60 Interesting Facts About Germany, All Fact-Checked

Germany is the most populous country in the European Union, with more than 83 million people, the largest economy in Europe, and the country that gave the world the printing press, the clarinet, aspirin and the gummy bear. The 60 facts below cover its history, food, language, laws and oddities, and every one of them was rechecked in September 2026 against a source that can be named.

Several facts that circulate about Germany are out of date rather than wrong, and a few are simply false. Ulm Minster lost the tallest-church record in October 2025, the last German nuclear reactors closed in April 2023, Neuschwanstein became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2025, and the Currywurst Museum in Berlin shut in 2018. Those corrections are all in the list.

Germany at a glance

The basic facts about Germany are set out in the table below, before the list gets to the strange ones.

60 interesting facts about Germany to impress your friends with

Germany’s 60 most interesting facts run from a 42,000-year-old flute to a street 31 centimetres wide. They are listed below, grouped loosely by subject and numbered straight through.

1. Germany has more than 83 million people, the largest population of any European Union country. Older facts pages that call it the largest in Europe are ignoring Russia.
2. The melody of the Deutschlandlied, the German national anthem, was written by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, and the words come from a poem by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. Only the third verse has been sung since 1952, because the first two carry Nazi-era associations.
3. Berlin is both the capital and the largest city. Before reunification in 1990, Bonn was the capital of West Germany and East Berlin the capital of the East.
4. The President is head of state and the role is mostly ceremonial. The Federal Chancellor is head of government, is nominated by the President and elected by the Bundestag, and the Bundestag is elected by the people.
5. The black, red and gold of the German flag are usually traced to the Lützow Free Corps, a volunteer unit in the 1813 wars against Napoleon, whose black uniforms had red facings and gold buttons. The colours were adopted for the German Confederation in 1848, and they had earlier been associated with the Holy Roman Empire’s black eagle on gold.
6. Henry the Fowler, the first king of Germany, was elected at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919, not crowned at Quedlinburg as many guides say. He is buried at Quedlinburg Abbey, and Quedlinburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
7. Müller is the most common German surname when spellings are counted separately, followed by Schmidt. Count Schmidt, Schmitt, Schmitz and Schmied together, though, and the blacksmith beats the miller, at about 0.87% of the population.
8. Germans drink a lot of beer but do not top the table. In 2020 Germany ranked third in Europe for beer consumption a head, behind the Czech Republic and Austria.
9. Germany has around 1,500 breweries producing some 5,000 different beers, and nearly half of those breweries are in Bavaria. The Bavarian village of Aufseß has 4 breweries for 1,352 residents, the highest brewery density in the world.
10. Neuschwanstein Castle was built between 1869 and 1892 for King Ludwig II of Bavaria as a tribute to the composer Richard Wagner, who died in 1883 without ever seeing it. On 12 July 2025 UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list together with Linderhof, Herrenchiemsee and the Schachen royal house.
11. The Zoologischer Garten in Berlin opened on 1 August 1844 and is the oldest surviving zoo in Germany. It holds around 1,380 species and more than 20,200 animals on 35 hectares (86.5 acres), which makes it one of the most species-rich zoos anywhere, though not the largest by area.
12. A remarkable share of the composers in the standard classical repertoire were German: Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner and Richard Strauss.
13. The oldest musical instruments in the world come from southern Germany. Flutes made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, around 40,000 years old, were found in the Geissenklösterle and Hohle Fels caves in the Swabian Jura, and the caves became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2017.
14. Johann Christoph Denner, an instrument maker in Nuremberg, invented the clarinet somewhere between 1690 and 1700 by modifying the chalumeau, a simpler single-reed instrument that already existed.
