Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 (December 2008) while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million (2008).

The city lies at the centre of a heavily populated area, circled by a ring of smaller towns. This area called Stuttgart Region has a population of 2.7 million making 'greater Stuttgart' the third biggest urban area in Germany after the Ruhr Area and Berlin.. With over 5 million inhabitants, the larger Stuttgart Metropolitan Region is the fourth-biggest in Germany after the Rhine-Ruhr area, Berlin/Brandenburg and Frankfurt/Rhine-Main.

Stuttgart is spread across a variety of hills (some of them vineyards), valleys and parks - unusual for a German city and often a source of surprise to visitors who primarily associate the city with its industrial reputation as the 'cradle of the automobile'.

Stuttgart has the status of Stadtkreis, a type of self-administrating urban county. It is also the seat of the state legislature, the regional parliament, local council and the Protestant State Church in Württemberg as well as one of the two co-seats of the bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

The city's motto is "Stuttgart is more" (to tourists; to business it describes itself as "Standort Zukunft", translated by town hall marketing as "Where business meets the future"). In 2007 the Bürgermeister marketed Stuttgart to foreign investors as "The creative power of Germany". Under current plans to improve transport links to the international infrastructure (as part of the Stuttgart 21 project), in March 2008 the city unveiled a new logo and slogan, describing itself as "Das neue Herz Europas" ("The new heart of Europe").

Stuttgart is nicknamed the Schwabenmetropole (Swabian metropolis), a reference to the Swabian dialect spoken by the locals. In that dialect, the city's name is pronounced Schtuagerd.

Since the 2006 World Cup celebrations the internal and external perception of Germany's national image has changed. In annually conducted global surveys known as Nation Brands Index, Germany became significantly and repeatedly higher ranked after the tournament. People in 20 different states were asked to assess the country's reputation in terms of culture, politics, exports, its people and its attractiveness to tourists, immigrants and investments. Germany has been named the world's most valued nation among 50 countries in 2008. Another global opinion poll based on 13,575 responses in 21 countries for the BBC revealed that Germany is recognised for the most positive influence in the world in 2009, leading 16 investigated countries. A majority of 61% have a positive view of the country, while 15% have a negative view.

Germany is a legally and socially tolerant country towards homosexuals. Civil unions have been permitted since 2001. Gays and lesbians can legally adopt their partner's biological children (stepchild adoption). The Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and the mayors of the two largest German cities, Berlin and Hamburg, are openly gay.

During the last decade of the 20th century Germany has transformed its attitude towards immigrants considerably. Until the mid-nineties the opinion was widespread that Germany is not a country of immigration, even though about 10% of the population were of non-German origin. After the end of the influx of so-called Gastarbeiter (blue-collar guest-workers), refugees were a tolerated exception to this point of view. Today the government and German society are acknowledging the opinion that controlled immigration should be allowed based on the qualification of immigrants.

With an expenditure of 67 billion on international travel in 2008, Germans spent more money on travel than any other country. The most visited foreign destinations were Spain, Italy and Austria.

Christianity is the largest religion in Germany, with 52.116 million adherents (63%) in 2007. 26.5 million are Protestants (32.3%) and 25.5 million are Catholics (31.0%) in 2007. The second largest religion is Islam with 4.3 million adherents (5%) followed by Buddhism and Judaism, both with around 200,000 adherents (c. 0.25%). Hinduism has some 90,000 adherents (0.1%) and Sikhism 75,000 (0.09%). All other religious communities in Germany have fewer than 50,000 (or less than 0.05%) adherents. About 24.4 million Germans (29.6%) have no registered religious denomination.

Protestantism is concentrated in the north and east and Roman Catholicism is concentrated in the south and west. The current Pope, Benedict XVI, was born in Bavaria. Non-religious people, including atheists and agnostics, make up 29.6% of the population, and are especially numerous in the former East Germany and major metropolitan areas.

Of the 4.3 million Muslims, most are Sunnis and Alevites from Turkey, but there are a small number of Shi'ites. 1.7% of the country's overall population declare themselves Orthodox Christians, Serbs and Greeks being the most numerous. Germany has Europe's third-largest Jewish population (after France and the United Kingdom)? In 2004, twice as many Jews from former Soviet republics settled in Germany as in Israel, bringing the total Jewish population to more than 200,000, compared to 30,000 prior to German reunification. Large cities with significant Jewish populations include Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich. Around 250,000 active Buddhists live in Germany; 50% of them are Asian immigrants.

According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2005, 47% of German citizens agreed with the statement "I believe there is a God", whereas 25% agreed with "I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 25% said "I do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force".

Lower Saxony lies in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen federal-states of Germany. In rural areas Low German is still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining.

Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In total, Lower Saxony borders more neighboring states than any other federal state. The state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other its seaport city of Bremerhaven. The state's principal cities include Hanover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Oldenburg, and Göttingen.

