Hamburg

Hamburg takes its name from the Hammaburg, a fortress built on a patch of high ground in the marsh between the Alster and the Elbe. In 845 a Viking fleet sailed up the Elbe and destroyed the town, which then had about 500 inhabitants. Tradition dates its rise to 1189, when Frederick Barbarossa granted its trading privileges, and its alliance with Lübeck in 1241 is regarded as the founding moment of the Hanseatic League. The Black Death of 1350 killed at least 60 per cent of the population.

As the Hansa faded, Hamburg turned to Atlantic trade. After the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 it became a sovereign city-state, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The Great Fire of 1842 destroyed about a quarter of the inner city, but in the second half of the 19th century the population more than quadrupled to 800,000 and the port became the second-largest in Europe; it was also the port from which millions of Germans and Eastern Europeans emigrated to America. The Greater Hamburg Act of 1937 added Altona, Harburg and Wandsbek to the city.

The Second World War brought deportations of the city's Jews from October 1941 and, in July 1943, the Allied firebombing codenamed Operation Gomorrah, which created a firestorm and killed at least 42,600 civilians. In February 1962 the North Sea flood flooded a fifth of the city and killed more than 300 people. Since 1990 the port has regained trade to the east, HafenCity has risen on former harbour land, the Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus district became a World Heritage Site in 2015, and the Elbphilharmonie opened in 2017.

The city's formal name, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, reflects its history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League and a free imperial city. Low German, Hamborger Platt, was the city's original language, and 'Moin' remains the everyday greeting. Hamburg also has a reputation as the most anglophile of German cities — a local saying claims that when it starts raining in London, Hamburgers open their umbrellas.

Music is central. The Beatles lived and played in St. Pauli's clubs, among them the Star-Club, from 1960 to 1962; the Hamburger Schule movement of German-language indie rock gathered at the Golden Pudel Club near the Fischmarkt, and the Rote Flora in the Sternschanze is the hub of a large punk and alternative scene. The Elbphilharmonie and the older Laeiszhalle host classical concerts, the Reeperbahn's theatres stage long-running musicals, and the city has one of the highest densities of music venues in Germany.

Football divides the city between Hamburger SV, six times German champion and winner of the European Cup in 1983, who play at the Volksparkstadion, and FC St. Pauli, the left-leaning club of the Millerntor-Stadion. The calendar includes the Hafengeburtstag and the DOM funfair three times a year, voters have twice rejected Olympic bids, in 2015 and again in May 2026, and the city has the largest Portuguese community in Germany, about 30,000 people.

About 1.87 million people lived in Hamburg at the end of 2025, making it the second-largest city in Germany, and more than 5.1 million in its metropolitan region. The city-state is divided into seven boroughs and 104 quarters. About a third of residents have a migrant background, and around two-thirds belonged to no church or to other faiths in 2018. Many live in the 19th-century apartment blocks of the inner quarters, in the villas of the Elbe and Alster shores, or in the large post-war estates on the edges.

The port, Germany's largest and Europe's third-largest after Rotterdam and Antwerp, remains the core of the economy, together with logistics and shipping. Airbus builds aircraft at Finkenwerder, and Blohm + Voss, Aurubis, Beiersdorf and Unilever have major sites here, alongside Lufthansa's maintenance base at the airport and a large media industry. Hamburg is one of Europe's richest regions per head, yet unemployment has been above the German average, and the cost of housing is a constant issue.

Water shapes the daily rhythm: commuters ride ferries across the harbour, boats crowd the Alster in summer, and on warm evenings people barbecue on the Elbe beaches or sit in the street cafés of the Schanze. Some 2,500 bridges cross the city's rivers and canals, more than in any other city in Europe.

Hamburg's food comes from the port, the river and the marshes. The Fischbrötchen — a bread roll filled with Bismarck or soused herring, rollmops, smoked mackerel or fried fish, with onions, pickles or remoulade — is eaten standing up at the harbour. Old Hamburg dishes include Birnen, Bohnen und Speck, green beans cooked with pears and bacon; Finkenwerder Scholle, pan-fried plaice; Pannfisch, pan-fried fish in mustard sauce; and Labskaus, a northern German dish of corned beef, potato and beetroot. Hamburg's Aalsuppe is often taken to mean eel soup, but its name probably comes from a Low German word for 'all' — a soup of everything in the kitchen.

For dessert there is Rote Grütze, a red-berry pudding related to the Danish rødgrød, and in the city's bakeries the Franzbrötchen, a croissant-like pastry rolled with cinnamon and sugar. Hamburg's cooking has much in common with that of Denmark and Copenhagen.

The city's long trading history shows in its restaurants. Portuguese sailors and merchants have come since the 15th century, and the Portuguese quarter near the harbour, settled since the 1970s, is full of Portuguese restaurants and cafés. The Sunday-morning Fischmarkt at Altona, the street cafés of the Schanze and the restaurants of Ottensen are the other places where the city eats out.