Germany

With a population of only 100,000, Bremerhaven punches far above its weight when it comes to shipping and trade. Situated on the North Sea at the end point of the Weser River, Bremerhaven is home to the 16th-largest cargo port in the world and the fourth largest in Europe.

Each year, Bremerhaven’s port handles up to 5.5 million containers and more than 2 million vehicles. Its port, the longest in the world, has 15 docks to accommodate large container ships. As such, it is a vital center for logistics and distribution for Germany, Europe and the world.

Central Germany is home to mid-size cities including Kassel, Erfurt and the resort town of Bad Hersfeld. Erfurt has a population of about 200,000 and is the capital of the state of Thuringia. Some of Germany’s densest population concentrations—including Dortmund, the cities of the Ruhr and Hanover—are within a 120-mile radius of Central Germany.

Hamburg, a cosmopolitan and historic port city on the Elbe River near the North Sea, is a key cog in the economy of the 21st century. With a population of 1.76 million, Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany.

Hamburg sits astride a series of transportation axes—shipping lanes, motorways, rail and air—that connect Scandinavia and Western, Eastern and Southern Europe. Aerospace is a major industry in the Hamburg region, employing some 35,000 people.

Set on the River Leine, Hannover is the capital of the German state of Lower Saxony. With a population of about 540,000 people and within 100 miles of the vital North Sea ports of Bremen and Hamburg, Hannover is an important logistics hub for Germany.

With a population of 11,600 , Manching is a small town about 40 miles north of Munich and is part of the Ingolstadt metropolitan area, which has a population of 500,000. Manching has economic importance beyond its stature, in large part because it is home to the Airbus Eurofighter program.

Nuremberg has a population of about 500,000, making it the second-largest city in Bavaria. The broader Nuremberg region has a population of 3.5 million and is one of the 10 largest business centers in Europe, home to 168,000 companies.

The Rhine-Ruhr is a highly industrialized, densely populated region of Western Germany that includes the major cities of Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Dortmund and Essen. With a population of about 10 million, the region is the third-largest metroplex in Europe, after London and Paris. Rhine-Ruhr is one of the world’s 10 largest economic regions.

Greater Munich, the capital of Germany’s innovative and wealthy state of Bavaria, is one of the most important commercial centers in Europe and Germany’s leading high-tech location. Munich is the third-largest city in Germany, with a population of approximately 4 million in the metropolitan area.

Greater Munich is a diverse, cosmopolitan metropolis in which 27.6 percent of its residents are foreign nationals. The Greater Munich region has a GDP of 1.56 billion Euros.