There are eleven metropolitan regions in Germany consisting of the country's most densely populated cities and their catchment areas. They represent Germany's political, commercial and cultural centres. The eleven metropolitan regions in Germany were organised into political units for planning purposes. Based on a narrower definition of

metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural area for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big city b ...

es commonly used to determine the metropolitan status of a given city, only four cities in Germany surpass the threshold of at least one million inhabitants within their administrative borders:

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, and

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

. For urban centres outside metropolitan areas that are a similar focal point for their region, but on a smaller scale, the concept of the Regiopolis and the related concepts of ''regiopolitan area'' or ''regio'' were introduced by urban and regional planning professors in 2006.

Metropolitan regions

''Sorted alphabetically:'' # Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region # Central German Metropolitan Region # Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region # Hamburg Metropolitan Region # Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region # Munich Metropolitan Region # Northwest Metropolitan Region # Nuremberg Metropolitan Region # Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region # Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region (also covers the Cologne Bonn Region) # Stuttgart Metropolitan Region

Big five

The five most important regions, collectively often called the Big Five, are frequently compared with other European metropolitan regions (EMR) in terms of investment and market development. They are (from north to south):

, the polycentric Ruhr-

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

region (collectively referred to as Rhine-Ruhr),

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

and

. The Globalization and World Cities Study Group ( GaWC) considers Frankfurt and Munich as "α" (alpha) global cities, whereas the others are classified as "β" (beta) global cities. Each of them forms types of clusters and achieves varying levels of performance in areas, including business activity, human capital, information and technology exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. *

* Rhine-Ruhr *

/ Rhine-Main *

List

References

External links

Initiativkreises Europäischer Metropolregionen in Deutschland
{{Germany states Cities in Germany

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Germany geography-related lists de:Metropolregion#In Deutschland

Metropolitan regions

Big five

List

See also

References

External links