List of the major and largest German cities by population and occupied area, cities with a population of 1 million or more (million-plus), the largest cities of the country

§ Germany's largest city - the capital city of Berlin

The largest city in the country is Berlin (in German: Berlin), the capital of Germany. As of 2023 the population of Berlin totals 3'755'251 people; of which 1'843'196 are men and 1'912'055 are women. Berlin covers an area equal to 891 square kilometers. The city of Berlin is one of the most densely populated cities in Germany, with 4'214 people per 1 square kilometer.

§ German metropolitan areas

A metropolitan area is a union of one big city (urban core) and several smaller cities (townships) sharing economic and transport infrastructure.

In Germany, large cities surrounded by large settlements are not assigned the metropolitan area status. Nevertheless, there are several large cities in the country that fit the definition of a metropolitan area and make up multi-million localities. The metropolitan area population size is represented in millions of people and sorted by the population of the metropolitan area.

Table 1. German metropolitan areas as of 2023.

* - The population of the city and surrounding territories and cities, rough estimate.

§ Metropolitan regions (in German: Metropolregionen), metropolitan cities of Germany

A metropolitan city is a union of several large cities or metropolitan areas that form one densely populated region.

In Germany, densely populated areas of the country are not assigned the status of a metropolitan city, however, the Ministerial Conference for Spatial Planning (MKRO) has identified several metropolitan regions of Europe, which we consider here as metropolitan cities, that, as of 2017, include the regions of Germany presented in Table 2. The largest of them is the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, with the population size exceeding 10 million people.

Table 2. Metropolitan cities, metropolitan regions of Germany.

§ Million-plus or million-strong cities in Germany

Despite the fact that in Germany there are a number of large metropolitan areas and even metropolitan cities, only 4 cities in the country are million-plus or million-strong cities, whose population size exceeds one million people. Table 3 below features these cities and the number of people residing there, with the population size figures rounded to millions.

Table 3. Million-plus cities of Germany as of 2023

§ Germany's largest cities by population size

The largest cities of the country include those whose population size exceeds one hundred thousand people; there are 82 such cities in Germany as of 2023. Table 4 presents a list of data on the largest cities in terms of their population size, with the number of city residents rounded to thousands.

Table 4. Germany's largest cities by population size.

§ A comprehensive list of Germany's large cities by occupied area

We consider cities with an area of more than 200 square kilometers to be large cities in the country; there are 82 such cities in Germany. Table 5 features a list of the cities by the area they occupy as of 2023.

Table 5. Cities of Germany by area.

List of major cities in Germany: metropolitan areas, metropolitan cities, million-plus cities