Hamburg
Type: City
Image provided by Wikimedia Commons
Image author: ©priotography
With 1.8 Million inhabitants, Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and the largest in Europe that is not a national capital. It’s located in the mouth of the Bille and the Alster in the Lower Elbe Basin. The largest port in Germany is located here. Hamburg boasts more than 60 art galleries and over 60 museums. The name derives from “Hammaburg”, which Karl the Great constructed in the year 810. Well known for its high quality of life, today Hamburg is one of three “city-states” in the FRG (Berlin and Bremen are the other two). However, even today Hamburg is extremely proud of its heritage as one of the cities of the Hanseatic League. The acronym “HH” that you see on its license plates and other insignia stands for “Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg”.