Germany is a country in Central Europe, the most populous member of the European Union and the engine of its economy. Bordered by nine countries, more than any other in Europe, it sits at the crossroads of the continent. A land of poets, composers, philosophers, and engineers, Germany is also defined by a dramatic modern history of division and reunification that placed it at the heart of twentieth-century Europe.
For most of its history Germany was not one country but a patchwork of hundreds of states loosely bound within the Holy Roman Empire. That fragmentation ended in 1871, when the statesman Otto von Bismarck unified the German states into a single empire under Prussian leadership. The new nation rose quickly as an industrial and military power, a rise that helped draw Europe into the First World War and, after a fragile democracy collapsed, into the catastrophe of the Nazi era and the Second World War.
Germany's landscape rises from the flat northern plains along the Baltic and North Seas, through rolling central uplands and great rivers like the Rhine and the Danube, to the Bavarian Alps in the far south. Dense forests, among them the storied Black Forest, and vineyard-clad river valleys give the country much of its character. This temperate, well-watered land has long supported both farming and the dense cities of Europe's industrial core.
The German flag is a horizontal tricolour of black, red, and gold. The colours date to the early nineteenth century and the movements for liberty and national unity, and they became a symbol of democratic Germany. After the divisions of the twentieth century, the black-red-gold flag was carried by the postwar Federal Republic and flies today over the reunified nation.
Germany was the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation, launched in 1517 when the monk Martin Luther challenged the practices of the Catholic Church, splitting Western Christianity and reshaping European history. The country remains roughly divided between Protestant and Catholic traditions, broadly north and south, though a large and growing share of Germans now report no religion. Immigration has also made Islam a significant minority faith.
German food is hearty and regional, built around bread, of which the country bakes an extraordinary variety, along with pork, potatoes, and cabbage. Sausages, or wurst, come in hundreds of forms, and dishes like schnitzel, sauerkraut, and pretzels are widely loved. Germany is also a great brewing nation, its beer long governed by a famous purity law, and its cool river valleys produce fine white wines, above all Riesling.
Germany has a modern, highly productive farming sector. Its fields yield wheat, barley, potatoes, and sugar beet, while pork and dairy dominate its livestock. The river valleys of the south and west produce respected wines, and the country grows much of the hops and barley behind its celebrated beer. Farming is efficient and mechanised, supplying both the domestic market and a strong export trade in food and agricultural products.
No country's twentieth century weighs more heavily than Germany's. The Nazi dictatorship led the world into the Second World War and carried out the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews and millions of others. Defeated and divided in 1945, Germany was split between a democratic West and a communist East, separated most starkly by the Berlin Wall. When the Wall fell in 1989, it opened the way to peaceful reunification in 1990.
Germany has a population of around 84 million people, the largest in the European Union. It is a highly urban society, with major centres at Berlin, the capital, along with Hamburg, Munich, and the industrial Rhine-Ruhr region. Like much of Europe, Germany faces an ageing population and low birth rate, and immigration has become central to sustaining its workforce, making it home to large communities with Turkish, Eastern European, and more recent refugee origins.
