Location: Central Europe, bordering Austria 784 km, Belgium 167 km, Czech Republic 646 km,
Denmark 68 km, France 451 km, Luxembourg 138 km, Netherlands 577 km, Poland 456 km, Switzerland 334 km

Capital: Berlin

Climate: temperate and marine; cool, cloudy, wet winters and summers; occasional warm
mountain (foehn) wind

Population: 82,424,609 (July 2004 est.)

Ethnic Make-up: German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Greek, Italian, Polish,
Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish)

Religions: Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3%

Government: federal republic

Languages in Germany

The official language of Germany is German, with over 95% of the population speaking German as their first language. Minority languages include Sorbian, spoken by 0.09% in the east of Germany; North and West Frisian, spoken around the Rhine estuary by around 10,000 people, or 0.01%, who also speak German.

Danish is spoken by 0.06%, mainly in the area along the Danish border. Romani, an indigenous language is spoken by around 0.08%.
Immigrant languages include Turkish, which is spoken by around 1.8%, and Kurdish, by 0.3%.