aluminium and Europe's largest copper plant [1], and a number of shipyards like Blohm + Voss [2].
Hamburg is a very wealthy city. Hamburg is the second wealthiest city of the European Union after London, in average income and has also the third most dollar millionaires in Europe.
TransportHamburg is connected by four Autobahnen (motorways) and is the most important railway junction on the route to Northern Europe. Hamburg Airport is the oldest airport in Germany still in operation. There is also the smaller Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport.
Hamburg's licence plate prefix is 'HH' (Hansestadt Hamburg, English: Hanseatic City of Hamburg), rather than just the single-letter normally used for large cities. The prefix 'H' is used in Hanover instead.
As in most larger German cities, public transport is organised by a fare-collection joint venture between transportation companies. Tickets sold by one member company in this Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (HVV) are valid on all other HVV companies' services.
Nine mass transit routes across the city are the backbone of Hamburg public transport. Three lines comprise the U-Bahn and six the S-Bahn system. U-Bahn is short for Untergrundbahn (underground railway). Approximately 41km of 101 km of the U-Bahn is underground; most of the U-Bahn tracks are on embankments or viaducts or at ground level. Older residents still speak of the system as the Hochbahn ('elevated railway'). The Hamburg S-Bahn has a total length of 115.2km (8km single-track, 10km underground) with 59 stations, of which 10 are underground. A light rail system, the AKN, connects to satellite towns in Schleswig-Holstein. Gaps in the mass-transit network are filled by bus routes, plied by single-deck, two-, three- and four-axle diesel buses. Hamburg has no trams or trolley-buses, but has hydrogen fuelled buses operating pilot services.
Finally, regional trains of Germany's major railway company Deutsche Bahn AG and the regional Metronom trains may be used with a HVV public transport ticket, too. Except at the three bigger stations in the centre of Hamburg, the regional trains hardly stop again inside the area of the city.
A 24-hour bus network operates as frequently as every 2 minutes on busy routes (30 minutes in suburban areas). There are six ferry lines along the river Elbe, operated by the HADAG company. While mainly needed by Hamburg citizens and dock workers, they can also be used for sightseeing tours at the (relatively) low fees of a HVV public transport ticket.
Buildings Bridges and tunnelsHamburg has a number of prominent buildings from the past and present. Speicherstadt,
The many canals in Hamburg are crossed by over 2300 bridges — more than Amsterdam (1200) and Venice (400) combined.
The skyline of Hamburg features the high spires of the five principal churches (Hauptkirchen) covered with green copper plates.
Other churches are also visible in the inner city:
Classical:
Famous Composers:
Contemporary: Hamburg is known for giving the Beatles a start in their musical career in the early 1960s. They played at the Indra, the Kaiserkeller, the Top Ten Club, and the Star-Club, which was located in the district St. Pauli near the perhaps most famous street of Hamburg, the Reeperbahn.
Sascha Konietzko the frontman and founder of KMFDM is from Hamburg and visits reguarly.
More recently it is known for some of the most popular German hip hop acts, such as Fnf Sterne deluxe, Samy Deluxe, Beginner and Fettes Brot. There is also a quite big alternative and punk scene which gathers around the Rote Flora, an occupied former theatre located in the district of Sternschanze. Some of the musicians of the famous electronic band Kraftwerk also came from Hamburg.
Hamburg is also famous for an original kind of German alternative music called Hamburger Schule ('Hamburg School'), a term used for bands like Die Sterne, Tocotronic, Blumfeld and Tomte.
Hamburg was one of the major centres of the heavy metal music world in the 1980's. Many bands such as Helloween, Running Wild and Grave Digger got their start in Hamburg. The influences of these bands and other bands from the area were critical to establishing the subgenre of Power metal.
Hamburg is also one of the most important global centres for psychedelic trance music. It is home to many record labels such as Spirit Zone, Mushroom Magazine, the world's best known and longest running psy-trance magazine, as well as many parties, club nights. During the summer people from all over the world flock to the countryside surrounding Hamburg to attend massive festivals such as Voov Experience,Shiva Moon,Tshitraka and Fusion Festival.
Since the German premiere of Cats in 1985 there are always a number of musicals being played in the city. Among them have been Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King or Dirty Dancing ( before there was Dance of the Vampires). This density, which is the highest in Germany, is partly due to Germany's major musical production company Stage Entertainment being located in Hamburg. One of the musical theatres is a large tent in the harbour, guests either arrive by boat or through the historic Old Elbe Tunnel.
