About Germany

Germany (German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany is a sovereign state in central Europe, bordered in the north by the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and Denmark, in the west by the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, in the south by Switzerland, and Austria, and in the east by Czechia, and Poland. Additionally, the country shares maritime borders with Sweden and the United Kingdom.

With an area of 357,022 km², Germany is the seventh-largest country by area in Europe, compared it is about two-thirds the size of France, or slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Montana.

Germany has a population of 83,2 million people (in 2020); the capital and largest city is Berlin, with almost 3.8 million inhabitants.

The official language is German (Standard German, German: Hochdeutsch), a variety of German dialects are spoken in specific regions. About 50 % of the Germans can speak English as a second language.
 

More about Germany


Germany's Main Geographical Regions  


Three major natural areas are making up the topography of Germany.

The North German Plain
The North German Plain (Norddeutsches Tiefland) is a widespread lowland in the northern third of the country. Within the North German Plain lies Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony with Bremen and Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, with its many glacier-formed lakes, and Berlin within Brandenburg, most of Saxony-Anhalt and parts of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony.


The Central Uplands
South of the northern lowland, there are the Central Uplands, in Germany known as Mittelgebirge. The large, fertile area of low mountains, hill ranges, and ridges covers the better part of Germany. These in parts densely wooded range of hills are found in Thuringia, Hesse, the Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Bavaria.
Those to some extent densely wooded range of hills are found in Thuringia, Hesse, the Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Bavaria. The altitudes of these low mountain ranges are between 300 m and 1493 m, which is the height of the Feldberg's central peak, the highest mountain in Germany outside the Alps, located in the Black Forest in Baden-Wurttemberg.


Alpenvorland and the Alps
The broad strip of land between the Danube and the northern edge of the Alps in Germany's southern border area is known as the Alpine Foreland (Ger.: Alpenvorland).

In the country's southern-most part are the Bavarian Alps, the northern part of the Alps that lie within Bavarian state territory. It is also the location of the highest point in Germany, the Zugspitze with 2,962 m, the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains.