The City of Hamburg

Hamburg's beginnings are not to be found along the Elbe River, rather at its tributary, the Alster River. Not far from where this minor tributary flowed into the Elbe, an initial settlement was founded along its banks (old Saxon: "ham") in the 8th century. Then around 950 A.D. the Hammaburg was established right here.

The 12th century showed the importance of the Elbe growing at an ever faster pace. Commerce in the North European region developed in leaps and bounds. Then in the year 1189 the Emperor Barbarossa conferred upon Hamburg, the privilege of imposing custom duties on the Elbe River and henceforth became a Free City of the Empire.

The establishment of the free port (1888) enabled Hamburg to become one of the largest storage locations for coffee, cocoa, spices and carpets.

Up until the middle of the 19th century Hamburg did not outgrow the middle-Ages city limits surrounding it. The contemporary city districts of St. Pauli, Altona and St. Georg had long been situated outside the city gates. Around 1850 the population of the city totaled only 50,000 people.

Today, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, one of the 16 states of the federation, is the second largest city in Germany with its 1.7 million inhabitants. In this sense it is a city as well as a state.

The inhabitants of Hamburg are very proud of having a lake such as the one they enjoy in the very heart of the city center. It is to be found just a few short steps from the Opera, the Great Hall of Art, the City Hall, as well as the Chamber of Commerce.

Hamburg is also culturally and commercially the center of all of Northern Germany. The metropolitan region consists of 3.5 million people.

The municipal area with its 755 km2 is seven times the size of Paris and 2,5 times that of London. With 30 m2 living space per person, Hamburg enjoys the largest average personal living space of all big cities in the world. In fact, 14% of the city is made up of green and recreation areas.

Hamburg boasts 2302 bridges, more than the total of all bridges that Venice and Amsterdam have to offer. With more than 90 consulates, Hamburg ranks only second to New York as the city with the most consulates in the world.

Hamburg enjoys the presence of 11 universities, with the biggest one being the University Of Hamburg. Besides this one, the University of Hamburg-Harburg as well as the College of Applied Sciences offer select training courses for students from abroad. To date, the number of students in Hamburg totals 64,000, of which 56% are male and about 44% are female students.

International population as of 31.12.2003:
Turkey 60.255 Poland 20.220 Serbia & Montenegro 19.658 Afghanistan 14.880 Portugal 9.703 Iran 9.659 Greece 7.640 Russian Federation 7.388 Italy 6.598 Ghana 5.557 Croatia 4.705 Greatbritain & N.Ireland 4.456 Unites States 4.279 Bosna & Herzegowina 4.024 France 4.001 Austria 3.964 Spain 3.494 Macedonia 3.469 China 3.359 Ukraine 3.064 Netherland 2.145 India 2.078	Philippines 1.928 Denmark 1.790 Pakistan 1.747 Japan 1.718 Egypt 1.677 Thailand 1.633 Indonesia 1.576 Rumania 1.512 Kasachstan 1.463 Brasil 1.373 Switzerland 1.351 Schweden 1.261 Tunesia 1.237 Vietnam 1.214 Bulgaria 1.207 Togo 1.165 Nigeria 1.114 Ireland 436 Belgium 469 Luxemburg 97
Others 31.968 Total 262.532

Further information on hamburg.de
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