50+ Facts about Germany
By Ralph Kratzer
After having published the successful post “50 facts about Cyprus” from our community sharing partner “North Cyprus Forum” some weeks ago (to remember – click here!) I thought: now is the time to write something about my homeland – Germany. Most of the facts mentioned below come from the internet, some of them may not be complete or perhaps out of date and therefore, I do not suggest to take this post too seriously and to use it as a basis for scientific work! LOL!
The world sees Germany mostly as the country of beer, sausages, and “Oktoberfest”! More sophisticated people say it is the “land of the poets and thinkers”. In fact it is much more than this, eg one of the biggest economies in the world, the origin of the automobile and other great inventions. But I don´t want to bore you just with rational facts.
Only this for an introduction: Germany is a Federal Republic, consisting of 16 states. Every single state has its own parliament, Prime Minister, police force, educational system and so on. The biggest state by area is Bavaria in the south of the Republic.
Germany has more than 82 million inhabitants, including 7.3 million foreign residents (among them 1.7 million Turks).
The Capital is Berlin with 3.4 million citizens. Other cities with a population of more than 1 million are Hamburg in the north, Munich in the south and Cologne just in the middle.
Enough with statistics, now come 50+ more or less funny but interesting facts about Germany:
Germans are the second largest beer consumers in the world, after the Irish (of course!).
Beer is officially considered a food in Bavaria.
Germany is Europe’s largest economy.
The most popular German surname is “Müller”.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has a Barbie doll made after her.
Historically, Germany was known inter alia as the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, or the Weimar Republic.
31% of the country has been kept with forests and woodlands, with the State of Hessen having the most.
There are over 300 kinds of bread in Germany.
There are also bread museums.
There are at least 35 dialects of the German language.
The “Wittelsbachs” ruled Bavaria as a monarchy for 738 years.
Munich, Germany´s southernmost big city, is further north than any major US city (excluding Alaska).
German is an official language in 5 nations: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. It is also spoken in Northern Italy and the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.
