About Germany

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in west- central Europe. The country consists of  16 states, and its capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 square kilometers and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state in the European Union Germany is one of the major political and economic powers of the European continent and a historic leader in many theoretical and technical fields.

Federal Chancellor: Angela Merkel
Federal President: Joachim Gauk 

History

A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. . Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire.  During the 16th century, northern German regions became the center of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states in 1871 into the German Empire, which was Prussian dominated.

After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic in 1918, and some of its territory partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Despite its lead in many scientific and artistic fields at this time, amidst the Great Depression, the "Drittes Reich" was proclaimed in 1933.
The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 the country was reunified.
Germany was a founding member of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993.

Geography

Germany is in Western and Central Europe, with Denmark bordering to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France and Luxembourg to the southwest, and Belgium and the Netherlands to the northwest.  It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.
Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 metres) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the northwest and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the northeast.

Climate

Germany belongs completely to the temperate zone of Central Europe and is located in the transition zone between the maritime climate in Western Europe and the continental climate in Eastern Europe.

The mean annual temperature (relative to the normal period 1961-1990) is 8.2 ° C,  the average temperatures per month range from -0.5 ° C in January and 16.9 ° C in July. The average annual rainfall is 789 millimeters.

The lowest ever measured temperature in Germany was -45.9 degrees , it was on 24 December 2001 in Funtensee. The highest temperature so far was 40.3 degrees and on 8 August 2003 in Nennig Saarland.

Fauna 

Most german, native mammals live in the deciduous forests. In the forest, among many other species of  different types, fallow and red deer, roe deer, wild boar and lynx and foxes. Beaver and otter are less frequent inhabitants of the floodplains, with some stocks rising again. Other formerly living in Central Europe, large mammals became extinct: Brown Bear (1835), Moose (in the Middle Ages still numerous), Wild Horse (19th century), Wolf (1904) (17th/18th century.). 

The salmon who lived in the rivers once, was largely eradicated during the industrial revolution in the 19th Century, but in the 1980s it has been located in the Rhine again.
 
The seal who lived in the North and Baltic Sea was totally eradicated, tbut now they are a few thousand seals in the "Wattenmeer" again. Even the back-propagating cone seal populations in northern Europe returned again to the shores of Germany when they were disappeared entirely by hunting. The Wadden Sea is particularly as a resting place for ten to twelve million birds a year of significance.  
The best known species of whale in the North and Baltic Sea is the harbor porpoise, but there live another seven species of whales, including sperm whale, killer whale and the a kind dolphin species.

Sports

Twenty-seven million Germans are members of a sports club and an additional twelve million pursue sports individually. Football is the most popular sport. With more than 6.3 million official members, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) is the largest sports organisation of its kind worldwide. 
The Bundesliga, the top league of German football, attracts the second highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world.
The German national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974 and 1990 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996. Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1974 and 2006 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1988. Other popular spectator sports include handball, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, and tennis.

Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport.

Historically, German sportsmen have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count, combining East and West German medals. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, Germany finished fifth in the medal count, while in the 2006 Winter Olympics they finished first. Germany has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in Berlin in 1936 and in Munich in 1972. The Winter Olympic Games took place in Germany once in 1936 in the twin towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen.