Geography of Germany

Large-scale location in Europe

The geography of Germany is the description of the physical condition of the national territory of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the resulting interaction between this habitat and its inhabitants.

Germany can be broadly subdivided into the German waters and islands of the North Sea and Baltic Sea , the North German lowlands , the mountains of the low mountain range , the south-west German layer country , the Alpine foothills and the Alps . The glaciers of the last glacial period were essential for the geomorphology of the country . They determined the present-day properties of many lakes, rivers and the soil in a variety of ways.

The differentiated economy of Germany has in the course of history formed regional focal points, which were not insignificantly promoted by geographical factors. The reasons for today's uneven population distribution are also an issue that is being studied in human geography .

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Germany's landscapes

physical geography

geology

→ Main article : Geology of Germany

Simplified map of the surface geology of Germany

On the basis of the surface geology, Germany can be divided into four major regions in a simplified manner: The north, which was shaped by the Ice Age and extends from the coast to the Mittelland Canal, the Middle Elbe and the Upper Lusatia, the low mountain range ( Rump Mountains ), the southern part, which is more strongly influenced by the long-distance effects of the formation of the Alps to the edge of the Alps and in the extreme south the German Alps. Compared to the other regions mentioned, the Alps have only a very small share of the German national territory.

The north is geologically relatively monotonous and covered over a large area by glacial and meltwater sediments of the Quaternary . Typically include sandy loose sediments and boulders leading moraine , some with multiple-ton boulders . The pebbles and partly also the finer sediments were transported with the inland ice from Scandinavia to northern Germany during the cold periods of the Pleistocene .

Geologically, the center and south of Germany are much more varied. There are mainly rocks from the Variscan basement and the Mesozoic overburden, from which the German low mountain range has been modeled. The basement consists of Variscan (that is, in the Upper Paleozoic ) folded rocks, some of which were converted into metamorphic rocks such as gneiss , mica schist or amphibolite during the folding . Above all, these metamorphic parts of the basement are interspersed with large granite bodies which, together with the metamorphic rocks, form so-called crystalline complexes. Among other things, the Black Forest as well as the Fichtelgebirge and the Erzgebirge with the eastern Vogtland and Elstergebirge in between are largely made up of crystalline. The basement regions with de facto non-metamorphic, folded rocks such as greywacke , clay slate or “ diabase ”, in which no or only minimal granite occurs, are summarized under the term slate mountains . The Rhenish Slate Mountains (specifically Rothaar Mountains , Siegerland , Eifel , Hunsrück , Taunus ), the Harz and the Thuringian-Franconian-Vogtland Slate Mountains ( Thuringian Slate Mountains , Franconian Forest , western Vogtland) consist of such rocks. Although the Variscan mountain formation took place in the Paleozoic, the renewed prominence of the crystalline and slate mountain complexes and thus the emergence of today's surface forms, did not begin until the Tertiary and is related to the formation of the Alps.

Lightly wrinkled alternation of marine sand, silt and clay stones of the Upper Devonian ( Famenne ), so-called Condroz sandstone, Aachen (Rhenish Slate Mountains)

In the late phase of the Variscan Folding Period ( Upper Carboniferous ) the hard coal deposits of the Ruhr area, which were economically very important in the 19th and 20th centuries, formed . The coal seams and the coal-poor intermediate layers are summarized under the name Ruhr carbon . The intermediate layers represent erosion material from the Variscan high mountain system, which accumulated as an outer molasse in the so-called Variscan foreland depression. Because the Ruhr carbon as well as the coal-bearing carbon of the Aachen district, the Netherlands and Belgium were last affected by the mountain formation and overall less strongly affected, they are not directly to be seen as part of the Variscan basement and are distinguished from it as sub-variscos .

In southern Saxony-Anhalt, in northern and central Saxony and above all in the Thuringian Forest and in Rhineland-Palatinate, layers come to light that are of a similar age (Upper Carboniferous to Middle Permian) and at least partially similar to the Ruhr Carboniferous. They are largely unfolded and also represent the erosion phase of the Variscan high mountains, however, unlike the Subvarizikum, they are not deposits of a foreland basin, but so-called inner molasses. While the carbonic inner molasse is often coal-bearing, the Permian inner molasse ( Rotliegend ) is characterized by coal-free red sediments. In addition, the Rotliegend sedimentation was accompanied in many places by intense volcanism . In this regard, rhyolites ("quartz porphyries") are particularly common in the Rotliegend sequence . Carbon and Rotliegend molasses of the Innervariszischen basins are also summarized under the term Permosilesium and referred to as transition storey (transition from the basement storey to the overburden storey ).

The surface geology of Thuringia, Hesse, Franconia and Swabia is dominated by the unfolded Mesozoic overburden, especially by the sedimentary rocks of the Triassic . The triad of Central Europe north of the Alps is also called the Germanic Trias . It consists of the sequences of red sandstone , shell limestone and keuper . In Swabia and Franconia there are also large areas of Jura rocks . The layers of the southern German Upper Jura ( White Jura ), which are predominantly limestone and form the Swabian and Franconian Jura, are of particular importance . They contain, among other things, one of the most famous fossils in the world, the "primeval bird" Archeopteryx . The deposits of the Cretaceous Period are only represented in northern Germany, especially in the northern Harz foreland (Subherzyn), in the Münsterland and on Rügen , by " chalk " (ie special limestone). In the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in Saxony and in the Franconian Alb, sandstones predominate in the Cretaceous period.

The Lange Anna on Heligoland , rocks made of sediments of the red sandstone (Lower Triassic). Heligoland lies above a salt dome made of Zechstein salt, which has pushed the Triassic layers to the surface.

The Zechstein , which was deposited in the Upper Permian (i.e. still in the Paleozoic) and is therefore still stored below the Buntsandsteins, is also already included in the overburden . It is economically important primarily because of its abundant rock and potash salt deposits , among other things because of the salt domes that formed in the subsurface of northern Germany from Zechstein salt that was once horizontally stored.

The Upper Rhine Graben and the Alpine Foreland occupy a special position in southern Germany as geologically young subsidence areas with their large-scale Cenozoic sediments. There, as well as in the transition area from the North German lowlands to the low mountain ranges, not only the Quaternary but also the Tertiary deposits occur close to the surface. The Tertiary is economically important primarily because of its brown coal deposits , which are, however, only spotty developed, especially in the Rhenish brown coal district , in the Helmstedt area , in the Halle-Leipzig area and in Niederlausitz . The Tertiary and partly also the Quaternary of western, central and southern Germany also contain evidence of a second major episode of continental volcanism in Central Europe. In contrast to Rotliegend volcanism, Tertiary volcanism mainly left behind basalt and related rocks. a. cover the Vogelsberg , the Westerwald and large parts of the Rhön . The Eifel is still slightly volcanically active today, which is reflected in the occurrence of springs with very carbon dioxide-rich water ( Mofetten ), for which the Andernach geyser , the highest cold water geyser on earth at 50 to 60 meters, provides the most impressive example. With the Laacher See , the Eifel also has one of the youngest volcanoes on German territory.

The rocks of the Alps, like those of the Variscan basement, are folded, but this folding did not take place until the end of the Mesozoic Era and the Tertiary. Unlike the regions to the north of them, the Alps therefore also contain folded Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks. The German Alps are predominantly made up of limestones from the Middle and Upper Triassic (Northern Limestone Alps). These sequences are not deposited in what is now Central Europe, but were transported from the south as a tectonic cover to their current position in the course of the formation of the Alps . They are therefore differentiated as the Alpine Triassic from the Germanic Triassic.

Because Germany is not on a plate boundary , but entirely on the Eurasian plate , it is one of the regions with low earthquake activity . However, some areas in Germany are located on active fault lines and therefore experience relatively frequent earthquakes, which can sometimes be comparatively strong. This applies in particular to the Lower Rhine Rift with the Cologne Bay and the Upper Rhine Rift as well as the Vogtland.

Geomorphological classification

Germany, located in Central Europe , has several large-scale landscapes that can be broken down geomorphologically. Alternatively, the country can be broken down into large natural regions .

North and east Sea

The Halligen area around 1650

The history of the Baltic Sea is determined by the melting of the 2–3 km thick Scandinavian ice layer from the Vistula glacial period around 12,000 years ago. First the Baltic Ice Reservoir was formed , which was joined by the Yoldia Sea , the Ancylus Sea and 8000 to 8500 years ago the Littorina Sea . In an interplay of land uplift and rise in sea level, inland and inland seas alternate one after the other. Finally, the southern part of the Baltic Sea sank as a result of the uplift of Scandinavia and the coastal forms of the bays and fjord coasts (overflowed, glaciers carved depressions) and the lagoon or lagoon compensation coast (due to the addition of material, former moraines are connected by narrow land bridges) ).

The North Sea rose over the last 7,500 years counted to about 33 centimeters per century. Large areas of land have disappeared into the sea. According to Waldemar II's records, the North Frisian Islands formed an almost closed area around 1230 . Only the devastating destruction of the second Marcellus flood (1362) and the Burchardi flood ( 1634) washed away large parts of the alluvial land . The large island of Strand disintegrated , leaving the islands of Pellworm and Nordstrand , as well as the Halligen Nordstrandischmoor and Südfall . On the North Sea coast, new landscapes emerged after the last Ice Age: the Wadden Sea and the marshland .

North German Lowlands

Maximum ice edge position of the younger Vistula glacial period (red line), the Saale glacial period (yellow line) and the older Elster glacial period (blue line)

The North German Lowland is a large landscape that extends from Emden via Hanover , Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder) and is also characteristic of northwest Poland. It measures about 200 km in a north-south direction.

In the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea there are a number of lagoon areas , bodies of water separated from the open sea by headlands. In the north-east of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania there is relatively flat land. The higher areas, rich in lakes, such as the Mecklenburg Lake District and Mecklenburg Switzerland are mountain ranges with occasional mountains over a hundred meters high. In Brandenburg there are other mountain ranges and in the very south lies the first mountain over 201  m high, the Heidehöhe . The northern ridge, the Baltic ridge , was created by glacial debris deposits during the Vistula glaciation and the southern ridge, the southern ridge , during the Saale glaciation .

Instead, geest landscapes alternate with the slightly lower marshes on the North Sea coast . While the march without natural point about at sea level by gradual siltation of tidal flats has been created, the Geest landscape of the glacial series . In the eastern part of the North German Plain, there are mainly originated in the Vistula Ice Age glacial valleys , moraines and Sander , a higher relief energy have, as the costs incurred in earlier phases of the Saale ice age glazielen forms the western lowlands, which are much older and more worn. The sand deposited there can be seen, for example, in the Lieberos desert , which is around five square kilometers in size .

Low mountain range threshold and southwest German step country

Ulmener Maar , viewed from the Ulmener Burgen

The Andernach Geyser is the world's highest cold water geyser

The mountains of the low mountain threshold belong to the low mountain range with a height between 500  m and 1500  m . They are geologically characterized by the fact that after the Variscan orogeny there were repeatedly inland seas, the deposits of which were raised in the course of the Alpid orogeny and partially leveled again by the erosion .

Mountains such as the Rheinische Schiefergebirge , the Vogelsberg , the Rhön and the Sudeten had volcanic phases when they formed. In the Rhenish Slate Mountains, the Vulkaneifel is characterized by volcanic craters , mighty pumice and basalt deposits and maars . The Laacher See volcano erupted 13,000 years ago, ejecting around 5 cubic kilometers of magma in 4 to 5 days. The most recent volcanic eruption on German soil happened around 11,000 years ago in the Ulmen Maar near Ulmen . In the Vulkaneifel, carbon dioxide sources (Mofetten) are still visible today, the most impressive example of which is the Andernach geyser , the highest cold water geyser on earth at 50 to 60 meters . The Vogelsberg is the largest contiguous basalt massif in Europe and covers an area of ​​2500 km². The Lusatian Mountains in the Sudetes mainly consist of sandstone. Volcanoes repeatedly broke through this sandstone, resulting in large basalt deposits.

The formation of the Upper Rhine Plain began around 35 million years ago due to plate tectonic processes . There are many extinct volcanoes there, such as B. Kaiserstuhl , Hegau , Swabian volcano , Katzenbuckel and Pechsteinkopf . As a further consequence, the areas on both sides of the rift rose sharply, with the Black Forest and the Odenwald forming on the German side , which are part of the south-west German step country . In the places where marine deposits are exposed, lime leaching leads to underground cave formation, so-called karstification . There, the precipitation almost completely seeps away, and this leads to an arid area. The Venus vom Hohlefels , the oldest sculptural work of art of mankind was found in the Hohler Fels cave ( Swabian Alb ). It comes from the Würm glacial period .

One of the most seismically active regions lies in the border area with the Czech Republic, in the Egergraben . This runs from the Saxon Vogtland over northwestern Bohemia to the Bavarian Sechsämterland . The Egergraben is geologically comparable to the Upper Rhine Plain and is known for the swarmquakes that frequently occur there .

There are two large meteorite craters in Germany: the Nördlinger Ries and the Steinheimer Becken .

Alpine foothills and Alps

The Watzmann by Caspar David Friedrich , around 1824–1825

The Alps are the largest mountain range in Europe and are a climate and watershed. In German territory they gradually fall off to the Bavarian Alpine Foreland and the Allgäu .

The part of the Alps in Germany is one of the Northern Limestone Alps . It is largely made of limestone, which, however, was pushed over from the south. The mountain formation in the Alps, which is still going on today, is counteracted by weathering , as a result of which rock was transported northwards by glaciers in the form of moraines and rivers. The furthest ice advance took place in the Riss Ice Age (at the same time as the Saale Ice Age in Northern Germany) and the most recent foreland glaciation in the Würm Ice Age (at the same time as the Vistula Ice Age in Northern Germany). Today's Lake Constance , for example, was created as a collecting basin for the meltwater from the Rhine Glacier , which extends to today's Schaffhausen , and the Munich gravel plain is a 300-meter-thick 1,500 km² sander that was created over several cold periods .

The alpine foothills and the valleys of the Alps are known for their extensive grasslands. The region is sparsely populated and economically dependent on agriculture and tourism.

Climatic geography

Germany belongs to the moderate climate zone of Central Europe in the area of ​​the west wind zone and is located in the transition area between the maritime climate and the continental climate . The climate is influenced, among other things, by the Gulf Stream , which makes the climatic values ​​unusually mild for the latitude. Another influencing factor is the foehn , which occurs briefly in the Ore Mountains and in the Alpine foothills. The alpine foehn can lead to strong storms with top speeds of 150 km / h and can be felt as far as the Danube. In winter and spring it can lead to significant temperature increases and thus affect the snowmelt.

Extreme weather conditions such as prolonged droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, severe frosts or extreme heat occasionally occur. In 1972 Hurricane Quimburga occurred over Central and Western Europe , Hurricane Lothar in 1999 and Hurricane Kyrill in 2007 . There are regular floods that can lead to floods and considerable destruction after periods of intense rain in summer ( Oder flood 1997 , Oder flood 2010 , Elb flood 2002 , Elbe flood 2006 , flood in Central Europe 2013 ) or after the snowmelt in winter ( Rhine flood 1993 ). The fact that floods occur more frequently on the Rhine is probably due to the straightening of the Rhine carried out in the 19th century under the direction of Tulla , which largely led to the removal of the former Rhine floodplains . For a number of years, attempts have been made to defuse flooding by designating floodplain areas . Droughts mainly affect north-east Germany, but they can sometimes affect the whole country, as most recently during the heat waves in 2003 , 2018 and 2019 . Some older climatic disasters are the Thuringian flood of 1613, the Oder flood disaster in 1947 , the snow catastrophe in Northern Germany in 1978 and the storm surge in 1962 on the German North Sea coast, which claimed over 300 lives.

