The Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, often simply referred to as Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main area or Rhine-Main area (German: ''Rhein-Main-Gebiet'', ''Frankfurt/Rhein-Main'' or ''FrankfurtRheinMain'', abbreviated FRM), is the third-largest metropolitan region in Germany after

Rhine-Ruhr The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region () is the Metropolitan regions in Germany, largest metropolitan region in Germany, with over ten million inhabitants. A wikt:polycentric, polycentric conurbation with several major urban concentrations, the reg ...

and Berlin-Brandenburg, with a total population exceeding 5.9 million. The metropolitan region is located in the central-western part of Germany, and stretches over parts of three German states:

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

, and

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. The largest cities in the region are

Frankfurt am Main 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 ...

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

, Offenbach,

Worms The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive catalogue and list of names of marine organisms. Content The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scien ...

Hanau Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its railway Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ma ...

, and

Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; Hessian: ''Aschebersch'', ) is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg, despite being its administrative seat, is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...

. The polycentric region is named after its core city, Frankfurt, and the two rivers

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

and Main. The Frankfurt Rhine-Main area is officially designated as a European Metropolitan region by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs and covers an area of roughly . The region is the 4th biggest by GDP in the European Union.

Subdivisions

Although Rhine-Main is considered to be a

polycentric Polycentric is an English adjective, meaning "having more than one center," derived from the Greek words ''polús'' ("many") and ''kentrikós'' ("center"). Polycentricism (or polycentricity) is the abstract noun formed from polycentric. They may r ...

metropolitan region, the economic size and political weight of the city of

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 ...

sets it into a very monocentric relation with her commuter belt. Since the early 1970s, the Frankfurt am Main metropolitan area (German: Ballungsraum Frankfurt/Rhein-Main) is defined as the area encompassing the cities of Frankfurt and Offenbach and their directly neighboring districts. The

Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt Darmstadt is one of the three of Hesse, Germany, located in the south of the state. The other two are Giessen and Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central ...

of the state of

could be seen as the next administrative division, for it lies entirely within the metropolitan region and further includes the cities of

and

along with a number of larger districts. Only on a level further, the metropolitan region also includes the cities and districts of

and

in the two adjoining federal states of

and

Metropolitan region and larger urban zones

Eurostat's 'Urban Audit' splits the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region into four

Larger Urban Zones The functional urban area (FUA), previously known as larger urban zone (LUZ), is a measure of the population and expanse of metropolitan and surrounding areas which may or may not be exclusively urban. It consists of a city and its commuting zo ...

(LUZ). These zones do exclude a number of districts in the metropolitan area.

Cities and districts

Economy

With its central location in southwestern Germany, the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region has been an important industrial and transport center since industrialization began in the mid-19th century. The region is a major financial center of both Germany and Europe, with the

European Central Bank The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central component of the Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's Big Four (banking)#International ...

headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. In 2018, about 7.9% of Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) was generated in the region, as well as over three-fourths of the state of Hesse's GDP. In addition to banking and finance, the

chemical industry The chemical industry comprises the companies and other organizations that develop and produce industrial, specialty and other chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, the chemical industry converts raw materials ( oil, natural gas, air, ...

has had a long established presence in the metropolitan region, with the ''Industriepark Höchst'' (Höchst Industrial Park) in the southwestern outskirts of Frankfurt am Main being one of the largest industrial parks in Germany and host to over 90 chemical, pharmaceutical and healthcare firms. Other such firms like

Boehringer Ingelheim C.H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Co. is the parent company of the Boehringer Ingelheim group, which was founded in 1885 by Albert Boehringer (1861–1939) in Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany. As of 2018, Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's List of la ...

Merck Group The Merck Group, branded and commonly known as Merck, is a German Multinational corporation, multinational science and technology company headquartered in Darmstadt, with about 60,000 employees and a presence in 66 countries. The group include ...

, Biontech, Fresenius and Fresenius Medical Care are spread all over the Rhine-Main area. The automobile, construction, and real estate sectors also contribute to a significant sector of the regional economy, with the latter two accounting for 18% of the GDP.''Bau- und Immobilienstudie'' (Construction and Real Estate Study)
IHK-Forum Rhein-Main. (in German) Darmstadt and Wiesbaden are the site of headquarters and major offices for insurance firms. AirportFrankfurt terminal1

Geographically situated in the middle of the European continent, Frankfurt Rhine-Main is one of the largest logistics hubs in the world, with major connections provided by

Frankfurt Airport Frankfurt Airport ( ) , is Germany's busiest international airport by passenger numbers, located in Frankfurt, Germany's fifth-largest city. Its official name according to the German Aeronautical Information Publication is Frankfurt Main Airpor ...

