There are eleven metropolitan regions in GermanyMitglieder Retrieved 12 June 2009. consisting of the country's most densely populated cities and their catchment areas. They represent Germany's political, commercial and cultural centres. The eleven metropolitan regions in Germany were organised into political units for planning purposes.

Based on a narrower definition of metropolises commonly used to determine the metropolitan status of a given city, four cities in Germany surpass the threshold of at least one million inhabitants within their administrative borders: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne.

For urban centres outside metropolitan areas that are a similar focal point for their region, but on a smaller scale, the concept of the Regiopolis and the related concepts of regiopolitan area or regio were introduced by urban and regional planning professors in 2006.Prof. Dr. Iris Reuther (FG Stadt- und Regionalplanung, Universität Kassel): Presentation "Regiopole Rostock". 11 December 2008, retrieved 13 June 2009 (PDF).

Metropolitan regions

Sorted alphabetically: Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region Central German Metropolitan Region Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region Hamburg Metropolitan Region Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region Munich Metropolitan Region Northwest Metropolitan Region Nuremberg Metropolitan Region Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region (also covers the Cologne Bonn Region) Stuttgart Metropolitan Region

Big five The five most important regions, collectively often called the Big Five,Dr. Radetzki Consult GmbH (PDF) Retrieved 14 February 2011. are frequently compared with other European metropolitan regions (EMR) in terms of investment and market development. They are (from north to south): Hamburg, Berlin, the polycentric Ruhr-Düsseldorf-Cologne region (collectively referred to as Rhine-Ruhr), Frankfurt and Munich. The Globalization and World Cities Study Group (GaWC) considers Frankfurt and Munich as "α" (alpha) global cities, whereas the others are classified as "β" (beta) global cities.The World According to GaWC 2020 Retrieved 11 April 2020.

Each of them forms types of clusters and achieves varying levels of performance in areas, including business activity, human capital, information and technology exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. Hamburg Berlin Rhine-Ruhr Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Munich

List Rank Metropolitan region (EMR) Core cities States Population as by EMRRegionales Monitoring 2008 - Daten und Karten zu den Europäischen Metropolregionen (EMR) in Deutschland (PDF) Retrieved 22 June 2009. (2006) Population as by ESPON (2007) GDP per capita in € (2006) GMP in billion € (2006) HQs of MNC (FG500Global 500 CNNMoney Retrieved 22 June 2009.) Annual passenger traffic (2008) 1 Rhine-Ruhr EMR K, DO, D, E, DU NW 29,486 30.80 million Ruhr DO, E, DU, BO 25,266 132.90 4 2.30 million (DTM) Düsseldorf D, W, MG 3.12 million 3.07 million 34,658 108.13 5 18.15 million (DUS) Cologne/Bonn K, BN 3.09 million 3.07 million 31,448 97.18 4 10.35 million (CGN) 2 Frankfurt/Rhine-Main EMR F, WI, MZ, DA, OF, HU HE, RP, BY 6.0million 4.15 million 35,000 4 3 Berlin/Brandenburg EMR B, P, CB BE, BR 5.95 million 4.02 million 21,981 130.78 1 21.40 million (TXL, SXF) 4 Stuttgart EMR S, RT, ES, HN BW 5.29 million 31,909 168.80 3 Retrieved 03 November 2015: Daimler, Bosch, LBBW 9.93 million Stuttgart S, ES 2.67 million 2.67 million 35,492 94.76 9.93 millionWichtige Kennziffern der Flughafen Stuttgart GmbH Retrieved 22 June 2009. (STR) 5 Munich EMR M, A, IN, LA, RO BY 5.20 million 3.27 million 203.61 7 34.73 million Munich M, FS 2.59 million 2.67 million 124.35 7 34.73 million (MUC) 6 Central German EMR L, DD, C, HAL, EF SN, ST, TH 4.36 million 21,482 93.66 0 4.88 million Leipzig/Halle L, HAL 1.50 million 1.21 million no data no data 0 2.46 million (LEJ) Dresden DD, PIR 0.70 million 0.88 million no data no data 0 1.86 million (DRS) 7 Hamburg EMR HH, HL HH, SH, NI 4.27 million 2.98 million 33,210 141.81 2 12.84 million (HAM) 8 Hanover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg EMR H, BS, GÖ, WOB, SZ, HI NI 3.91 million 27,251 106.55 3 5.74 million Braunschweig/Wolfsburg BS, WOB, SZ 1.00 million 1.00 million no data no data 1 0.10 million (BWE) Hanover H 1.12 million* 1.00 million no data no data 2 5.64 millionhttp://www.hannover-airport.de/189.html Retrieved 22 June 2009. (HAJ) 9 Nuremberg EMR N, FÜ, ER, BT, BA BY 3.51 million 29,955 105.14 0 4.27 million Nuremberg/Furth/Erlangen N, FÜ, ER 1.29 million 1.58 million no data no data 0 4.27 million (NUE) 10 Bremen/Oldenburg EMR HB, OL, HBx, DEL, WHV HB, NI 2.37 million 1.08 million 27,046 64.10 0 2.49 million (BRE) 11 Rhine-Neckar EMR MA, LU, HD, WO BW, RP, HE 2.36 million 2.93 million 29,891 70.54 1 0 metropolitan regions in Germany 57.74 million 29,412 1,698.23 34 168.75 million Germany 80.22 million 28,212 2,322.20 37 191.02 millionADV Monatsstatistik / ADV Monthly Traffic Statistics (PDF) Retrieved 22 June 2009.

See also Largest European metropolitan areas Largest urban areas of the European Union Demographics of Germany Tourism in Germany

References

External links Initiativkreises Europäischer Metropolregionen in Deutschland

de:Metropolregion#In Deutschland