knowledge Overview
Germany is a federal state: legislation and administration are distributed between the federation and 16 states, which have their own constitutions, parliaments (Landtage) and governments. The states are represented in the Bundesrat; municipal self-government is guaranteed by Article 28 of the Basic Law.
Levels
- Federation: the Federal Republic of Germany as the federal overall state
- States (16): Baden-Württemberg (Baden-Württemberg), Bavaria (Bavaria), Berlin (Berlin), Brandenburg (Brandenburg), Bremen (Bremen), Hamburg (Hamburg), Hesse (Hesse), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), Lower Saxony (Lower Saxony), North Rhine-Westphalia (North Rhine-Westphalia), Rhineland-Palatinate (Rhineland-Palatinate), Saarland (Saarland), Saxony (Saxony), Saxony-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt), Schleswig-Holstein (Schleswig-Holstein), Thuringia (Thuringia)
- Government regions: only in four territorial states – Baden-Württemberg (4), Bavaria (7), Hesse (3) and North Rhine-Westphalia (5). Rhineland-Palatinate dissolved its regions in 2000, Saxony-Anhalt in 2004, Lower Saxony on 1 January 2005; Saxony merged its government regions into three directorates in 2008 and combined them into the Landesdirektion Sachsen on 1 March 2012. Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia established no regions in 1990; Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland never had any.
- Districts: Germany is divided into 400 districts – 294 rural districts (in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein "Kreise") and 106 urban districts (as of end of 2024).
- Municipalities: around 10,800 municipalities (about 10,786, as of 2024) as the lowest municipal level, partly organised in administrative associations and Ämter.
City states
Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are city states: they form both state and municipality and have no rural districts. Berlin is divided into 12 boroughs, Hamburg into 7 boroughs; Bremen consists of the two urban municipalities of Bremen and Bremerhaven.