Hamburg was one city to take part in the Complaints Choir project. Meg Weymes is also a celebrity from Hamburg
MuseumsCurrently Hamburg has 79 Museums. Famous and popular ones include:
Although Hamburg is jokingly said to be the birthplace of the Hamburger, this might just be a myth. But the beef patties a German immigrant from Hamburg sold in the 1850s in New York allegedly were named after that Hamburgian butcher and then became a generic term, so the myth goes.
Original Hamburg dishes are Bohnen, Birnen und Speck (Low Saxon Bohn, Peern un Speck, green runner beans cooked with pears and bacon), Aalsuppe (Low Saxon Oolsupp, often mistaken to be German for 'eel soup' (Aal/Ool ‘eel’), however the name probably comes from the Low Saxon allns [ʔaˑlns], meaning “all”, “everything and the kitchen sink”, not necessarily eel. Today eel is often included to meet the expectations of unsuspecting diners.), Bratkartoffeln (Low Saxon Brootkartffeln, pan-fried potato slices), Finkenwerder Scholle (Low Saxon Finkwarder Scholl, pan-fried plaice), Pannfisch (pan-fried fish), Rote Grtze (Low Saxon Rode Grtt, related to Danish rdgrd, a type of summer pudding made mostly from berries and usually served with cream, like Danish rdgrd med flde) and Labskaus (a mixture of corned beef, mashed potatoes and beet root, a cousin of the Norwegian lapskaus and Liverpool's lobscouse, all offshoots off an old-time one-pot meal that used to be the main component of the common sailor’s humdrum diet on the high seas).
Hamburg is the birthplace of Alsterwasser (a reference to the city’s river Alster with two lake-like bodies in the city centre thanks to damming), a type of shandy, a concoction of equal parts of beer and carbonated lemonade (Zitronenlimonade), the lemonade being added to the beer. Hamburg is also home to a curious regional pastry called Franzbrtchen. Looking rather like a flattened croissant, the Franzbrtchen is somewhat similar in preparation but includes a cinnamon and sugar filling, often with raisins or brown sugar streusel. The name may also reflect to the roll's croissant-like appearance -- franz appears to be a shortening of franzsisch, meaning 'French,' which would make a Franzbrtchen a “french roll.” Being a Hamburg regional food, the Franzbrtchen becomes quite scarce outside the borders of the city; as near as Lunenburg (Lneburg) it can only be found as a Hamburger and is not to be had in Bremen at all.
Ordinary bread rolls—without which a leisurely weekend breakfast in Hamburg is unimaginable—tend to be oval-shaped and of the French bread variety. The local name is Rundstck (“round piece” rather than mainstream German Brtchen, diminutive form of Brot “bread”), a relative of Denmark’s rundstykke. In fact, while by no means identical, the cuisines of Hamburg and Denmark, especially of Copenhagen have a lot in common. This also includes a predilection for open-faced sandwiches of all sorts, especially topped with cold-smoked or pickled fish. The American hamburger seems to have developed from Hamburg’s Frikadelle (or Frikandelle): a pan-fried patty (usually larger and thicker than the American counterpart) made from a mixture of ground beef, soaked stale bread, egg, chopped onion, salt and pepper, usually served with potatoes and vegetables like any other piece of meat, not usually on a bun. (Many Hamburgers consider their Frikadelle and the American hamburger different, virtually unrelated “creatures.”)
SportsThe most popular sports team in Hamburg is Hamburger SV (which has played in the group stages of the Champions League twice in season 2000/2001 and just recently in the current season of 2006/2007), a football team in the Bundesliga. They play at the AOL Arena, as do the Hamburg Sea Devils, an American football team of NFL Europe. The Hamburg Blue Devils are another American football team in Hamburg, which plays in the domestic German Football League. The Hamburg Freezers represent Hamburg in the DEL, the highest ice hockey league in Germany. The HSV Handball represents Hamburg in the German handball league. Both teams play in the ultra-modern Color Line Arena. Additionally FC St. Pauli is a highly regarded third division (formerly Bundesliga) football club with a large fan base. They play at the Millerntor-Stadion. Hamburg is the nation's hockey capital and dominates the men's as well as the women's Bundesliga with teams like Der Club an der Alster, Groflottbeker THGC, Harvestehuder THC, Klipper THC or Uhlenhorster HC. There are also several minority sports clubs, suprisingly Hamburg has two cricket clubs, Alster CC and HSV Cricket.