, Germany's and one of the world's busiest air hubs, and an extensive road and rail system. The

Frankfurter Kreuz The Frankfurter Kreuz (''Frankfurt Junction'') is an Autobahn interchange in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where the autobahns A3 and A5 meet. The interchange was originally to be built from 1931 to 1933, but due to World War II construction was ...

and Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof are among the busiest road and rail interchanges in Europe respectively. Other major rail stations include

, Frankfurt Süd, and

Transport

The growth of the area is chiefly to be traced to the favorable communications that promoted an early industrialization. Today, however, the importance of industrial concerns has to a great extent been replaced by banking, trade and logistics. Frankfurt lies within the populous

Blue Banana The Blue Banana (; ; ; ), also known as the European Megalopolis or the Liverpool–Milan Axis, is a discontinuous corridor of urbanization in Western and Central Europe, with a population of around 100 million. Over time, the region has bee ...

region of Europe, which here runs along the Rhine valley, and the city is also a stepping stone from and to various parts of Switzerland and

Southern Germany Southern Germany (, ) is a region of Germany that includes the areas in which Upper German dialects are spoken, which includes the stem duchies of Bavaria and Swabia in present-day Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and the southern portion of Hesse ...

. The Rhine-Ruhr is accessible via a one-hour trip on the

Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line The Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line () is a high-speed line in Germany, connecting the cities of Cologne and Frankfurt. Its route follows the Bundesautobahn 3 for the greater part, and currently the travel time is about 62 minutes. Th ...

, and the air route Frankfurt–Berlin is the busiest in German domestic air travel.

is the busiest airport by passenger traffic in Germany and one of the three busiest airports in Europe. Thereby, along with a strong railway connection, the area also serves as a major transportation hub.

Education

The Frankfurt/Rhine-Main metropolitan region is home to five universities and over 20 partly postgraduate colleges, with a total of over 200,000 students. The region's three

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

research universities A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of knowledge production", along with "intergenerational knowledge transfer and the ...

, the *

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

* Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz * TU Darmstadt make up the Rhine Main Universities alliance. Private universities in the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main metropolitan region are * EBS University of Business and Law * Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Notable colleges and universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen) include: * Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences * Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences *

RheinMain University of Applied Sciences The RheinMain University of Applied Sciences (German language, German: ''Hochschule RheinMain''), formerly University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden (German language, German: ''Fachhochschule Wiesbaden''), is a university located in Wiesbaden, ...

* Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts *

Städelschule The Städelschule, full name Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from around 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 ...

* University of Applied Sciences, Mainz * Catholic University of Applied Sciences, Mainz

Gallery

Image:FFM HBF Frankfurt.jpg,

is the most important city of the Rhein-Main area Image:Assmannshausen Hoellenberg.jpg,

Rheingau The Rheingau (; ) is a region on the northern side of the Rhine between the German towns of Wiesbaden and Lorch, Hesse, Lorch near Frankfurt, reaching from the Western Taunus to the Rhine. It is situated in the German state of Hesse and is part ...

Image:Mainz altstadt.jpg, Old town of

Image:Aschaffenburg Schloss Johannisburg.jpg, Castle of Johannisburg in

Image:Goldschmiedehaus Hanau.jpg, German House of Goldsmiths in

Image:Nierstein Luftbild 098.jpg,

Rhenish Hesse Rhenish Hesse or Rhine HesseDickinson, Robert E (1964). ''Germany: A regional and economic geography'' (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 542. . (, ) is a region and a former government district () in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is ...

Image:Albin-Müller-Becken mit Hochzeitsturm und Russischer Kapelle - panoramio.jpg, Darmstadt Artists' Colony Image:20206021 Michelstadt-14.tif, Town Hall of

Michelstadt Michelstadt () in the Odenwald is a town in the Odenwaldkreis (district) in southern Hesse, Germany between Darmstadt and Heidelberg. It has a population of 28,629 people. Geography Location Michelstadt is the biggest town in the Odenwaldkre ...

References

External links

Planungsverband Ballungsraum Frankfurt/Rhein-Main ''Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Conurbation Planning Association''Frankfurt International AirportRhein-Main Metropolitan TransitFrankfurt Economic SupportFrankfurt/Rhein-Main 2020 – the European metropolitan regionOne region - Boundless possibilities

Regionalpark Rhein-Main
{{Authority control Geography of Frankfurt Geography of Wiesbaden Geography of Mainz

Geography of Hesse Geography of Rhineland-Palatinate