Features include interactive map, in-depth stories, and
more.Download now. » The week's top five must-sees, delivered to
your inbox. Hamburg, officially Free and Hanseatic City of
Hamburg, is the second largest city in Germany and the sixth
largest city in the European Union. It is also the thirteenth
largest German state. The city is home to over 1.8 million
people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region has more than 5
million inhabitants. Situated on the river Elbe, the port of
Hamburg is the second largest port in Europe and tenth largest
worldwide. Hamburg's official name, Free and Hanseatic City of
Hamburg, reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval
Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman
Empire, and that Hamburg is a city-state and one of the sixteen
States of Germany. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany,
Hamburg was a fully sovereign state of its own. Prior to the
constitutional changes in 1919, the stringent civic republic was
ruled by a class of hereditary grand bur