Demographics70% of inhabitants are German; 30% belong to other groups (mostly Turkish, Afghan, Russian and Polish).
Religion38% of inhabitants are Protestant, 10% Catholic, and 8% Muslim, while 40% have no religion.
LanguageAs elsewhere in Northern Germany, the original language of Hamburg is Low Saxon, usually referred to as Hamborger Platt (German Hamburger Platt) or Hamborgsch. It is still in use, albeit by a minority and rarely in public, probably due to a hostile climate between World War II and the early 1980s. Since large-scale Germanisation beginning in earnest with in the 18th century, various Low German-coloured dialects have developed (contact-varieties of German on Low Saxon substrates). Originally, there was a range of such Missingsch varieties, best known being the low-prestige ones of the working classes and the somewhat more “posh” bourgeois Hanseatendeutsch. All of these are now moribund due to the influences of “proper” German propagated by education and media, perhaps also because of gradual erosion of the erstwhile independent spirit and local pride of Hamburg’s population.
In addition, immigration brought numerous dialects from all over the German-speaking world used to Hamburg, also a large number of foreign language communities. Hamburg has a sizeable population of Sinti and Roma (“Gypsy”) people, some of them sedentary (mostly Sinti) and some of them nomadic or semi-nomadic (mostly Roma), camp grounds being set aside by the state and municipal governments. Hamburg is thus one of the few locations in the world in which both Sinti and Romany are spoken, and it is also one of the major headquarters of international Roma organisations.
Education UniversitiesCurrently, up to 27 institutions of tertiary education are located in Hamburg:
Hamburg was generally not considered to be a tourist magnet, not even by locals. Nevertheless, tourism plays a significant role in the city's economy, and according to the magazine Travelhouse Media even two of the most visited sites in Germany are located here: the harbour (8 million visitors per year) and the Reeperbahn (4 million), compared to famous sites like the Cathedral in Cologne (6 million) or the castle Neuschwanstein (200,000) unexpected high numbers to most people. Hamburg has the fastest growing tourism industry in Germany (2005 and 2006 approx. 15%) and will most probably reach rank 10 of Europe's most visited tourist destinations by 2008.
Hamburg is best visited in spring or summer. 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 (Landungsbrcken). Sightseeing buses connect these points of interest. Of course, a visit in one of the world's largest harbours would be incomplete without having taken one of the harbour and/or canal boat tours (Groe Hafenrundfahrt, Fleetfahrt) which start from the Landungsbrcken. Many visitors take a walk in the evening around the area of Reeperbahn, considered Europe's second largest red light district and home of many theatres, bars and night clubs. It was in the Reeperbahn that The Beatles began their career with a three month residency in 1960. Others prefer the laidback Schanze district with its street cafs or a barbecue on one of the beaches along the river Elbe. And not to forget: Hamburg's famous Hagenbeck's Tierpark (Zoo) with the great artificial rock and the first moated, barless enclosures ever to be built (1907). A friend of Hagenbeck's, the illustrator Heinrich Leutemann made some illustrations here.
Quite common is a tour through Northern Germany with Hamburg as a starting point or stop-over.
However, most people visit Hamburg because of a specific interest, notably one of the musicals, a sports event, a congress or fair. Therefore, in 2005, the average visitor spent two nights in Hamburg. The majority of visitors come from Germany (80%); most foreigners are European, especially from the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and the largest group from outside Europe comes from the U.S. An interesting footnote is the high number of rich guests from the Arabian peninsula, who seek treatment in one of Hamburg's hospitals.
Regular eventsFor the interested visitor, some events held every year:
More information: Hamburg Twin Cities (in German only)
Notable HamburgersActors like Hans Albers, the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld composers including Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, writers and publishers Rudolf Augstein, Marion Dnhoff, Chancellors of Germany Angela Merkel and Helmut Schmidt, scientists Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, Sportsmen Max Schmeling and Uwe Seeler as well as some important business people like Paul Carl Beiersdorf and Kurt A. Krber.
