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Due to the country's federal and decentralized structure Germany has a number of larger cities. The most populous are Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt and Dortmund. By far the largest conurbation is the Rhine-Ruhr region, including the Düsseldorf-Cologne district and the cities of Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg and Bochum. The federal structure has kept the population oriented towards a number of large cities, and has precluded the growth of any single city that would rival such European capitals as London, Paris or Moscow for size. As of 2005, about 7.5 million foreign citizen residents were living in Germany. The majority came from Turkey, followed by Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland, Russia, Austria, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and France. Thanks to reform of German nationality law, many of these immigrants are eligible for naturalization. 8 million of German citizens are connected with another nationality. Germany is still a primary destination for political and economic immigrants from many less industrialized countries, especially Turkey and Southern/Southeastern Europe, but the number of annual asylum seekers has been declining in recent years. According to a the micro census conducted by the German federal office of statistics in 2005, 19% of the country's residents are of foreign or partially foreign descent |
Germany Information: Inside
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