Information about Hamburg
Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the seventh-largest city in the European Union. The city is home to over 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighboring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 4.3 million inhabitants. The port of Hamburg is the third-largest port in Europe (third to Port of Antwerp and Rotterdam), and the eighth largest in the world.
Hamburg's official name is the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg). It reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, and also to the fact that Hamburg is a city-state and one of the sixteen States of Germany.
Hamburg is a major transportation hub in Northern Germany and is one of the most affluent cities in Europe. It has become a media and industrial center, with plants and facilities belonging to Airbus, Blohm + Voss and Aurubis. The radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk and publishers such as Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel-Verlag are pillars of the important media industry in Hamburg. In total there are more than 120,000 enterprises.
The city is a major tourist destination both for domestic and overseas visitors, receiving about 7.7 million overnight stays in 2008. Hamburg ranked 23rd in the world for livability in 2009, higher in some alternate rankings and in 2010 the city ranked 10th in the world, and 2nd in Germany after Frankfurt as an innovation nexus in the 2thinknow annual Innovation Cities Index.
Second World War
In Nazi Germany Hamburg was a Gau from 1934 until 1945. During World War II Hamburg suffered a series of air raids, which devastated much of the inhabited city as well as harbor areas. On July 23, 1943 a firestorm that came from the Hauptbahnhof and quickly moved south-east completely destroyed entire boroughs like Hammerbrook, Billbrook or Hamm-south. These former densely populated working-class boroughs underwent a dramatic demographic change as a result. Few people live there today, apart from a small community of 400 in Hammerbrook. The raids, codenamed Operation Gomorrah by the RAF, killed 42,000 civilians; over 1 million civilians were evacuated.
At least 55,000 people were killed in the Neuengamme Nazi concentration camp within the city.
Museums
Hamburg possesses several big museums and galleries showing classical and contemporary art, as for example the Kunsthalle Hamburg with its contemporary art gallery (Galerie der Gegenwart), the Museum for Art and Industry (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe) and the Deichtorhallen/House of Photography. The Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg opened in the HafenCity quarter in 2008. There are various specialised museums in Hamburg, such as the Museum of Labour (Museum der Arbeit), and several museums of local history, for example the Kiekeberg Open Air Museum (Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg). Two museum ships near Landungsbrücken bear witness to the freight ship (Cap San Diego) and cargo sailing ship era (Rickmer Rickmers). The world's largest model railway museum Miniatur Wunderland with 12 km (7.46 mi) total railway length is also situated near Landungsbrücken in a former warehouse.
BallinStadt Emigration City is dedicated to the millions of Europeans who emigrated from its mass accommodation halls to North and South America between 1850 and 1939. Visitors descending from those overseas emigrants may search for their ancestors at computer terminals.
More Information
If you want more Information, please follow this link: Wikipedia-Hamburg