The northwestern portion of Lower Saxony is a part of Frisia; it is called Ostfriesland (East Frisia) and lies on the coast of the North Sea. It includes seven islands, known as the East Frisian Islands. In the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the Emsland, a traditionally poor and sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the North German Plains, is almost invariably flat except for the gentle hills around the Bremen geestland. Towards the south and southwest lie the northern parts of the German Central Highlands, the Weserbergland (Weser mountain range) and the Harz mountains. Between these two lies the Lower Saxon Hill Country, a range of minor elevations. Lower Saxony's major cities and economic centres are mainly situated in its central and southern parts, namely Hanover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Wolfsburg, Salzgitter, Hildesheim and Göttingen. Oldenburg, near the northwestern coastline, is another economic center. The region in the northeast is called Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg Heath), the largest heathland area of Germany and in medieval times wealthy due to salt mining and salt trade, as well as to a lesser degree the exploitation of its peat bogs up until about the 1960s. To the north, the Elbe river separates Lower Saxony from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. The banks just south of the Elbe are known as Altes Land (Old Country). Due to its gentle local climate and fertile soil it is the state's largest area of fruit farming, its chief produce being apples.

On 1 January 2005, a new immigration law came into effect that altered the legal method of immigration to Germany. The political background to the introduction of the new immigration law being, that Germany for the first time ever acknowledged to be an "immigration country". Although the practical changes to the immigration procedures were relatively minor, new immigration categories like the ones for highly skilled professionals and scientist have been introduced to attract valuable professionals for the German labour market. The development within German immigration law clearly shows that immigration of skilled employees and academics is eased while the labour market remains closed for unskilled workers.

Demographics
In 2007, 91.2% (75.0 million) of residents in Germany had German citizenship. Of the remaining 8.8% (7.2 million), 1.7 million (2.1%) had Turkish, 0.5 million (0.6%) Italian and 0.4 million (0.5%) Polish citizenship.

History of immigration to Germany
One of the biggest immigration waves to Germany started in the 1960s. Due to a shortage of laborers during the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") in the 1950s and 1960s, the Western-German government signed bilateral recruitment agreements with Italy in 1955, Greece in 1960, Turkey in 1961, Morocco in 1963, Portugal in 1964, Tunesia in 1965 and Yugoslavia in 1968. These agreements allowed the recruitment of so called Gastarbeiter to work in the industrial sector for jobs that required few qualifications. Those Gastarbeiter were allowed to work in Germany for a period of one or two years and were supposed to return to their home countries after that, however many did not want to return and stayed in Germany for good. Children born to Gastarbeiter received the right to reside in Germany but were not granted citizenship; this was known as the "Aufenthaltsberechtigung" ("right to reside"). Many of the descendants of those Gastarbeiter still live in Germany and many picked up German citizenship.

The GDR also recruited Gastarbeiter, who mostly came from Vietnam, North Korea, Angola, Mozambique and Cuba. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification in 1990, the population of guest-workers still remaining in the former East Germany faced deportation, premature discontinuation of residence and work permits as well as open discrimination in the workplace.

Immigration regulations

EU citizens
European Union free movement of workers principles require that all Member State citizens have the right to solicit and obtain work in Germany free from discrimination on the basis of citizenship. Treaty on European Union Article 39 (providing basic rules for Freedom of movement for workers). However, citizens of the new EU member states (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania) are exempt from the free movement of workers principle for a transition period.

Immigration Options for Non-EU Citizens
Immigration to Germany as a non-EU-citizen is still limited to skilled workers (individuals with either a university or polytechnic degree or at least 3 years of training together with job experience), students and their immediate family members. Germany knows 3 types of immigration titles: Visa (validity of up to 90 days), residence permit and settlement permit. Work permits – if granted – are no longer issued independently but included within the immigration title and are available for foreigners that either fall into one of the several available permit categories (IT specialists, company trained specialist within a group of companies, managing personnel, scientists, highly skilled workers with exceptional income, etc.) or can prove a public interest in the employment. The categories and all requirements are listed in the ordinance on employment.

The formerly well known IT-Greencard program has been followed by the introduction of a specific category within the ordinance on employment that allows IT specialists with a university or polytechnic degree to migrate to Germany for employment purposes. Self employment is also possible but requires either an initial investment of EUR 500,000 and the creation of a minimum 5 jobs or the support of the local chambers of commerce or similar organizations that confirm the socioeconomic value of the business plan for the region.

As Germany does not allow immigration without cause, it is necessary to be either enrolled with a school or university, have a specific job offer that fits the requirements of one of the work permit categories or intend to reunify with close family (spouse or minors) already within Germany (family reunification visa).

