P172 - Germany - The town hall of Hamburg

The town hall of Hamburg, Germany

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany (after Berlin). The city is home to approximately 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg metropolitan area (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 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.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 Federal States of Germany.

Hamburg is a major transportation hub in northern Germany and became a media and industrial center with factories such as Blohm + Voss and Norddeutsche Affinerie. The radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk and publishers such as Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel-Verlag represent 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 7.4 million overnight stays in 2007.

汉堡自由汉萨市（德语：Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg）作为城市州，其行政级别等同于一个完整的联邦州，有其州议会和州立法委员会。汉堡同时是德国的第二大城市(第一大城市是柏林)，也是欧盟的第七大城市。汉堡市处于欧洲的中心，其本身又是港口城市，所以汉堡对德国乃至整个欧洲的意义重大。

汉堡市是十一个德国欧洲城市群中汉堡城市群的中心。

汉堡市的城市格言为: Libertatem quam peperere maiores digne studeat servare posteritas（自由，由你的先辈所赢取，后来的人们，请对它予以尊敬！）。这段拉丁文写成的格言也被篆刻在汉堡市的标志性建筑——汉堡市政厅的大门上。

由于汉堡的城市旗帜的图案是一座城堡的大门，所以汉堡也常常被形容为“通往世界的大门”。

References sources : wikipedia