metropolitan regions in Germany

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 metropolises 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, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne.

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 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):
Hamburg, Berlin, the polycentric Ruhr- Düsseldorf- Cologne region (collectively referred to as Rhine-Ruhr), Frankfurt and Munich. 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 such as business activity, human capital, information and technology exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement.
* Hamburg, for its importance in global logistics
* Berlin, for its political and cultural importance, science and technology community
* Rhine-Ruhr, for its logistics, technology and industry
* Frankfurt/ Rhine-Main, for its financial economy and human transport
* Munich, for its business, science and technology community

List

See also

*Largest European metropolitan areas
* Largest urban areas of the European Union
* Demographics of Germany
* Tourism in Germany

References

External links

Initiativkreises Europäischer Metropolregionen in Deutschland

{{Germany states

Cities in Germany
Germany
Germany geography-related lists

de:Metropolregion#In Deutschland