Climatic data for Germany from spatial individual values, combined to form averaged values ​​for the years 1961–1990.

	year	Mar-May	Jun-Aug	Sep-Nov	Dec – Feb	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
T-medium (° C)	8.4	7.8	16.5	9.1	0.9	−0.5	0.5	3.7	7.6	12.2	15.5	17.1	16.9	13.8	9.4	4.2	0.9
T-min (° C)	4.6	3.4	11.6	5.5	−2.4	−3.0	−2.5	0.0	3.0	7.3	10.6	12.3	12.0	9.3	5.7	1.6	−1.5
T-max (° C)	12.4	12.3	21.4	12.8	2.9	2.0	3.4	7.5	12.1	17.2	20.4	22.0	21.9	18.4	13.1	6.9	3.2
T distance (° C)	7.8	8.8	9.8	7.3	5.2	5.0	5.9	7.4	9.1	9.9	9.8	9.7	9.8	9.0	7.5	5.3	4.7
Frost days	103.9	27.5	0.7	16.9	58.7	21.0	19.3	16.4	9.0	2.2	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.8	4.5	11.6	18.4
Rainydays	178.2	44.0	44.3	43.0	46.8	16.6	13.4	14.9	14.3	14.9	15.1	14.8	14.4	13.6	13.5	15.9	16.8
Precipitation (mm)	700	163	221	166	150	51	40	48	51	65	77	72	71	57	50	58	59
Air pressure (hPa − 1000)	9.3	8.1	13.7	9.9	5.7	5.5	5.5	6.4	7.6	10.2	12.9	14.2	14.2	12.4	9.9	7.3	6.0
Cloud cover (%)	72.0	69.3	63.0	73.8	81.9	83.5	78.0	74.8	69.3	63.8	64.8	63.5	60.6	66.9	72.9	81.5	84.3

The Germany-wide climate funds are sometimes significantly exceeded or undercut, depending on the region. The precipitation diagram for Germany shows the regional deviations from the mean. South Baden and the Upper Rhine Plain recorded the highest annual temperatures at over 11 ° C, while in Oberstdorf the average was below 6 ° C. In addition, there is a general trend towards higher temperatures: According to the German Weather Service , in 14 of the 15 years since 1990 the average temperatures were above the long-term average of 8.3 ° C, in 2000 they even reached 9.9 ° C. The summers in particular have become significantly warmer. In addition, the arrival of spring is premature on average by five days per decade. Songbirds stay in Germany almost a month longer than they did in the 1970s. (see also: Time series of air temperature in Germany and consequences of global warming in Germany )

Rivers, lakes, coastlines and islands

Red cliff on the beach of Kampen, Sylt

The most important federal waterways are the Danube , the Rhine , the Elbe and the Oder .

Lakes are important reservoirs for drinking water, the largest natural lake is Lake Constance . The Mecklenburg Lake District with the Müritz and Chiemsee as the largest foothills of the Alps is important. Large underground groundwater reservoirs can be found in the Upper Rhine Rift, the Alpine foothills and in the northern German glacial valleys . The largest reservoir is the Bleiloch reservoir , which stores 215 million m³ of water in the Saale . The Rurtalsperre Schwammenauel with 205 million m³ of water followed by the Rur and the Edersee with 202 million m³ of water by the Eder .

In the German waters of the North Sea, for example, the Wadden Sea and the German Bight , which is up to 50 m deep, lie in the Baltic Sea, the Flensburg Fjord , the Bay of Kiel and the Bay of Mecklenburg . Large islands in the Baltic Sea are Rügen , Usedom and Fehmarn . In the North Sea are the island of Sylt , which belongs to the North Frisian Islands, and the island of Borkum, which is part of the East Frisian Islands . The German island of Helgoland does not belong to the customs area of ​​the Community and not to the German tax area.

The islands in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea serve as coastal protection for the mainland and that is why the loss of space is replaced by sand flooding . Since the Wadden Sea is a unique habitat and is of great importance for fish, plants and animals, national parks have been established. There is for example in the Baltic Sea by the Bodden species-rich brackish sea areas and wind cotton caused by the Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft National Park are protected.

Inland, islands in urban areas are often densely built up, such as the museum islands in Berlin and Munich . Tourist highlights are also islands such as Lindau , Mainau and Reichenau in Lake Constance and Herrenchiemsee and Frauenchiemsee in Chiemsee. However, islands were often removed in the course of river straightening (see list of Elbe islands ).

Mountains

Colored elevation display

German low mountain ranges are (sorted from north to south) for example the Harz , the Ore Mountains , the Fichtel Mountains , the Hunsrück and the Bavarian Forest .

The parts of the Alps that belong to Germany include the Bavarian Alps and the Adelegg , a northern branch of the Allgäu Alps in Baden-Württemberg. The highest mountains in Bavaria can be found in the Wetterstein Mountains , with the Zugspitze at 2962  m being the highest mountain in Germany. In the Berchtesgaden Alps , the highest mountain is the Watzmann , which is also the highest mountain lying completely on German territory and reaches a height of 2713  m . The Hochfrottspitze at 2649  m is located in the Allgäu Alps and the Adelegg's highest point is the Black Ridge at 1118  m .

Outside the Alps, the highest peaks are the 1493  m high Feldberg in the Black Forest, the 1455.5  m high Großer Arber in the Bavarian Forest, the 1214.6  m high Fichtelberg in the Ore Mountains and the 1141.1  m high Brocken in the Harz Mountains.

Soil geography

In Germany, the soil is assessed using the agricultural reference number , the number of arable land or the number of grassland and the general economic conditions. According to soil estimates, above-average good soils are found in the Alpine foothills, in the wine-growing areas in the southwest, in western North Rhine-Westphalia, in southern Lower Saxony and southern Saxony-Anhalt. The soils with particularly fertile loess on the southern edge of the north German lowlands , such as those of Soester Börde , Hildesheimer Börde or Magdeburg Börde , are the best. This is where the fine-grained material that was blown down by the glaciers of the Ice Age collected.

The composition and quality of the soils varies greatly from region to region. In northern Germany, a coastal belt of fertile marsh soils forms the basis for high-yield agriculture, while the geest behind it, shaped by the Ice Age, has only very poor soils. In heath like the Luneburg Heath this is by centuries of grazing for Podsol degenerated so that agriculture is hardly possible. The areas of the old and young moraine where drifting sand has accumulated are also very unproductive. Brandenburg, for example, was already ridiculed in historical times as the "holy empire sandbox".

Between the moraine landscape and the low mountain range, a series of Börde stretches from west to east : in these areas, extremely fertile soil has been created by ice age loess deposits . This consists mostly of brown earth , in the east partly also of black earth , and is used to a special extent for agriculture. In the low mountain ranges, poor soils prevail, which are only farmed extensively . By far the largest area is forested. In southern Germany, fertile soils can be found particularly along the rivers Rhine , Main and Danube .

Flora and fauna

flora

A very old English oak in the "primeval forest" on the island of Vilm in Western Pomerania .

Germany is a densely populated country and its original landscapes have been actively and indirectly modified by people through agriculture and animal husbandry for almost 7000 years. In fact, the entire current national territory has been gradually converted into a cultural landscape across the board . In relation to the degree of human influence, a distinction is made between areas emphasized by nature ( oligohemerobic ), largely left to themselves, and areas emphasized by culture ( euhemerobic ), relatively intensively used. The poorly forested Lüneburg Heath is originally a heavily forested, but rather natural cultural landscape. The German low mountain ranges and the German Alps have a particularly high proportion of naturally emphasized areas, but there often in the form of mixed and coniferous forests . In 2011, a total of 33% of the area of ​​Germany was classified as natural and 67% as cultured areas.

The Forest in Germany covering 11.4 million hectares 32.0 percent of state land. Although more than three quarters of this area has been forested for at least 200 years, the stock of near-natural old-growth forests is rather low compared to the more intensively used commercial forests. At low altitudes, such commercial forests are often no longer semi-natural deciduous or mixed forests, but pure pine and spruce stands that would naturally only occur in high mountains or in extreme locations. Except for tiny relics, there are no longer any real primeval forests in Germany.

In addition to the plants that became indigenous without human intervention since the end of the Pleistocene , a number of introduced species (neophytes) play an important role in German cultural landscapes. Of the most important crops (including wheat , barley , beans , peas , rape , apple trees ), in fact not a single one originates from Central Europe. Some, like the potato and corn , were only introduced from America a few centuries ago. In the river valleys of the low mountain ranges, including the Moselle, Ahr and Rhine, the landscape has been shaped by viticulture for more than 2000 years. With the useful plants, however, various " weeds " also reached Central Europe. Many plants were only introduced for ornamental purposes or are no longer or hardly used today, for example the robinia or the horse chestnut .

Potential natural vegetation

Germany lies in the vegetation zone of deciduous deciduous forests as well as in the Atlantic and Central European floral provinces. His potential natural vegetation is in the low ( planar ) layers corresponding mainly from deciduous forests with common oak ( "German Oak") hornbeam and beech . In the east of Germany, due to the more continental climate, the proportion of Scots pines in such forests would be relatively high.

The proportion of conifers (in addition to Scots pine, especially red spruce and silver fir ) in the forest also increased with the increase in altitude ( colline, submontane and montane elevation ) . The tree line in Germany is around 1800  m , which means that theoretically no mountain peak outside the German Alps is above this mark. In fact, at 1141  m , the Brocken is the only peak that, due to its northern and exposed position, penetrates the natural tree line. Although higher and further south lying low mountain ranges ( Fichtelberg , Großer Arber , Feldberg ) are also treeless, this is a consequence of human activities. Only the German Alps have mountain peaks again, which are naturally free of forests and often even completely free of vegetation. Other naturally unforested regions in Germany would be found almost exclusively in heavily waterlogged terrain, such as B. the central areas of raised bogs . Also on the sand dunes, which are permanently exposed to stronger winds, as well as in the salt marshes of the German sea coasts, the site conditions are so unfavorable that no forests could develop there. A special type of forest that is linked to the banks of rivers and lakes is the alluvial forest .

Forest area

According to the 2nd National Forest Inventory in 2001 and 2002, the forest area in Germany was 11.1 million hectares , corresponding to 31% of the national area. (2004: 106,488 km²) Since the last census in 1987, the area has grown by 3500 hectares per year. The most forested federal states in relation to the area were: Rhineland-Palatinate with 42.1%, Hesse with 41.7%, Saarland with 38.3%, followed by Baden-Württemberg with 38.1%, Bavaria with 36.3% , Brandenburg with Berlin with 35.3% and Thuringia with 32%. The states with a below-average proportion of forests are led by Saxony with 27.8%. The least forested state is Schleswig-Holstein with 10.3%.

The tree species were distributed over the forest area as follows: 14.8% beech , 9.6% oak , 15.7% other deciduous trees, 28.2% spruce , 23.3% pine and 6.1% other conifers and 2 , 3% other use. Compared to the actual distribution, a distribution is natural in which 74% of the land area would be red beech forest , 18% oak forest and 3% coniferous forest . Another important measure of a forest's closeness to nature is the proportion of dead wood , which was 11.5 m³ / ha.

The relative share of pine in Brandenburg and Berlin was 73%, in Saxony-Anhalt 46.6%, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 39.5% and Lower Saxony with Hamburg and Bremen 30.2%. The proportion of spruce in Bavaria was 44.6%, in Thuringia 42.3%, in Baden-Württemberg 37.7% and in Saxony 35.3%. The relative proportion of deciduous trees was 71.5% in Saarland, 60.9% in Schleswig-Holstein, 57.2% in Rhineland-Palatinate, 55.6% in Hesse and 51.7% in North Rhine-Westphalia.

fauna

The sea ​​eagle , a protected bird of prey

The fauna of Germany, like the flora, has been subject to considerable anthropogenic changes, especially in the last 1000 years . In particular, the large animal fauna has been enormously reduced and changed in number and diversity and therefore today shows a fragmentary picture of the original diversity.

Most of the mammals native to Germany live in the temperate deciduous forests. Various species of martens , fallow and red deer , roe deer , wild boars and foxes live there . Beavers , otters and wild cats are very rare or naturalized mammals, some of which are rising again.

Most of the large mammals formerly living in the wild in Germany have been displaced or exterminated: wild horses (early Middle Ages, however unclear as they were often paired with domestic horses), aurochs (1200–1400), bison (15th century), elk (still numerous in the early Middle Ages, up to Almost extinct in the 17th century, in small stocks in the far east by the Second World War), wolverine (1700), ibex (around 1720), lynx (1838), brown bear (1880) and wolf (around 1900). Since 1962 there have been reliable indications of the return migration of the lynx from Eastern Europe. Today, thanks to additional reintroductions, the lynx are back in the wild in small populations in Germany. In recent times, some moose and wolves from Poland and the Czech Republic occasionally migrate, and their populations have been able to multiply there again. In the case of wolves, new packs are forming again, initially in the Sorbian region in Lusatia , now also in Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, since the first offspring was born around 2000. In March 2010 a herd of European bison was settled in the Rothaar Mountains ( South Westphalia ). As in the case of the wolf and the brown bear, there are various fears and prejudices against the animals. Sheep and other domestic animals as well as wild animals have been torn from wolves, and damage caused by browsing trees by the bison are arguments of the opponents of reintroduction. Thus, there is not only an ambivalent, but also a contrary attitude towards the targeted resettlement between the injured and the initiators of the reintroduction.

Red deer

The re-naturalized alpine ibex and the alpine marmot live in high alpine regions . The chamois is less common in some low mountain ranges, such as the Black Forest or the Franconian Alb .

The most famous reptiles living in Germany include grass snakes , adder and European pond turtles . In addition, many living amphibians such as salamanders , frogs , toads , toads and newts in Germany, which, however, all on the endangered Red List species are listed.

There are currently around 500 pairs of the sea ​​eagle , occasionally seen as a template for the stylized German heraldic bird , mainly in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg . The golden eagle is only found in the Bavarian Alps , the bearded vulture formerly native there has been exterminated, but is now returning to the German Alps through reintroduction to Switzerland and Austria . The most common birds of prey in Germany are currently buzzards and kestrels , but the peregrine falcon population is significantly lower. More than half of the total population of red kites breeds in Germany, but the population is declining due to intensive agriculture.

Seal colony on the North Sea island of Helgoland dune

In contrast, a variety of birds , as Kulturfolger benefit from the presence of the people, especially those living in many cities city pigeons , blackbirds (former forest birds), sparrows and chickadees , for their survival and the winter feed industry makes and crows and seagulls on Dumps . A specialty is the world's northernmost flamingo colony in the Zwillbrocker Venn .

The salmon , which used to be common in rivers , was largely exterminated in the course of industrialization in the 19th century, but was able to be reintroduced in the Rhine in the 1980s . The last sturgeon was caught in Germany in 1969. The carp , first introduced by the Romans , are kept in many ponds .

The seal that lives on the North and Baltic Sea coasts was almost extinct at times, and there are now several thousand specimens in the Wadden Sea . The gray seal populations in Northern Europe , which are spreading again , are also returning to the coasts of Germany after they had completely disappeared there due to hunting. The Wadden Sea is particularly important as a resting place for ten to twelve million migratory birds per year. The porpoise is probably the most common whale species in the North and Baltic Seas . The whales that live here also include the killer whale , the common dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin .

A considerable number of neozoa have settled in addition to the animals that have been native for a long time . The best-known representatives include raccoon , raccoon dog , ringed parakeet and Egyptian goose . Other partly invasive neozoa in Germany are Canada goose , rhea , American crayfish , American bullfrog , European mouflon , sunfish and the like. v. m.

See also : List of Neozoa in Germany

Nature and landscape protection

National parks in Germany

Germany is divided into three biogeographical regions: one Atlantic, one continental-Central European and one Alpine. For each of these regions there is a national obligation to designate a network of protected areas as coherent as possible in accordance with the European Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive . Among other things, the country has 91 habitat types in Annex I and 134 plant and animal species (excluding birds) in Annex II of the Habitats Directive, for which specially suitable protected areas must be named. In addition, there are bird species to be protected according to the European Bird Protection Directive . In 2004, around 10% of the country's area was registered as FFH areas, for example bird protection areas, to Brussels (including the exclusive economic zone in the North Sea).

Other protected areas (status: 12/2003; without protected water areas) are nature reserves which, with an average size of 140 ha, make up 2.9% of the German land area. Larger protected areas, such as national parks (compare national parks in Germany ), there are 0.54% (2.7% with water bodies), biosphere reserves around 3%, landscape protection areas with 29.7% and nature parks ( category: nature park in Germany ) with 22 , 4% of the land area.

The UNESCO drew some areas of Germany as a " World Heritage from", including the cultural landscape " Upper Middle Rhine Valley " between Koblenz and Bingen am Rhein , the Upper Harz Water shelf in the Lower Saxon part of the resin , the archaeological site Limes Germanicus and the natural landscape Messel Pit and the Wadden Sea .

The preservation of nature is a public task in Germany and serves the national goal anchored in Art. 20a of the Basic Law . The aim of nature conservation in Germany is to preserve nature and the landscape ( Section 1 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act ). Landscapes, plants and animals are important objects of nature conservation. The most important institutions of protected areas and objects currently include 14 national parks (see National Parks in Germany ), 19 biosphere reserves , 95 nature parks and thousands of nature reserves , landscape protection areas and natural monuments .

Human geography

Political geography

Political structure

→ Main article : Country (Germany)

The federally structured Federal Republic consists of 16 member states , which are officially referred to as Länder (federal states). The city-states of Berlin and Hamburg consist exclusively of the communities of the same name and are therefore unitary communities . The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is known as a city-state, but the state consists of the municipalities of Bremen and Bremerhaven and is therefore a "two-city state". In contrast to numerous other federally structured states, the Federal Republic of Germany does not have any direct federal areas .

country Capital Area in km² Residents Inhabitants per km²  Baden-Württemberg Stuttgart 35,751 11,069,533 310  Bavaria Munich 70,550 13.124.737 186  Berlin - 892 3,669,491 4.115  Brandenburg Potsdam 29,655 2,521,893 86  Bremen Bremen 419 681.202 1626  Hamburg - 755 1,734,272 2,297  Hesse Wiesbaden 21,115 6,288,080 298  Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Schwerin 23,211 1,608,138 69  Lower Saxony Hanover 47,614 7,993,608 168  North Rhine-Westphalia Dusseldorf 34,110 17,947,221 527  Rhineland-Palatinate Mainz 19,854 4,093,903 206  Saarland Saarbrücken 2,569 986.887 384  Saxony Dresden 18,420 4,071,971 221  Saxony-Anhalt Magdeburg 20,452 2,194,782 107  Schleswig-Holstein Kiel 15,800 2,903,773 184  Thuringia Erfurt 16.173 2,133,378 132 Federal Republic of Germany Berlin 357.340 80,523,746 225

Lower Saxony  Bremen  Hamburg  Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania  Saxony-Anhalt  Saxony  Brandenburg  Berlin  Thuringia  Hesse  North Rhine-Westphalia  Rhineland-Palatinate  Bavaria  Baden-Württemberg  Saarland  Schleswig-Holstein

National territory

Outline map of Germany

Elbow at List on Sylt Isenbruch Neissebogen near Deschka Haldenwanger Eck near Oberstdorf

Northern, eastern, southern and westernmost point in Germany

Germany lies between 47 ° 16'15 "and 55 ° 03'33" north latitude and 5 ° 52'01 "and 15 ° 02'37" east longitude.

The most northerly point (excluding marine areas) is on the island of Sylt north of List am Ellenbogen ; the northernmost mainland point is on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein at Rickelsbüller Koog . The southernmost point of Germany forms the Haldenwanger Eck south of Oberstdorf . It's about 874 kilometers as the crow flies from the elbow to the Haldenwanger Eck. The westernmost place in Germany is in the Isenbruch des Selfkant on the border with the Netherlands near the Meuse , the easternmost between Deschka and Zentendorf (municipality Neißeaue ) in a loop of the Lusatian Neisse . It is around 636 kilometers as the crow flies from the Isenbruch to the bend of the Neisse river. The greatest distance between two points on the mainland of the German national territory is 903 kilometers between List on Sylt (55 ° 3'29.6 "N, 8 ° 24'59.1" E) and Schönau am Königssee (47 ° 27'49 , 8 "N, 13 ° 0′13.0" E). The greatest distance in northeast-southwest direction is 890 kilometers between Putgarten on Rügen (54 ° 41'3.0 "N, 13 ° 25'41.6" E) and Grenzach-Wyhlen (47 ° 32'1.8 " N, 7 ° 40'44.8 "E).

In the north Germany borders on Denmark (over a length of 68 km), in the north-east on Poland (469 km), in the east on the Czech Republic (817 km), in the south-east on Austria (817 km; no border in Lake Constance ), and in the south the Switzerland (333 km; with limits of exclave Büsingen , but without limit in Upper Lake Constance), in the southwest of France (455 km) to the west by Luxembourg (136 km) and Belgium (204 km, of which 47 km on both sides of Vennbahn ) and in the north-west to the Netherlands (576 km; excluding dollar and border in the outer area of ​​the Ems). The limit length is a total of 3876 km. There is no internationally recognized borderline for Lake Constance . It is undisputed that the sovereignty is clearly assigned to the shore state up to a sea depth of 25 m. According to the Austrian view, the rest of the lake area is common territory , according to the Swiss view it is subject to real division according to the equidistance principle. The Federal Republic of Germany has not committed itself to an official point of view.

The largest exclave at 7.62 km² is the municipality of Büsingen am Hochrhein , located on the Upper Rhine , surrounded by the three Swiss cantons of Schaffhausen , Thurgau and Zurich . Functional enclaves are the Kleinwalsertal and Jungholz . Both are part of Austria, can only be reached by land or water via German territory and belong to the German customs and postal territory . To the west of the Vennbahn there are five exclaves, which are only separated from Germany by the railway line, which is subject to Belgian sovereignty.

The area of ​​land in Germany was 357,050 km² in 2004, 19 km² more than in 2000. The section of the earth's crust on which Germany is located and which extends there 20 to 40 kilometers in depth is, according to a calculation by the Geo Research Center Potsdam, of 2007 a mass of about 28 quadrillion tons. According to the Convention on the Law of the Sea , the coastal sea , which is subject to German sovereignty and is a maximum of 12  nautical miles wide, covers an area of ​​approx. 16,900 km², the area in the North Sea being 7,900 km² and that in the Baltic Sea being 9,000 km².

Areas with limited sovereign rights

The German continental shelf adjoins the territorial sea in the sense of international law and - essentially congruent - the exclusive economic zone , which is surrounded on all sides by corresponding areas of other states. The limits were contractually agreed. In the North Sea, the German area meets corresponding areas in Denmark, the Netherlands and Great Britain. The outermost northwestern branch forms the narrow strip of territory of the so-called " duck's bill ". The very narrow strip in the Baltic Sea, which only widens slightly in the extreme east, borders on corresponding areas of Denmark, Sweden and Poland. The status of the northern approach to the Polish ports of Szczecin and Swinoujscie and an adjoining outer roadstead is controversial between Germany and Poland. It extends about 36 kilometers in length and three kilometers in width between the German territorial sea and the undisputed part of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone.

Middle position

Germany has a total of nine neighboring countries : Denmark , Poland , the Czech Republic , Austria , Switzerland , France , Luxembourg , Belgium and the Netherlands . It is the country with most of the European neighbors. According to some historians, this central position had a lasting impact on Germany and its current territory. The British historian JR Seeley wrote at the end of the 19th century that the degree of freedom in a community was inversely proportional to the external pressure exerted on it by its territorial neighbors. In 1968 Joachim Fest saw the “special psychology of a people in a distressed middle class” as one of the factors that prevented Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries from having a successful revolution that could have established a resilient, democratic tradition.

In the 1990s, Michael Stürmer , Gregor Schöllgen and Hagen Schulze emphasized the importance of the situation in Germany: It had "unmistakable consequences for the thinking and politics of Germans", "Germany's fate is geography". There were only a few options: either - as in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period - Germany, as a weak continental center, was the plaything of its own states and of the great powers on the periphery of the continent; or - as in the High Middle Ages or before the First World War - it left its mark on the continent as a hegemon or tried to do so. In this sense, geography offers an explanation for the “ German Sonderweg ”.

This geographical determinism is contradicted above all by social historians like Jürgen Kocka , who see it as an exculpation of the German elites and their striving for world power , which led to the catastrophe of the First World War. Political and social factors are more decisive.

Settlement geography

Germany map with the most important cities

About 50 percent of the land area is used for agriculture, 30 percent for forestry and a further 13 percent is required for the settlement and transport area. In 2004 the settlement and traffic area in Germany was 12.8% of the country's area or 45,621 km², whereby the housing stock at the end of 2004 for the whole of Germany was 39.4 million apartments.

The metropolitan regions with the largest population are: Metropolitan Region Rhine-Ruhr , Metropolitan Region Berlin / Brandenburg , Rhine-Main Area , Metropolitan Region Stuttgart , Metropolitan Region Hamburg , Metropolitan Region Hanover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg , Metropolitan Region Central Germany , Metropolitan Region Munich , Metropolitan Region Nuremberg , Metropolitan Region Northwest , Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region . Smaller agglomerations are the Saarland and the Central German Chemical Triangle . The federal states with the highest population are in this order: North Rhine-Westphalia , Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg .

Population geography

→ Main article : Demography of Germany

In 2004, around 83 million people lived in Germany, around 75 million of whom were German citizens . In the same year, 705,622 children were born alive and 818,271 people died. 780,175 people immigrated, while 697,633 emigrated abroad. 177,993 of the immigrants and 150,667 of the emigrants had a German passport.

The spatial population movement in 2004 according to federal states showed the highest value for Lower Saxony at +62,523, which, however, was strongly increased by the influx of ethnic repatriates into the Friedland community . The following federal states were: Berlin with +10,819, Hesse with +7,130, North Rhine-Westphalia with +6,347 and Rhineland-Palatinate with +2,340 people. The most negative balance was found for the federal state of Hamburg at −4,255. This was followed by Baden-Württemberg with −1,990, Saxony-Anhalt with −1,661 and Saarland with −664.

In 2004 the population lived in 39.1 million households; of these were 14.6 million single-person households, 13.3 million 2-person households, 5.4 million 3-person households, 4.2 million 4-person households and 1.6 million households with 5 or more people.

The statistics for 2003 showed for the population of 82.5 million people by religion 26.2 million as Catholic, 25.8 million as Protestant and 102,000 as Jewish.

Economic geography

If the gross domestic product is broken down by federal state, the regional economic differences become apparent:

Indicator per inhabitant for the federal states in 2012
state	BW	BY	BE	BB	HB	HH	HE	MV	O
	NI	NW	RP	SL	SN	ST	SH	TH
GDP per capita	36,016	36,865	29,455	23,179	41,897	53.091	37,656	22,620	32,281
	29,032	32,631	29,431	31,364	23,400	22,933	27,220	22,241

The figures from 2012 show the German reunification of October 3, 1990, when a central administration economy was changed to a market economy with a West German character, the difference between city ​​states and large states , and the different distribution of growing and shrinking economic sectors in Germany as key factors .

Traffic geography

→ Main article : Transport geography

Transport systems for people, goods and information play an essential role in transport geography in the spatial distribution of transport and the development of cities.

Transport by water

German waterway network

Many cities emerged or developed particularly successfully on rivers, since for a long time water was the fastest and most cost-effective way of transport. In the Middle Ages, the Hanseatic cities in the German-speaking north conducted their long-distance trade primarily by ship. In addition to the cog for sea transport, there were shallow water variants, as the discovery of the Poeler cog shows. Another regional type of ship was the Zille on the Danube . The Zillen built in Ulm were called " Ulmer Schachteln " and were only steered downstream and sold there as timber or for further use. Because of the great importance of ship transport, canals arose early . For example, the Elsterwerda-Grödel raft canal opened in 1742 in order to meet the demand for wood in the Dresden - Meißen area by means of rafts from the Niederlausitz forests. The major rivers have been rebuilt for shipping since the time of industrialization . With the straightening of the Rhine between 1817 and 1879, the Rhine between Basel and Bingen could be shortened by 81 km and made navigable almost all year round.

Many rivers have been made navigable and new shipping canals have been built or older ones expanded for large, standardized inland vessels, such as the Europaschiff , the Große Rheinschiff (GRS) or the Großmotorgüterschiff (GMS). Important or unusual German canals are the 99 km long Kiel Canal , which connects the North Sea with the Baltic Sea, the Wesel-Datteln Canal , the 325.7 km long Mittelland Canal and the Main-Danube Canal , which is a continuous navigable Creates a connection between the North Sea and the Black Sea .

The seaports are now designed for bulk carriers , container ships and tankers . Before the invention of the airplane , passenger shipping was also an important factor, with mass emigration from the 19th century to the mid-20th century leaving the most profound traces. Shipping companies transported millions of Germans and other Europeans overseas via the Port of Hamburg ( HAPAG ) and the New Port in Bremerhaven ( Norddeutscher Lloyd ). Between 1821 and 1914, over 12 million Europeans left the continent via the two ports. The emergence of National Socialism from around 1933 triggered another mass exodus of several hundred thousand people.

Today inland shipping in Germany uses around 7,300 km of inland waterways , with around 240 million tons of freight being transported. The most important inland ports are the Duisburg-Ruhrorter ports , the Cologne ports , the Ludwigshafen Rhine port , the Rhine ports of Karlsruhe and the port of Regensburg . The most important German seaports are in Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven .

Path and road network

A network of old streets connected important cities and places all over Europe until the second half of the 17th century. These unpaved roads had their origin in Germany in the Celtic and Germanic times. In order to avoid the often impassable valleys, these paths ran as far as possible over hills. Only the Roman roads emerged largely independent of the terrain.

Important long-distance travel destinations were pilgrimages to Rome , Jerusalem and, since the 11th century, Santiago de Compostela . There were several routes of the Way of St. James in Germany, with most pilgrims taking the old roads via Cologne and Aachen and via Einsiedeln and Geneva . These cities were often important places of pilgrimage themselves; the Aachen Shrine Tour in the 14th and 15th centuries, for example, led to over 100,000 pilgrims staying in Aachen on a few days, with around 20,000 inhabitants in 1500.

These old roads were also used as trade routes and military routes , which later became paved state roads . The most important roads were the Reichsstraßen , which emerged from the Reichsstraßen of the Middle Ages and form today's federal roads .

Crossing points, bridges , fords were often the roots of city foundations, as facilities for the transport companies were built there, such as relaxation , restaurants , road houses and stations of the Reichspost .

The streets in and to the cities had to be rebuilt for the mass spread of the car . Nowadays, a nearby motorway that is as free from traffic jams as possible is essential for companies to settle in and stay there. In 1994, the road system in Germany comprised 11,080 km of federal motorways, 42,000 km of federal highways, 88,100 km of state roads and 414,000 km of local roads in and out of town. (see also: List of the longest road bridges in Germany )

Rail network

German rail network

ICE routes

IC / EC routes

Other passenger traffic

Starting with horse-drawn trams in mining and urban transport, with the advent of the steam locomotive, a rail network developed that significantly improved passenger transport between towns and cities. With the commissioning of the 115 km long Leipzig-Dresden Railway in 1839/40, the first German long-distance railway was created and by October 1842 the rail network had reached a total of almost 1000 km and by 1860 10,000 km. Bridges had to be built for the railway lines to cross valleys and rivers , such as the Göltzschtalbrücke , the largest brick bridge in the world, built from 1846 to 1851 . There are railway tunnels for crossing mountains, one of the earliest in Germany being the 500 meter long Oberau tunnel, which was built between 1837 and 1839 . (see also: History of the Railway in Germany , List of the longest railway bridges in Germany )

The route of the Leipzig-Dresden Railway already showed that the small towns are now in the catchment area of ​​the large cities , and today they are mainly served by S-Bahn and trams . The urbanization of rural communities, including their incorporation , began. In addition to the primary local traffic , another type of train was created for long-distance traffic ; the first express train ran between Berlin and Cologne as early as 1851. This continues today with the InterCityExpress . Only metropolises are connected without stopping. From the beginning of the 20th century, the car increasingly took on the function of transporting people both in the vicinity of cities and in large areas. The freight was increasingly in the 1960s trucks replaced.

