Urban districts of Germany

This is a list of urban districts in Germany. Germany is divided into 413 districts (not to be confused with the larger Regierungsbezirk); these consist of 301 rural districts (Landkreise, see List of German rural districts) and 112 urban districts (Kreisfreie Städte / Stadtkreise) – cities which constitute a district in their own right. A similar concept is the Statutarstadt in Austria. Kreisfreie Städte are comparable to independent cities in the English-speaking world.

Baden-Württemberg

Bavaria

Berlin

Brandenburg

Bremen

Hamburg

Hesse

Lower Saxony

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-Vorpommern

  • Greifswald
  • Neubrandenburg
  • Rostock

North Rhine-Westphalia

¹ The town of Aachen will become incorporated into the Aachen Regional Federation on October 21 2009.

Rhineland-Palatinate

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

  • Görlitz1 (merged with Löbau-Zittau and the Niederschlesischer Oberlausitzkreis)
  • Hoyerswerda1 (merged with Kamenz (district) and Bautzen (district))
  • Plauen1 (merged with the Vogtlandkreis)
  • Zwickau1 (merged with the Zwickauer Land and Chemnitzer Land)

1The urban districts of Görlitz, Hoyerswerda, Plauen und Zwickau lost their status as „kreisfreie Stadt“ on 1st August 2008 in a reform of the Saxon districts.

Saxony-Anhalt

Schleswig-Holstein

Thuringia

See also