30 Interesting Facts About Germany

Today we will let you know about some awesome and interesting facts about Germany, you will be amazed after reading these facts about Germany.

30 Interesting Facts About Germany

Country & Population

• Germany is the most populous European country (outside of Russia), with a population of 82 million.
• The area of ​​Germany was also 50% larger during the Second Reich (1871-1918) and included almost half of present Poland and part of Lithuania.
• The Germans are the second largest beer consumers in the world (after the Czechs), with an average of 107 liters per person per year in 2010 (ie 30 cl per day).
• For several centuries, the German language has been the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe, and remains the mother tongue of the greatest number of Europeans today.
• 15 million people in Germany are of non-German origin (first and second-generation immigrants), or 18.5% of the population. About half of them do not have German citizenship.
• About a quarter of all American citizens claim at least partially a German ancestry.
  Germany has nearly 700 zoos, wildlife parks, aquariums, bird parks, game reserves and safari parks, including 414 enéristrés zoos (more than the USA)! The Zoologischer Garten Berlin is the largest zoo in the world, both in terms of the number of species (1,500) and the number of animals (14,000).
• In 2006, the youngest billionaire in the world was the German Prince Albert II von Thurn und Taxis, with a net worth is estimated at around $ 1.90 billion (USD).
• The German athletes won a total of 1662 Olympic medals (combined summer and winter, between 1896 and 2012), that is to say, more than any other country in the world except the United States.
• The fairy caves ( Feengrotten ) in Saalfeld, Thuringia, are the most colorful caves in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
• There are about 2.5 million half-timbered houses in Germany, by far the largest number of any country in the world.

Culture & Sciences

• Classical music has been largely dominated by German-language composers. Famous composers born on the current territory of Germany include Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner and R. Strauss.
• Some of the greatest philosophers in history were German, such as Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger.
• Germans can be credited with the discovery of insulin, the invention of the bulb, the clarinet, the pocket watch, the automatic calculator, television (partly), paraffin, petrol and diesel, automobile (as well as gearshift and other important devices), motorcycle, propulsion engine, LCD screen and Walkman.
• There are 1,300 beer breweries in Germany, producing around 5,000 kinds of beer. The Germans are the second largest beer drinkers in the world after the Czechs.
• In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, Germany was the first country in the world to adopt daylight saving time.
• The Walhalla Temple (a temple of fame and honor of the German nation) in Regensburg was built by Ludwig I of Bavaria in the early nineteenth century to commemorate the great personalities and events in the ethnic German history, from the Battle of Teutoburg (in year 9).
• The Bayreuth Festspielhaus ( Bayreuth Festival Palace) was specifically designed and built to house Richard Wagner’s operas. It opened in 1876 for the premiere of the four-cycle opera Der Ring des Nibelungen .
• In 1998, there were 5,752 museums in Germany (about as much as in Italy and the United Kingdom combined).
• Germany is one of the last countries in Western Europe not to have banned smoking in workplaces and restaurants ( see map ). The political reason is that the Nazis officially repressed smoking, and that the German post-war legislators still have complexes to imitate them.
• No less than forty-two Nobel Laureates have studied or taught at Georg-August University in Göttingen. In addition to the Nobel laureates, among the famous people who taught there are Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) and the Grimm brothers.
• ormer students include Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) and American JP Morgan (1837-1913).

Environment & Ecology

• The Germans were the pioneers of the ecological movement and ecological policy. The first green party in the world, Die Grünen , was founded in 1979-1980. Germany is one of the few countries (with Belgium) where the Greens have been part of a coalition government (from 1998 to 2005, for now).
• The term “ecology” was coined by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866.
  Drachenfels (Siebengebirge), in North Rhine-Westphalia, became the first nature reserve on the planet in 1836.
• In 2005 Germany produced about 35% of the world’s wind energy. There are over 20,000 wind turbines off the coast of northern Germany, the largest of which reach 200 meters in height.
• Germans are among the most avid recyclers. According to a BBC survey, Germany has the third highest recycling rate (48% of recycled waste), just exceeded by its Swiss and Austrian neighbors.