In 2010 there were 20,743 locomotives and multiple units , 9,253 passenger coaches and 119,040 freight wagons in Germany .

Information transport

Course of the Prussian telegraph line ( list of stations )

When transporting information, a distinction must be made between whether a message is transported on a material medium, such as paper, or on an immaterial data medium. In the first case the same transport routes are used as for freight traffic, in the second case new transport routes have to be created. From 1813 to 1814 there was the Metz – Mainz optical telegraph line , which was followed by the Prussian optical telegraph consisting of up to 62 telegraph stations between Berlin and the Rhine Province between 1832 and 1849 . The stations were equipped with telescopes with which telegraph operators read specially coded information from a signaling station and passed it on immediately to the next one. The stations were preferably located on elevated locations, such as the 94 meter high Telegrafenberg in Potsdam. The Cuxhaven wind semaphore , built in 1883/84, transmitted weather information optically to ships sailing from the mouth of the Elbe towards the North Sea.

The next step was permanently installed wired connections, the telegraph lines . The Bremen – Bremerhaven electrical telegraph line , which went into operation in 1847, was the first longer electrical telegraph connection in Germany, with the wires being laid on 5-meter-high, white-painted posts. There were submarine cables for crossing rivers, but also for telegraph lines in the sea . Since around 1900 there was also telegraphy by radio, which in turn made a wireless connection possible.

Even with current technology, geography is occasionally important for wired message transport, but it is always important for wireless message transport. In the cellular network , the size of a radio cell changes depending on meteorological and geographical conditions. The latter are the settlement structure, vegetation, construction height and type of antennas used, the transmission power and the mobile radio standard used . For example, in a complex urban topography, the transport of information should not only be possible at any time in the area, but also within tall buildings, in underground buildings and in tunnels. There are tunnel radio systems for longer tunnels and so-called microcells can be set up, for example, at busy crossings, on busy main roads and in historic old towns with narrow streets .

In the early twentieth century, radio and television towers were built as high as possible . The 216.61 m high Stuttgart television tower , built in the 1950s , for example, stands on a plateau in Stuttgart and the transmission systems on the Großer Feldberg at a height of 880 m on the Großer Feldberg in the Taunus .

Economic sectors

Primary sector

→ Main articles : Oil production in Germany  and mining in Germany

Outdoor area of ​​the German Petroleum Museum in Wietze

Agriculture and Forestry

The area under cultivation was 189,324 km² in 2004. Seven million hectares of this were grain with 3.1 million hectares of wheat , 2 million hectares of barley and 1.7 million hectares of forage crops. Oil crops grew on 1.3 million hectares, sugar beets on 440,000 hectares and potatoes on 300,000 hectares. There was permanent grassland on 4.9 million hectares and vineyards on 100,000 hectares.

raw materials

There are large deposits of hard coal in the Ruhr area , in Saarland and in the Aachen district . In the Rhenish lignite mining area , in the Lausitz lignite mining region , in the central German brown coal district and Helmstedter area west of Magdeburg is lignite mined . Furthermore, natural gas and crude oil are mainly produced in the North German lowlands and in the North Sea, for example 900,000 tons of oil in Mittelplate . Oil production in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania began in the 1960s, for example in Lütow in 1966. A total of over 2 million tons of oil and almost 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas were produced. Since around 2010 there has been a search for non-conventional natural gas in Germany, known as shale gas . The occurrence is huge, only whether the promotion will pay off financially remains to be seen.

There are diverse deposits of usable rocks such as sand , gravel , granite . There are a large number of closed metal mines ( category ore mines ). In resin with silver, iron, copper, lead and arsenic was mined for 1000 years. In the Erzgebirge is silver, tin, lead and nickel found. Uranerz was mined in the district of Saxon Switzerland , in the Ore Mountains and in Ronneburg in Thuringia by the SDAG Wismut until a few decades ago. In western Germany, uranium ore was mined in the Krunkelbach mine and near Ellweiler . Copper shale , which contains copper, silver, lead, zinc, iron and other metals, is available in large quantities in Germany, but it is usually no longer worth mining nowadays. There were years of preparations to exploit a deposit with 2 million tons of copper and other increasingly important metals near Spremberg in Lusatia, but these were finally discontinued in 2014 due to inefficiency. In January 2009, the discovery of a deposit with around 1,000 tons of indium in the Ore Mountains was also announced. A large tin deposit in Vogtland is also about to be dismantled. Research is also being carried out into lithium deposits in the Ore Mountains. In 2012, the mining of natural graphite , the so-called Hauzenberger graphite , started again. The mining of salts and potash is still important ; Germany had a world monopoly in this area until the First World War. The Saline Convention of 1829 between Austria and Bavaria is also the oldest still valid state treaty in Europe.

Water resources are abundant, even if in some regions water becomes a scarce commodity in hot summers (see e.g. drought and heat in Europe 2018 # Germany and heat waves in Europe 2019 ). In addition to the large groundwater resources, there are also mineral water , thermal water and surface water fed by rain.

Since wind energy has been used on a large scale , the steady wind has grown again in importance as an energy resource, especially on the coasts. In contrast, the use of solar energy for energy purposes is concentrated in the middle and south of Germany . Due to the large stocks and the annual increase in wood and other biomass, which is processed into wood pellets , biofuel or biogas , for example , agriculture and forestry are becoming increasingly important as raw material suppliers for the production of bioenergy. In the long term, biomass is also important as a raw material source for some chemical and pharmacological products, such as bio-based plastics . This culminates in concepts such as the biorefinery , whereby crude oil as a raw material could be replaced by biomass for many products.

Another modern concept for non-traditional raw material production is what is known as “ urban mining ”. In addition to the already conventional recycling ( secondary raw materials ), the municipal waste landfills created in the urban environment are considered to be exploitable deposits , where large, potentially recoverable quantities of metals and non-ferrous metals are stored. Even the sewage sludge has already come into focus in order to extract the phosphorus that is important for fertilizer production .

Secondary sector

→ Main article : Cluster (economy)

Tertiary sector

→ Main article : Tourism in Germany

See also

• Large natural regions of Germany
• List of the highest mountains in Germany
• List of rivers in Germany
• List of lakes in Germany
• List of mountains and ridges in Germany
• List of German islands
• List of federal highways in Germany
• List of motorways in Germany
• List of cities in Germany
• List of volcanoes in Germany

literature

• Dierk Henningsen, Gerhard Katzung: Introduction to the geology of Germany. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-8274-1586-1 .
• Elmar Kulke : Economic Geography of Germany. Klett-Perthes, 1998, ISBN 3-623-00837-0 .
• Herbert Liedtke, Joachim Marcinek : Physical geography of Germany. Klett-Perthes, 2002, ISBN 3-623-00860-5 .

Web links

• Free maps of Germany : Official maps from the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy , Frankfurt am Main
• German climate atlas
• Germany. Cities in Landscapes. The clickable map with search function