15. The Drachenfels in the Siebengebirge, in North Rhine-Westphalia, is often called the world’s first nature reserve. The Prussian state bought the hill in 1836 to stop quarrying from destroying it.
16. Germany was the first country to introduce Daylight Saving Time, on 30 April 1916, in the middle of the First World War, to save coal.
17. The word “ecology” was coined by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866.
18. Germany recycles more of its municipal waste than any other EU country, at roughly two thirds of the total. Austria is usually second. Older guides that put Germany third behind Switzerland and Austria are working from stale figures.
19. Johannes Gutenberg invented movable metal type in Europe, and the Gutenberg Bible was printed in Mainz around 1455. You can see a copy at the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz.
20. Siemens & Halske built the world’s first electric tram in 1881, the Gross-Lichterfelde line in what is now Berlin. The company grew into Siemens AG, the largest engineering group in Europe.
21. The Zugspitze, on the Austrian border in Bavaria, is Germany’s highest mountain at 2,962 m (9,718 ft), and a cable car and a cog railway both reach the top.
22. Ulm Minster stands 161.53 m (530 ft) tall and was the tallest church in the world for 135 years, from 1890 until 30 October 2025, when the Sagrada Família in Barcelona overtook it. It still has the tallest steeple you can climb in Germany, at 768 steps.
23. The longest German word ever published is Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft, at 79 letters. German builds compound nouns by sticking words together, so in principle the language has no longest word at all.
24. The gummy bear is German. Hans Riegel, who founded Haribo in Bonn in 1920, made the first Gummibärchen in 1922, and they stayed affordable enough to sell through the Great Depression.
25. Schonach, next to Triberg in the Black Forest, has the world’s first record-breaking cuckoo clock, built in 1980 and listed by Guinness in 1984. Its cuckoo call comes from pipes 4 m (13.1 ft) long, and our guide to Black Forest crafts and traditions explains how the clocks are actually made.
26. Berlin Hauptbahnhof opened in 2006, in time for the World Cup, and is the largest crossing station in Europe, with trains running on two levels at right angles to each other.
27. The world’s first passenger airline was German. DELAG, the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft, was founded in Frankfurt on 16 November 1909 to carry paying passengers by Zeppelin airship.
28. KaDeWe, the Kaufhaus des Westens in Berlin, covers around 60,000 m² (645,835 sq ft) and is the largest department store in continental Europe. Its top-floor food hall is the reason most visitors go.
29. Germany has the largest economy in Europe by nominal GDP and the third largest in the world, behind the United States and China.
30. Germany has produced 116 Nobel laureates, third in the world behind the United States and the United Kingdom, and Albert Einstein is one of them.
31. Germans eat bread at breakfast, lunch, as a snack and at supper. Around 3,000 types of bread and 1,200 kinds of rolls and pastries are made in roughly 13,000 bakeries, and yes, there are bread museums.
32. Football is the biggest sport in Germany at every level, amateur and professional. The men’s national team has won the World Cup 4 times and the women’s team twice.
33. Germany is one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, and the marques everyone knows are Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Porsche.
34. The Autobahn network ran to 13,210 km (8,210 mi) in 2024, and around 70% of it has no general speed limit, only an advisory 130 km/h (81 mph). Exceeding the advisory speed is legal but can increase your liability in a crash.
35. German is one of the most widely taught foreign languages in the world and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union.
36. There are said to be more than 1,500 kinds of German sausage and cold cut. The main categories are Rohwurst (raw and cured), Kochwurst (cooked), Brühwurst (scalded) and the Bratwurst you fry.
37. Public universities in Germany charge no tuition fees, to Germans and foreigners alike. Baden-Württemberg is the exception: it charges non-EU students €1,500 (about $1,500, £1,290) a semester.
38. About a third of Germany is covered in forest, and the country has 16 national parks.
