What is Vehicle registration plates of Germany?
'''German automobile number plates''' (''Kfz-Kennzeichen'') show the place where the automobile carrying them is registered. When a person changes their main home in [[Germany]], or buys a new automobile, they must buy new number plates. Number plates can be bought which are valid all year round or between 2 to 11 months within any 12 months. This allows changing between summer and winter automobiles, such as a [[convertible]] and a [[Sedan (automobile)|sedan]]/saloon without having the time and money wasted for de- and re-registering. ==Format== [[Image:Plate-KA-RR232.JPG|thumb|200px|right|The pre-1994 German number plate format (DIN-style), no longer issued but sometimes still in use.]] [[Image:Kfz-Kennzeichen Deutschlands.png|thumb|300 px|Map of license plates in Germany]] The present number plate format, used since 1994, uses black print on a white background and first provides information about the country where the automobile is registered within the [[European Union]]. German licence plates show a ''D'' (for ''Deutschland''=''Germany'') on the blue strip on the left, which shows the European Union's flag, 12 golden stars in a circle on blue ground. After that, there are between one and three letters for the city or region where the automobile is registered, such as B for [[Berlin]]. These units usually coincide with the [[List of German districts|German districts]], in few cases an [[List of German urban districts|urban district]] and the surrounding district share the same letter code. Usually if an urban district and a rural district share the code, the number of the following letters is different. For example, the urban district ([[Straubing]]) SR has one letter after the code (SR - A 123). The surrounding district [[Straubing-Bogen]] has two letters (SR - AB 123) after the code. It depends on the number of registered automobiles (or citizens) whether the City or the district has two letters, because there are more possibilities with two letters, so the part with more citizens usually has two letters