swell

1. ↑ Jürgen Newig: The coastal form of North Friesland in the Middle Ages according to historical sources (PDF)
2. ↑ Horst Rademacher : Helium as a trigger for quakes. In: FAZ No. 213 , September 13, 2006, p. N2 , accessed on March 4, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Tim Mitchell: TYN CY 1.1 Data Set , Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research , 2003.
4. ↑ Dieterich Burkart: Land use for agriculture and forestry in the northern foothills of the Alps
5. ↑ Dieter Anhuf, Achim Bräuning, Burkhard Frenzel, Max Stumböck: The development of vegetation since the height of the last ice age. In: Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Martin Kappas, Gunter Menz, Michael Richter, Uwe Treter (eds.): Federal Republic of Germany. National Atlas. Volume 3: Climate, flora and fauna. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2003, pp. 88–91 ( online ).
6. ↑ Julia Siebert, Wilhelm Steingrube: Staged nature. In: Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, C. Becker, Hubert Job (ed.): Federal Republic of Germany. National Atlas. Volume 10: Leisure and Tourism. Spectrum Akademischer Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 978-3-8274-0938-6 , pp. 40-43 ( online ).
7. ↑ Leibniz Institute for Ecological Spatial Development (IOER): Proportion of naturally emphasized areas in area (2010) ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: Monitor of settlement and open space development . 
8. ↑ Third National Forest Inventory (2012) . Retrieved September 2, 2015.
9. ^ Frank Felix Glaser, Ulf Hauke: Historically old forest locations and Hudewälder in Germany. Applied Landscape Ecology, Issue 61, Federal Agency for Nature Conservation , Bonn-Bad Godesberg 2004, ISBN 3-7843-3736-8 .
10. ↑ Entire section after Udo Bohn, Walter Welß: The potential natural vegetation. In: Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Martin Kappas, Gunter Menz, Michael Richter, Uwe Treter (eds.): Federal Republic of Germany. National Atlas. Volume 3: Climate, flora and fauna. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2003, ISBN 978-3-8274-0956-0 , pp. 84-87 ( online ).
11. ↑ bundeswaldinventur.de: The second federal forest inventory
12. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Federal Statistical Office Germany: Floor areas by type of actual use in Germany
13. ↑ Bernd Gerken, Christiane Meyer (Ed.): Where did plants and animals live in the natural landscape and the early cultural landscape of Europe? , Natural and cultural landscape, Vol. 1, 1st edition, University of Paderborn, Höxter 1996, ISBN 3-9804950-0-0 , p. 73.
14. ↑ Species extinct in Germany. Publication by WWF, September 2006.
15. ↑ Dieter Adelung: Wale in the North and Baltic Sea (PDF; approx. 1.3 MB), accessed on April 9, 2015.
16. ↑ BMU: Habitats Directive ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
17. ↑ Federal Agency for Nature Conservation: Protected area categories and figures in Germany ( Memento of the original dated February 6, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
18. ↑ State Statistical Office Baden-Württemberg - Population by nationality and gender on December 31, 2018 (CSV file) ( help on this ).
19. ↑ "Data 2" sheet, Statistical Report A1200C 202041 Population of the municipalities, districts and administrative districts 1st quarter 2020 (population based on the 2011 census) ( help ).
20. ↑ As of December 31, 2019, updated population figures from December 31, 2019 of the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office , accessed on June 10, 2020 ( [1] ) ( help ).
21. ↑ Population in the State of Brandenburg according to municipalities, offices and municipalities not subject to official registration on December 31, 2019 (XLSX file; 223 KB) (updated official population figures) ( help on this ).
22. ↑ implied by the appointment of the previous city government of the city of Bremen as the new state government when the state was reestablished from the city of Bremen, the area of ​​Bremen (today also part of the city of Bremen), the city district of Wesermünde including the city of Bremerhaven (today completely Bremerhaven) on 21. January 1947 (retroactive to January 1) by Proclamation No. 3 of the US Military Government; de facto as the seat of government (Senate) (see Bremen Town Hall: Senate Chancellery ) and seat of Parliament (see Bremen Citizenship ) as well as other supreme state organs
23. ↑ Population development in the state of Bremen. Bremen State Statistical Office, accessed on June 23, 2020 .   ( Help on this )
24. ↑ Official population of Hamburg on December 31, 2012 (PDF; 293 kB)
25. ↑ by organizational order No. 1 of the US military government of October 12, 1945
26. ↑ Hessian State Statistical Office: Population status on December 31, 2019 (districts and urban districts as well as municipalities, population figures based on the 2011 census) ( help ).
27. ↑ Statistisches Amt MV - population status of the districts, offices and municipalities 2019 (XLS file) (official population figures in the update of the 2011 census) ( help ).
28. ↑ State Office for Statistics Lower Saxony, LSN-Online regional database, Table 12411: Update of the population, as of December 31, 2019  ( help ).
29. ↑ by a memorandum of the British military government of August 1, 1946, a few days before Ordinance No. 46 on the merger of the provinces of North Rhine and Westphalia of August 23, 1946 to form the new state of North Rhine-Westphalia (see state capital Düsseldorf: birth and growth of a state capital ; Kurt Düwell : "Operation Marriage" - British obstetrics during the founding of North Rhine-Westphalia , speech manuscript, Düsseldorf 2006, p. 1 ( Memento of the original dated December 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 91 kB)) 
30. ↑ Population of the municipalities of North Rhine-Westphalia on December 31, 2019 - update of the population based on the census of May 9, 2011. State Office for Information and Technology North Rhine-Westphalia (IT.NRW), accessed on June 17, 2020 .   ( Help on this )
31. ↑ by decision of the state parliament of May 16, 1950
32. ↑ State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate - population status 2019, districts, communities, association communities ( help on this ).
33. ↑ Saarland.de - Official population figures as of December 31, 2019 (PDF; 20 kB) ( help ).
34. ↑ Population of the Free State of Saxony by municipalities on December 31, 2019  ( help on this ).
35. ↑ State Statistical Office Saxony-Anhalt, population of the municipalities - as of December 31, 2019 (PDF) (update) ( help ).
36. ↑ by Ordinance No. 46 of the British Military Government of August 16, 1946 ( Kiel Memorial Day: August 23, 1946 ( Memento of the original of August 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original - and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ) 
37. ↑ North Statistics Office - Population of the municipalities in Schleswig-Holstein 4th quarter 2019 (XLSX file) (update based on the 2011 census) ( help on this ).
38. ↑ according to Article 44 III of the Constitution of the Free State of Thuringia
39. ^ Population of the municipalities from the Thuringian State Office for Statistics  ( help on this ).
40. ↑ Federal Statistical Office : 80.5 million inhabitants at the end of 2012 - population increase due to high immigration , press release No. 283 of August 27, 2013. Accessed on November 4, 2013.
41. ↑ Federal Statistical Office Germany: Common borders between Germany and the neighboring countries (status on November 20, 2007) (accessed December 7, 2019)
42. ↑ Axel Bojanowski : mass calculated. Germany weighs 28,000,000,000,000 tons. In: Spiegel online , January 29, 2007.
43. ^ JR Seeley: Introduction to Political Science. Two Series of Lectures. MacMillan & Co., London 1896, p. 131.
44. ↑ Joachim Fest: There is nothing to shoot here ...! The Germans and the Revolution. In: Der Spiegel of November 4, 1968 ( online , accessed January 9, 2012).
45. ↑ Michael Stürmer: The restless realm. Germany 1866-1918. Siedler, Berlin 1994, p. 407; Gregor Schöllgen: Power in the middle of Europe. Stations of German foreign policy from Frederick the Great to the present , CH Beck, Munich 1992, 2nd actual. u. exp. Edition, Munich 2000, passim.
46. ^ Hagen Schulze: Weimar. Germany 1917–1933. Siedler, Berlin 1994, p. 15.
47. ↑ See Joachim Fest ( NDR 3 , 1988): “If Germany was too strong, it threatened all neighbors. If it was too weak, all neighbors threatened it. "
48. ^ Jürgen Kocka: Interventions. The historian in public responsibility. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, pp. 19-25.
49. ^ Federal Statistical Office Germany: Population
50. ↑ Federal Statistical Office of Germany: gross domestic product (GDP) per inhabitant by federal state in 2012
51. ↑ Umweltbundesamt.de: Road Network 1994, Table 2 ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
52. ↑ Federal Statistical Office Germany: Stock of means of transport , accessed on November 27, 2012.
53. ↑ Federal Statistical Office Germany: Special Land Use and Harvest ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
54. ^ State Office for Environment and Nature Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Symposium - 50 Years of Oil Production in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
55. ↑ MDR.de: Researchers discover valuable metal in the Ore Mountains ( Memento from June 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
56. ↑ mdr: Start of tin test drillings in Gottesberg ( Memento from December 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
57. ↑ Graphite is being mined again in Bavaria , Mittelbayerische.de, June 2012.
58. ↑ Werner Abelshauser : The BASF: a company history . CH Beck, Munich 2002.
59. ↑ Hellmut Schöner : Salt and Wood. The Bavarian-Austrian Saline Convention of 1829. Europe's oldest state treaty. Lipp, 1979.
60. ^ Ministry of the Environment Baden-Württemberg: Pilot plant for phosphorus recovery in Offenburg goes into operation ( Memento of November 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (November 18, 2011).