Travel Guide, Hamburg

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany (after Berlin) and the eighth-largest city in the European Union. The city is home to approximately 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighbouring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 4.3 million inhabitants. The port of Hamburg is the second-largest port in Europe (after that of Rotterdam), and the ninth-largest in the world.

Hamburg's official name is the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg). It makes reference to 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. It has become a media and industrial centre, with factories such as Airbus, Blohm + Voss and Aurubis located there. The radio and television broadcaster "Norddeutscher Rundfunk" and publishers such as "Gruner + Jahr" and "Spiegel-Verlag" represent the important media industry organisations in Hamburg. In total there are more than 120,000 business enterprises to be found in the city. The city is a major tourist destination both for domestic and overseas visitors, with about 7.7 million overnight stays in 2008.