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Germany is one of the world's most industrialised countries, located in the center of Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea, to the south by Austria and Switzerland, to the west by France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic.

Germany is a democratic federal parliamentary republic, containing 16 federal states (Bundesländer), which in certain spheres act independently of the Federation or "Bund".

Germany is a developed country with a very high standard of living, and it maintains a comprehensive social security, a universal health care system and diverse environmental protection laws. It is a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors.

The Federal Republic of Germany is a member state of the United Nations, NATO, the G8 nations, and a founding member of the European Union. More...

Hanseatic League

The foundations of the Hanseatic League (German: Hanse), an alliance of trading cities that for a time in the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern period maintained a trade monopoly over most of Northern Europe and the Baltic, can be seen as early as the 12th century, with the foundation of the new town of Lübeck in 1158/9 under the patronage of Henry the Lion of Saxony. Lübeck would become a central node in all the seatrade that linked the North Sea and the Baltic. There had been exploratory trading adventures, raids and piracy throughout this area— the sailors of Gotland sailed up rivers as far away as Novgorod— but there was no truly international economy before the Hanse (Braudel 1984).

Well before the term Hanse appeared in a document (1267), merchants in a given city began to form societies, or Hanse with the intention of trading with foreign cities, especially with the undeveloped Baltic, a source of timber, wax, resins, furs, even rye and wheat brought down on barges from the hinterland to port markets.

These societies worked to acquire special trade privileges for their members. For example, the merchants of Cologne (Köln) were able to convince Henry II of England to grant them special trading privileges and market rights in 1157. The Hanse creation, Lübeck, through which goods were transhipped between the North Sea and the Baltic gained the Imperial privilege of becoming an Imperial city in 1227, the only one east of the River Elbe. More ...

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Jagdschloss (hunting lodge) Moritzburg near Dresden in Saxony (1999)

Schmidt in 1977

• 01 January 2016: New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany
• 10 November 2015: Helmut Schmidt, chancellor of Germany, dies at the age of 96.
• 10 October 2015: In European migrant crisis migrants number in Germany increase up to 1.5 million in 2015.
• 5 July 2015: The Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with Chilehaus in Hamburg was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.

More Germany-related news in English can be found at Deutsche Welle, Tagesschau, and Der Spiegel.

Parents

Europe	EU	NATO

Neighbouring countries

A	B	CZ	DK	FR
LUX	NL	PL	CH

Länder

Baden- Württemberg	Bavaria	Berlin	Brandenburg	Hamburg
Hesse	Lower Saxony	Mecklenburg- Vorpommern	North Rhine- Westphalia	Rhineland- Palatinate
Saarland	Saxony	Saxony- Anhalt	Schleswig- Holstein	Thuringia

Other

East Frisia	East Germany	Eifel	Elbe Sandstone Mountains	Elbe-Weser Triangle	German Empire
German football	Harz Mountains	Holy Roman Empire	Lüneburg Heath	Military of Germany	Ore Mountains
Palatine Forest	Rhön	Silesia

• 1797 - Birth of Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany
• 1799 - Birth of astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
• 1832 - Death of writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• 1937 - Birth of athlete Armin Hary, first man to run 100 m in 10.0 s

Did you know ...

• ... that Bach used the cantata Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194, written for the inauguration of the church and organ in Störmthal (pictured), several times for Trinity Sunday?
• ... that Else Seifert worked as an onboard photographer for Hamburg Süd on its shipping routes around Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in the 1930s?
• ... that Anna Rügerin's 1484 books are the first publications known to be typeset by a woman?
• ... that the song "Ständchen" (Serenade), by Richard Strauss, begins with an appeal to creep out quietly and ends with a climax of expecting a rose to glow from the rapture of the night?
• ... that after attending the premiere, a critic wrote that Gesang der Verklärten by Max Reger (pictured) "may well reach the outermost limit of musical expression altogether"?
• ... that Nikolaus Hillebrand, who as a boy was a member of the Regensburger Domspatzen, and recorded with them as a soloist on Bach's St John Passion in 1979 and Dittersdorf's Requiem in 2009?
• ... that the River Trave was declared Germany's 2016/17 "Riverscape of the Year" by the Friends of Nature?
• ... that Max Reger's Nachtlied (Night Song) appears on the recording The Best of the King's Singers?

Germany

• Geography
  • States (Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, ...)
  • Cities (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, ...)
• History (Holy Roman Empire, Prussia, Nazi Germany, ...)
• Culture (Arts, Languages, Literature, Religion, ...)
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• Society - Politics - Science and technology
• People (Politicians, Scientists, Musicians, ...)

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