Free City of Hamburg

Hamburg, officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is a city and state in the North of Germany. It is Germany's second-largest city after Berlin and the seventh-largest in the European Union, with a population exceeding 1.9 million. Situated on the River Elbe, it is at the head of an estuary leading to the North Sea. Hamburg is one of Germany's three city-states, alongside Berlin and Bremen, and is surrounded by Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. Its official name reflects its historical status as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League and a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Before Germany's unification in 1871, it was a fully sovereign city-state.