Municipalities of Germany

The "pyramid" of German administrative subdivisions

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Municipalities (Gemeinde) are the official lowest level of territorial division in Germany. This may be the fourth level of territorial division in Germany, apart from those states which include Regierungsbezirke (singular: Regierungsbezirk), where municipalities then become the fifth level. The highest degree of autonomy for a municipality in Germany is when it is separate from the next higher division. It is then kreisfrei and generally referred to as having city status. This can be the case regardless of its size. Such a municipality then is the third or fourth level of territorial division. Yet, many smaller municipalities in Germany have lost this city status in various administrative reforms in the last 40 years when they were amalgamated with the next higher division (Kreis). In some states they did retain a higher measure of autonomy that is than that of the other municipalities of the Kreis (e. g. Große Kreisstadt). That a municipality may refer to itself as a city or officially call itself City of ... has no legal significance.

Overview

With more than 3,400,000 inhabitants, the most populated municipality of Germany is the city of Berlin; and the least populated is Wiedenborstel (8 inhabitants in 2010), in Schleswig-Holstein. The cities of Aachen and Saarbrücken have a special status, which is why the numbers in the respective states North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland appear in brackets.

Municipalities per federal state

List updated at August 1, 2009.

Federal state	Municipalities	M. with city status	Average nr. of inhabitants	Average surface (km²)	List (Cities, Towns, Municipalities)
Baden-Württemberg	1,101	9	9,764	32.41	C, T, M
Bavaria	2,056	25	6,090	33.03	C, T, M
Berlin	1	1	3,416,255	891.02	Berlin
Brandenburg	419	4	6,052	70.36	C, T, M
Bremen	2	2	331,541	202.14	Bremen, Bremerhaven
Hamburg	1	1	1,770,629	755.16	Hamburg
Hesse	426	5	14,255	48.80	C, T, M
Lower Saxony	1,022	9	7,800	45.25	C, T, M
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	818	2	2,053	28.34	C, T, M
North Rhine-Westphalia	236	22 (23)	45,446	86.08	C, T, M
Rhineland-Palatinate	2,306	12	1,754	8.61	C, T, M
Saarland	52	(1)	19,935	49.40	C, T, M
Saxony	491	3	8,595	37.51	C, T, M
Saxony-Anhalt	851	3	2,835	24.03	C, T, M
Schleswig-Holstein	1,116	4	2,542	14.07	C, T, M
Thuringia	955	6	2,397	16.93	C, T, M
Germany	12,013	108 (110)	6,844	29.35	C, T, M

See also

• List of municipalities in Germany

External links

Media related to Municipalities of Germany at Wikimedia Commons