39. Prostitution is legal and regulated in Germany. The Prostitution Act of 2002 gave sex workers employment rights, and the Prostitutes Protection Act of 2017 added registration and health-counselling requirements.
40. A marriage is only legally valid in Germany if it takes place at a Standesamt, the civil registry office. A church ceremony has no legal force on its own, and the registry fee varies by state.
41. The Schultüte is still going strong. A German child starting first grade is given a large decorated cone filled with sweets, small presents and school supplies, and photographed holding it.
42. Germany’s naming rules are looser than they used to be. Until a Federal Constitutional Court ruling in 2008, a first name had to indicate the child’s sex; now the only real test is that the name must not harm the child’s wellbeing. The local Standesamt still has to approve it.
43. Count on your thumb when ordering beer. In Germany the thumb means one, thumb plus index finger means two, and so on, which is why holding up an index finger can get you two drinks.
44. The Christmas tree is a German tradition, but the Martin Luther story is a legend. The earliest documented decorated trees are in 16th-century Alsace, where a Strasbourg record of 1539 and a guild ordinance of 1561 both mention them.
45. Oktoberfest began as a wedding party. Crown Prince Ludwig, later King Ludwig I, married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen on 12 October 1810, and the horse races held to celebrate it turned into an annual agricultural show and then into the world’s largest folk festival, which now starts in September.
46. Mattel made a one-off Angela Merkel Barbie in 2009, in a black trouser suit with the chancellor’s blond bob. It was made for Barbie’s 50th birthday, not Merkel’s, and it was never sold.
47. Germany finished its nuclear phase-out on 15 April 2023, when the last three reactors, Emsland, Isar II and Neckarwestheim II, were switched off. Guides that say the deadline is 2022 are describing a plan, not what happened.
48. Most German taxis are Mercedes-Benz, which is why a taxi rank in Germany looks like a car showroom to visitors from almost anywhere else.
49. Germany has more than 20,000 castles, palaces and fortified ruins, which works out at roughly one for every 4,000 people.
50. The narrowest street in the world is Spreuerhofstraße in Reutlingen, which measures 31 cm (12.2 in) at its narrowest point and is recognised by Guinness World Records.
51. Berliners call the Federal Chancellery the Waschmaschine, the washing machine, because of its square white front and huge round windows.
52. Escaping from prison is not a crime in Germany, on the reasoning that the urge to be free is basic human nature. Helping somebody else escape is still very much a crime, and you will be recaptured and serve the rest of your sentence.
53. Germans watch a black-and-white English comedy sketch on New Year’s Eve. “Dinner for One”, recorded in 1963, is broadcast repeatedly every 31 December and is almost unknown in Britain, where it comes from.
54. Germany lost a longer word than the Danube one in 2013. Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, the beef labelling supervision duties delegation law, was repealed when BSE testing on healthy cattle was dropped.
55. Frankfurt is nicknamed Mainhattan, from the river Main and Manhattan, because it has the only real skyline in Germany. The European Central Bank and most of the country’s banks are there.
56. Stollen, the German Christmas cake, is a heavy fruit loaf with marzipan through the middle and a thick coat of icing sugar, and its shape is said to represent the infant Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. Dresden has baked it since the 15th century.
57. Currywurst, sliced pork sausage under curried ketchup, is Berlin’s signature street food. The Deutsches Currywurst Museum, which several guides still list, closed permanently on 21 December 2018 after 10 years, so do not plan a visit.
58. Napoleon defeated the Prussian and Saxon armies at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt on 14 October 1806, which ended Prussia’s standing as a great power for a generation.
59. Hamburg is called the Venice of the North and has more bridges than Venice and Amsterdam combined. The nickname is not exclusive: Bruges claims it too, and so do Stockholm, St Petersburg and Amsterdam itself.
60. The Reichstag building houses the Bundestag, and its glass dome, added by Norman Foster in the 1990s, is free to visit if you book ahead. The Bundestag describes itself as the most visited parliament in the world.