Since fall 2007, Germany requires spouses of eligible applicants to pass the "A1" levels German language exam before a visa is issued to them. Exceptions exist for individuals holding a nationality that is exempt from the visa requirement (visa waiver program), that hold a university or polytechnic degree, individuals who are handicapped to learn a language or will only stay a short period in Germany due to a time limitation in the category of the residence permit.

Foreign students can stay for one year after obtaining a university degree in order to find a job matching their qualifications.

Plans are discussed to open the labour market in 2009 for all foreigners holding a university degree that have a specific job offer as well as for all graduates of German schools (including those located abroad).

Any person married to a German person may immigrate to Germany.

Business visa
Business visas are available for 90 days within every 6 months. Although it is possible to act as managing director, teacher, university scientist, sportsperson, actor, model or journalist on the basis of a business visa, businesspersons may only attend contract negotiations and buy or sell goods for an employer abroad. All other economic activity is considered work and must not be performed on the basis of a business visa.

The German people (German: Deutsche) are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship (Federal Germans, Bundesdeutsche), distinguished from people of German ancestry (Deutschstämmige). Historically, in the context of the German Empire (1871–1918), German citizens (Imperial Germans, Reichsdeutsche) were distinguished from ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche).

Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 66–75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry (mainly in Austria (official) , Switzerland (official), Liechtenstein (official) , Luxembourg (official), as well as populations in the USA, France, Russia, Romania, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Poland, Australia and Canada) who most likely are not native speakers of German.

Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 66 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.). In the U.S., 43 million, or 15.2% of the population, identified as German American in the census of 2000. Although the percentage has declined in relation to the whole, it is still decidedly more than any other ethnic group. According to the U.S. Census Bureau – 2006 American Community Survey, approximately 51 million citizens identify themselves as having German ancestry.

Ethnic Germans
The term Ethnic Germans may be used in several ways. It may serve to distinguish Germans from those who have citizenship in the German state but are not Germans; or it may indicate Germans living as minorities in other nations. In English usage, but less often in German, Ethnic Germans may be used for assimilated descendants of German emigrants.

Ethnic Germans form an important minority group in several countries in central and eastern Europe—(Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia) as well as in Namibia (German Namibian), Brazil (German-Brazilian) (approx. 3% of the population), Argentina (German-Argentine) (approx. 7,5% of the population) and Chile (German-Chilean) (approx. 4% of the population).

Some groups may be classified as Ethnic Germans despite no longer having German as their mother tongue or belonging to a distinct German culture. Until the 1990s, two million Ethnic Germans lived throughout the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia and Kazakhstan.

In the United States 1990 census, 57 million people were fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. States with the highest percentage of Americans of German descent are in the northern Midwest (especially Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas), and the Mid-Atlantic state, Pennsylvania. But Germanic immigrant enclaves existed in many other states (e.g., the German Texans and the Denver, Colorado area) and to a lesser extent, the Pacific Northwest (i.e. Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington state).

Notable Ethnic German minorities also exist in other Anglosphere countries such as Canada (approx. 10% of the population) and Australia (approx. 4% of the population). As in the United States, most people of German descent in Canada and Australia have almost completely assimilated, culturally and linguistically, into the English-speaking mainstream.

With 82 million inhabitants in January 2010, Germany is the most populous country in the European Union. However, its fertility rate of 1.38 children per mother is one of the lowest in the world, and the federal statistics office estimates the population will shrink to between 65 and 70 million by 2060 (65 million assuming a net migration of +100,000 per year; 70 million assuming a net migration of +200,000 per year). Germany has a number of large cities, the most populous of which are Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt and Stuttgart. By far the largest conurbation is the Rhine-Ruhr region (12 million), including Düsseldorf (the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia) and the cities of Cologne, Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, and Bochum.

As of December 2004, about seven million foreign citizens were registered in Germany, and 19% of the country's residents were of foreign or partially foreign descent. The young are more likely to be of foreign descent than the old. 30% of Germans aged 15 years and younger have at least one parent born abroad. In the big cities 60% of children aged 5 years and younger have at least one parent born abroad.

As of 2008, the largest national group of people with a migrant background was from Turkey (2.5 million), followed by Italy (776,000) and Poland (687,000).

The United Nations Population Fund lists Germany as host to the third-highest number of international migrants worldwide, about 5% or 10 million of all 191 million migrants, or about 12% of the population of Germany. As a consequence of restrictions to Germany's formerly rather unrestricted laws on asylum and immigration, the number of immigrants seeking asylum or claiming German ethnicity (mostly from the former Soviet Union) has been declining steadily since 2000.

Large numbers of people with full or significant German ancestry are found in the United States (50 million),[68] Brazil (5 million)and Canada (3 million). About 3 million "Aussiedler"—ethnic Germans, mainly from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union—have resettled in Germany since 1987.