The Green Industrial City : Germany

Hamburg is Germany’s second largest industrial center and the heart of a metropolitan area with a population of 3.3 million. It is nevertheless one of the greenest cities in Germany. 41 percent of Hamburg’s total area consists of arable land and garden plots, parks and public gardens, woodlands, moors and heaths. Landscape reserves and nature reserves cover 28 percent of the city’s area. As a result of the unification of Germany and the opening up of Eastern Europe, the port of Hamburg has regained its old hinterland. This enhances the city-state’s prospects of once again becoming the hub of trade, services and communications between East and West. Firm plans have been made for the construction of the Transrapid magnetic levitation train, which is to link Hamburg’s city center with the center of the German capital Berlin in less than one hour.

The port, one of the largest in the world, spreads out over 75 square kilometers, occupying one tenth of Hamburg’s city area. In terms of container transshipment volume, Hamburg ranks second in Europe after Rotterdam. Approximately 180 scheduled shipping lines offer about 7,000 departures each year from the port of Hamburg to points all aver the globe. Every day more than 220,000 people from the surrounding area commute to work in the Hanseatic City. Hamburg is the banking center for northern Germany and Germany’s largest insurance headquarters. With more than 95 consulates-general and consulates, Hamburg is the world’s principal consular city. The Congress Center conveniently located in the heart of the city is one of the most modern and most popular conference centers in Europe. The immediately adjacent trade fair halls further enhance its attractiveness as a venue for important trade exhibitions.

Hamburg is the center of the German media industry. The roughly 6,000 firms active in this sector employ a work force of approximately 50,000 and utilize the services of numerous free-lancers. Their annual turnover exceeds DM 40 billion. In recent years the communications sector has been the city’s most rapidly expanding economic sector. The electronic media are playing an increasingly important role in this development: the city’s major radio and television stations as well as the numerous firms engaged in the production of audiovisual and multimedia programs. Hamburg’s advertising industry and its award-winning agencies have steadily gained ground as well. In both the German recording market and the newspaper and magazine market, firms headquartered in the metropolis on the Elbe command a market share of up to 50 percent - 1 7 of the 21 German newsstand magazines with circulations of over a million are published in Hamburg.