Metropolitan regions in Germany

The metropolitan regions in Germany are eleven densely populated areas in the Federal Republic of Germany. They comprise the major German cities and their surrounding catchment areas and form the political, commercial and cultural centres of the country. The eleven metropolitan regions in Germany were organised into political units for planning purposes.

Using a narrower definition of metropolises, only four cities surpass the threshold of at least one million inhabitants within its administrative borders, namely: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne.

For urban centres outside metropolitan areas, that generate a similar attraction at smaller scale for their region, the concept of the Regiopolis and respectively regiopolitan area or regio was introduced by German professors in 2006.

Sorted alphabetically:

The five most important regions, collectively often called the "Big Five", are frequently compared with other European metropolitan areas for investments and market development. They are (from north to south): Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf/Cologne (or collectively Rhine-Ruhr), Frankfurt/Rhine-Main and Munich. Globalization and World Cities Study Group (GaWC) considers Frankfurt and Munich "α" (Alpha) Global Cities, while the others are considered "β" (Beta) global cities.

Each of them forms types of clusters and achieves varying levels of performance in areas such as business activity, human capital, information and technology exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement.

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