History

• The oldest sun observatory currently known in Europe is the Goseck Circle in Saxony-Anhalt. It was built 7000 years ago.
• The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was founded by Charlemagne at Aachen in the year 800. It lasted more than a thousand years, until 1806, when Napoleon dissolved it (mainly because he considered himself the heir of Charlemagne, the new emperor of the West).
• The Weihenstephaner brewery in Freising, Bavaria, has been operating since it was founded in 1040, making it the oldest brewery in the world.
• Hildegarde de Bingen (1098-1179) is the oldest composer (or composer) whose biography is well known. His works are considered the foundation of what will become opera (more than 400 years later).
• Germany played a central role in the reform of Christianity. Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) printed the very first Bible in the world in Mainz in 1456. The development of the printing press allowed ordinary people to possess a copy of the sacred book, a privilege previously reserved for the nobility and the clergy. It was not long before another German, Martin Luther (1483-1546), compared the actual content of the Bible with the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church and identified important differences. In 1517, Luther posted his 95 theses at the door of the church of Wittenberg Castle (Saxony-Anhalt), in which he affirmed that the Bible is the only source of religious authority and church, and that priesthood was accessible to all believers.
• The University of Marburg (Philipps-Universität Marburg), in Hesse, was founded in 1527 as the first Protestant university in the world.
• The first savings bank in the world was created in Oldenburg (Lower Saxony) in 1786.
• The world’s first electric tram line was the Lichterfelde-Kadettenanstalt tram line, opened in the Berlin suburb of Lichterfelde in 1881. It was built by Siemens & Halske, which will later be incorporated into Siemens AG.
• Germany has had several capitals during its turbulent history, including (in chronological order): Aachen (from 794), Regensburg (seat of the Reichstag from 1663 to 1806), Frankfurt (site of the election and the coronation German emperors between 1152 and 1792, seat of the Bundestag of the Germanic Confederation from 1815 to 1871), Berlin (from 1871 to 1949 and from 1990 to today), and Bonn (from 1949 to 1990 – West Germany only )

Construction & Architecture

• Ulm Cathedral is the tallest church in the world, with a tower of 161.53 meters high.
  The Cologne Cathedral was the tallest building in the world from 1880 to 1889 (or until 1884, if we count the Washington Monument, which is an obelisk, not a building proper).
• The Wurzburg residence has the largest ceiling fresco in the world (677 m²). It is the work of the Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770).
• The German motorways are the oldest motorway network in the world (first part completed in 1932), and one of the densest (12 000 km for a country of 357 021 km²). It is also the only one in Europe to have no general speed limit.
• The two biggest Cuckoo clocks in the world are both located in Schonach im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg. Cuckoos measure nearly five meters and weigh 150 kg each.
• More than 300 bunkers and hundreds of kilometers of underground tunnels built during the Nazi era still exist under the modern city of Berlin – though mostly inaccessible due to landslides and floods via groundwater.

Economy

• Since 2003, Germany has been the world’s largest exporter of goods with exports amounting to $ 1,016 trillion in 2005. 10.1% of world exports come from Germany.
• Germany is the world’s second largest producer of cars (after Japan) and motor vehicles in general (after the United States).
• German BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik) is the second largest chemical company in the world, employing some 87,000 people in 160 subsidiaries and joint ventures in 41 countries.
• Germany has been ranked No. 1 in the protection of copyright and patents by the World Competitiveness Yearbook.
• After suffering for several years one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe (12% in 2006), Germany now enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates on the continent (5.4% in 2012) .
• In 2006, Germany had the highest corporate tax rate in Europe, nearly 40%.
• The largest railway station in Europe opened in Berlin in 2006.
• The European Central Bank is located in Frankfurt, Germany.
• Frankfurt International Airport holds the world record for most destinations served.
• Lufthansa, based in Frankfurt, is the largest airline in the world in terms of international passengers transported and the largest in Europe per passenger per kilometer, per tonne of freight transported per kilometer, and the size of its fleet. D
  ELAG, (Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG, or “German Airship Transport Company”) was the first airline in the world. It was founded on November 16, 1909 in Frankfurt.
  The largest store in continental Europe is the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) in Berlin, with more than 60,000 square meters.
• According to Wealthinsight’s World Cities by Millionaires (May 2013) ranking, the Frankfurt metropolitan area has more millionaires per capita than any other city in the world included in the study. Munich comes second.