Urban districts of Germany

In Germany an Urban District (German: Kreisfreie Stadt or Stadtkreis) is a large town or city that is responsible for its own local government. Germany is divided into 429 districts. 313 are rural districts (Landkreise, see List of German rural districts) and 116 urban districts (Kreisfreie Städte / Stadtkreise) which are listed below.

It is not part of a rural district, or county (German: Kreis or Landkreis).

In some states, there is another level of government, the Regierungsbezirk or governmental district. Several urban and rural districts are joined together to make a regierungsbezirk, which does some of their jobs, especially things in land-use planning which can affect several districts.

They are the equivalent of an independent city in the United States or unitary authority in the United Kingdom.

List by state

Further information: List of German districts

Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Baden Freiburg im Breisgau Heidelberg

Heilbronn Karlsruhe Mannheim

Pforzheim Stuttgart Ulm

Bavaria

Amberg Ansbach Aschaffenburg Augsburg Bamberg Bayreuth Coburg Erlangen Fürth

Hof Ingolstadt Kaufbeuren Kempten (Allgäu) Landshut Memmingen Munich Nuremberg

Passau Regensburg Rosenheim Schwabach Schweinfurt Straubing Weiden in der Oberpfalz Würzburg

Berlin

Berlin

Brandenburg

Brandenburg an der Havel Cottbus

Frankfurt (Oder) Potsdam

Bremen

Bremen

Bremerhaven

Hamburg

Hamburg

Hesse

Darmstadt Frankfurt am Main Kassel

Offenbach am Main Wiesbaden

Lower Saxony

Braunschweig Delmenhorst Emden Göttingen ¹ Hannover ²

Oldenburg Osnabrück Salzgitter Wilhelmshaven Wolfsburg

¹ following the "Göttingen Law" of January 1 1964, the town of Göttingen is incorporated into the district (Landkreis) of Göttingen, but the rules on urban districts still apply, as long as no other rules exist.
² following the "Law on the region of Hannover", Hannover counts since November 1 2001 as an urban district as long as no other rules apply.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Rostock

Schwerin

North Rhine-Westphalia

Aachen Bielefeld Bochum Bonn Bottrop Dortmund Düsseldorf Duisburg

Essen Gelsenkirchen Hagen Hamm Herne Cologne Krefeld Leverkusen

Mönchengladbach Mülheim an der Ruhr Münster Oberhausen Remscheid Solingen Wuppertal

Rhineland-Palatinate

Frankenthal Kaiserslautern Koblenz Landau

Ludwigshafen Mainz Neustadt an der Weinstraße Pirmasens

Speyer Trier Worms Zweibrücken

Saarland

There are no longer any urban districts. The town of Saarbrücken used to be an urban district but became incorporated into the Saarbrücken Town Federation on January 1 1974.

Saxony

Chemnitz Dresden Leipzig

Görlitz (was merged with Löbau-Zittau and the Niederschlesischer Oberlausitzkreis1) Hoyerswerda (was merged with Kamenz Rural District and Bautzen Rural District1) Plauen (was merged with the Vogtlandkreis1) Zwickau (was merged with the Zwickauer Land and Chemnitzer Land1)

¹The urban districts of Görlitz, Hoyerswerda, Plauen und Zwickau lost their status as „Kreisfreie Stadt“ on 1st July 2008 in a reform of Saxony's districts.

Saxony-Anhalt

Dessau-Roßlau Halle Magdeburg

Schleswig-Holstein

Flensburg Kiel

Lübeck Neumünster

Thuringia

Eisenach Erfurt Gera

Jena Suhl Weimar

Related pages

• Districts of Germany
• List of German districts
• Local government of Germany
• Rural districts of Germany