Frequently asked questions about Germany

What is Germany best known for?

Germany is known above all for beer, bread, cars, castles and Christmas markets, and for its part in the history of printing, classical music and 20th-century Europe. The concrete markers are Oktoberfest in Munich, roughly 1,500 breweries, some 3,000 types of bread, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Porsche, more than 20,000 castles, and the Advent markets that run through December in almost every German town.

What are 3 unusual facts about Germany?

Three genuinely unusual German facts are the narrowest street in the world, the New Year’s Eve television ritual and the prison rule. Spreuerhofstraße in Reutlingen narrows to 31 cm (12.2 in); every 31 December German television repeatedly broadcasts “Dinner for One”, a 1963 English sketch almost nobody in Britain has heard of; and escaping from prison is not itself a criminal offence, though helping someone else escape is.

How many states does Germany have?

Germany has 16 federal states, called Bundesländer. Three of them are city states, Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen, and each state runs its own schools, police and public holidays, which is why a shop can be shut in Bavaria and open in Berlin on the same day.

Is German food only sausage and beer?

German food goes well beyond sausage and beer, though there is plenty of both. Regional cooking runs from the fish and pickled herring of the northern coast to the Swabian pasta dishes of the south-west, the dumplings and roast pork of Bavaria, the potato dishes of the east and the Rhineland’s Sauerbraten, plus around 3,000 types of bread and a serious cake tradition.

When is the best time to visit Germany?

May, June and September are the months to visit Germany, with warm weather, long days and no school holidays. December is the other answer, because the Christmas markets are the single biggest reason people fly in, and the ski season in Bavaria and the Black Forest runs from December to March.

Read more about Germany

Our German coverage runs from cities to Christmas markets. The most useful guides for a first visit are Münster, the German Christmas markets round-up and the volcanic Eifel, and the full set sits in our posts about Germany.

Two bookings are worth making early for a German trip. Hotel prices in Munich, Cologne and Berlin swing hard around Oktoberfest, Karneval and the Advent weekends, so compare places to stay in Germany as soon as your dates are fixed. Deutsche Bahn’s cheapest advance fares, the Sparpreis tickets, go on sale 6 months ahead and sell out, so check German train routes and prices before you assume you need a car.

If you spot something on this list that looks wrong, write to wanderer [at] wonderfulwanderings.com and we will check it.

Don’t forget travel insurance

Travel insurance covers what goes wrong on a German trip: a cancelled flight, an illness abroad, a stolen phone, sometimes a broken laptop. Plan for the good version of the trip and insure the bad one.

Do not have travel insurance yet? Check out SafetyWing. Their plans are flexible enough to buy after you have already left, they were the first travel insurer to cover COVID, and when Sofie caught it they reimbursed her expenses without an argument. Their customer support is genuinely good, which is not a sentence we write often about insurers.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 4 tips below are the facts on this list that change a plan rather than win an argument, drawn from the September 2026 recheck.

1. Treat the Autobahn’s 130 km/h as a real number. Around 70% of the 13,210 km network carries only an advisory 130 km/h (81 mph) limit, and driving faster is legal, but exceeding the advisory speed can increase your liability if you are involved in a crash. The other 30% has posted limits that are enforced normally.
2. Skip the Currywurst Museum in Berlin. It closed permanently on 21 December 2018 after 10 years, and it is still listed in guides and on itinerary round-ups. The sausage itself is on every second street corner in the city.
3. Go to Schonach for the record-breaking cuckoo clock, not Triberg. The clock built in 1980 and entered in the Guinness records in 1984 stands in Schonach, next door to Triberg, and both Black Forest towns advertise a world’s largest clock.
4. Check the state before you count on free tuition. Public universities in Germany charge no tuition fees, with one exception: Baden-Württemberg bills non-EU students €1,500 (about $1,500, £1,290) a semester, so Freiburg, Heidelberg and Stuttgart are not the same proposition as Munich or Berlin.

PIN FOR LATER

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, who has travelled Germany from Münster and Cologne to the Black Forest and the Eifel. Every fact on this list was rechecked against a named source in September 2026, and the ones that no longer held up were corrected rather than quietly dropped. The team covers Germany for independent travellers, including the hotels, the trains, the Christmas markets and the guided tours worth booking, and updates this page when the facts change.