Germany

For most of its history "Germany" was not a state but a shifting collection of kingdoms, duchies, free cities, and church territories, loosely bound in the Holy Roman Empire. The Protestant Reformation, begun by Martin Luther in 1517, split these lands and led to the devastating Thirty Years' War. Prussia rose as a military power in the eighteenth century and, under Bismarck, unified the German states into a single empire in 1871, with the Prussian king as emperor.

That empire's defeat in the First World War brought the unstable Weimar Republic, which the Nazis dismantled after 1933. Under Hitler, Germany started the Second World War and carried out the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews and the murder of millions of others. Total defeat in 1945 left the country occupied and, from 1949, divided: a democratic, Western-aligned Federal Republic in the west and a Soviet-aligned communist state in the east, with the Berlin Wall from 1961 as the sharpest symbol of the Cold War.

The Wall fell in 1989, and the two Germanys reunified in 1990. Reunited Germany became the economic anchor of the European Union and the eurozone, took in large numbers of refugees in 2015, and has more recently grappled with energy security, the rise of the far right, and its role in European defence after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Germany is a federal country in temperament as well as law: a Bavarian, a Rhinelander, a Hamburger, and a Saxon will describe distinct traditions, dialects, food, and even a different sense of humour, and much cultural and educational policy is run by the states rather than Berlin. The east–west divide left by division still shows in wages, politics, and outlook decades on.

The country has an enormous cultural inheritance — Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms; Goethe, Kant, and the Bauhaus; a dense network of state-funded theatres, orchestras, and museums. Everyday values often cited include punctuality, directness (which can read as blunt), thoroughness, a strong sense of rules and recycling, and a serious approach to leisure, from hiking clubs to allotment gardens.

Festival life is regional and often rooted in the church calendar or the harvest: Carnival (Karneval/Fasching) in the Rhineland and the south, Oktoberfest in Munich, wine festivals along the Rhine and Mosel, and Christmas markets everywhere in Advent.

Germany's 84 million people are spread fairly evenly, with no single dominant metropolis: Berlin, the capital, is the largest city, followed by Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt, and the Ruhr area forms a large post-industrial conurbation. The south (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg) is the wealthiest and most industrial region.

The economy is built on high-value manufacturing — cars, machinery, chemicals, industrial equipment — much of it produced by mid-sized, often family-owned companies (the Mittelstand), and heavily geared to exports. A strong social market system provides universal healthcare, tuition-free universities, and extensive worker protections, and Germany is a leader in renewable energy after phasing out nuclear power.

Daily life tends toward an early start, a substantial breakfast and often a warm lunch, shops closed on Sundays, and a clear separation of work and free time, with weekends given to sport, the outdoors, family, and the garden.

German cooking is regional and hearty. The south and Bavaria bring roast pork (Schweinebraten), pork knuckle, dumplings, Weisswurst with sweet mustard, and pretzels; the southwest, Spätzle and Maultaschen; the Rhineland, Sauerbraten (marinated pot roast) and potato pancakes; the north, fish, Labskaus, and Grünkohl (kale with sausage) in winter.

Bread is a national obsession, with hundreds of types, mostly dark and dense, and the Bäckerei is a fixture of every street. Sausages run into the hundreds too, from the Bratwurst of Nuremberg and Thuringia to Berlin's Currywurst, and the Imbiss stand and the Turkish-German Döner are the standard quick meals.

Beer is protected by the 1516 purity law tradition and brewed with fierce local loyalty — Kölsch in Cologne, Weissbier in Bavaria, Pils in the north. The Rhine, Mosel, and Franconia produce fine white wines, above all Riesling, and Apfelwein is Frankfurt's own.

Berlin is the essential city visit: the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag, remnants of the Wall and the East Side Gallery, the Holocaust Memorial, Museum Island, and a nightlife and arts scene with few rivals. Munich pairs the Marienplatz, beer halls, and Oktoberfest with easy access to the Alps; Hamburg has its harbour, canals, and the Elbphilharmonie; Cologne its Gothic cathedral.

The Romantic Rhine between Bingen and Koblenz — castles on the crags, vineyard terraces, the Lorelei rock — is a UNESCO landscape best seen by boat or train. In Bavaria, King Ludwig II's castles at Neuschwanstein and Linderhof, the half-timbered towns of the Romantic Road such as Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and the lakes and peaks around Berchtesgaden and Garmisch draw the crowds.

Elsewhere: the Black Forest with its cuckoo clocks, spa towns, and hiking; the Baltic and North Sea coasts and the island of Sylt; Dresden's rebuilt Baroque centre and the "Saxon Switzerland" sandstone cliffs nearby; Weimar and its Goethe-and-Bauhaus legacy; and the Harz Mountains with their steam railway.