Business

Facts and Statistics

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%.

Why not learn some useful German phrases?

German Society & Culture

A Planning Culture

. In many respects, Germans can be considered the masters of planning.

. This is a culture that prizes forward thinking and knowing what they will be doing at a specific time on a specific day.

. Careful planning, in one's business and personal life, provides a sense of security.

. Rules and regulations allow people to know what is expected and plan their life accordingly.

. Once the proper way to perform a task is discovered, there is no need to think of doing it any other way.

. Germans believe that maintaining clear lines of demarcation between people, places, and things is the surest way to lead a structured and ordered life.

. Work and personal lives are...