Als Schweizer war ich leicht iritiert auf meiner ersten Fahrt durch Deutschland (Weil am Rhein bis Hamburg). Da steht doch ernsthaft ein Schild auf der Autobahn: 130, ausser mit Anhänger, dann 100, sollte es nass sein, müssen alle 80 fahren, ausser jedoch es ist zwischen 06:00 und 22:00 Uhr, dann muss man 100 fahren. Und das ganze muss man entziffern während man mit 180 aus der unbegrenzten Zone kommt...
@@thenamen935 Solcher Schilder werden aber in aller Regel min. ein mal wiederholt, und im Zweifel die niedrigst angezeigte Geschwindigkeit auf der rechtesmöglichen Spur fahren, dann ist man ganz sicher
bei jedem video was sich über deutschland dreht aber von einem ausländer gemacht wird sind 70 % der zuschauer deutsch gibs das phänomen nur hier oder auch in anderen ländern ?
There is a mistake: If you enter a village with a yellow sign, it means 50 kmh speedlimit for all vehicles WITH ENGINE, so strictly speaking with a bicycle you are allowed to drive faster :D
@@Apokalypse456 eine Rakete ist gleichgesetzt wie motor ;-) nur wen du aus eigener Kraft schneller fährst ist es erlaubt also fahrrad / longboard den Bergrunter ;-)
And a second one: The switch of light to low beam is not neccessary. You can keep head lights when the streets are dark because there is no city lights.
soweit ich weiß das du nur mit dem Fahrrad schneller fahren sofern du keine Möglichkeit der Kontrolle deiner Geschwindigkeit hast. Sprich wenn du ein GPS-Gerät mit Geschwindigkeitsanzeige montiert hast und mit 80 km/h durch die Stadt fährst hast du ein Problem.
The fifth time the sign of Coswig was stolen, the mayor set up a new sign on where the old sign was located. The new sign said info about the cost of a new sign.
👍 ja genau! Ich frag mich jedesmal bei geoguessr wie die Leute in den USA oder Canada wissen in welchem Kaff sie gerade sind. So ein amtliches Ortsschild ist schon ne feine Sache. 😁
@@666LonesomeSailor Warum nicht. Waas? meme? Du bist einer von Ihnen... Ist so einfach mit dem unsichtbaren Sündenbock. Fast wie mit den britischen Politikern und Brüssel. Irgendwas läuft schief: Brüssel wars!! Irgendwas läuft gut: haben wir das nicht gut gemacht?
Is this video going to change your life? No, of course not. Is it something you need to know? Unlikely. Is it interesting? Propably not. Oh man, you know how to promote your videos!
Since I'm from Germany and know about these signs, one could consider this video pretty boring for me, but I learned some new details... and since I travel abroad now and then, it motivates me to learn more about the road signs in the countries I'm visiting. Thanks a lot! I definitely had fun watching this.
4:30 I'm German and I didn't know that difference. I'm pretty sure, that over 90 percent of Germans also don't know that. I always thought, one is an old and the other a new version of signs
1:10 You have to switch to low beam at night only if there is a continous road lighting - otherwise you can use the high beam ( if there is no opposite traffic, or a car/bike in front of you)
I know a few places that belong to one but don't have it mentioned on their signs... Never saw it really, tbh. And when I did, I probably just never gave it a second thought.
Even better, the word Samtgemeinde isn't used anywhere else either. I know it as "Großgemeinde", or just "Gemeinde", even though it consists of different villages, all several kilometers apart but under the same municipality.
Read this one for the first time today and I am unable to wrap my head around it. "Samt" is a fabric or it has been until today. Seriously I'm not that ignorant not to know that "samt" is a well known and often used word meaning roughly "zusammen" oder "mit".
In North Rhine-Westphalia it is possible to put a surname to the cities name like "Stadt der Fernuniversität Hagen", a lot of "Hansestadt something", "Klingenstadt Solingen". I think it is possible in other states too.
Most important it was "BundeshauptstadtOhneNennnenswertesNachtleben", now it is "BundesstadtOhneNennnenswertesNachtleben", no big difference! Not to forget they sold bad wine there! After a visit to the Aennchen we had a headache the next day and could hardly follow the tour in the Bundestag.
Das sind so Sachen, da kann man sich wirklich nicht vorstellen, dass das für andere Menschen kompliziert sein kann, wenn man es selbst tagtäglich sieht. Und ich hätte nie erwartet, einige der Ortsschilder von so unbedeutenden Orten in einem Video zu sehen, was eine solche Reichweite hat :) Never thought, things as normal to someone used to it can be so confusing to others. And some of the so remarkably unimportant mentioned places I would never have dreamed of seeing them in a video with sich a huge audience.
@1:10 No, you don't have to switch off the high beams. If the lighting is insufficient, you can drive with high beam in a city, provided that you don't have traffic (cars, bicycles, ...) coming your way
There isn't room in my head for the information in this video, but I love that you made it anyway. This channel is absolute gold and gives this stranded Brexitlander severe pangs of Deutschlandweh. Thank you!
You changed my life with this video. And that was even before the section with the advanced stuff. Surely, you Brits must acknowledge now that at least when it comes to involuntary humor, we Germans aren't doing all too bad, really? We're not on a par with Brits in the field of "ridiculous", but we're not trailing far behind either :D
In our district all village signs say (for example the borough of the city, which I'm working in) Dausfeld Stadt Prüm Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm (Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm is simply the district.) All village signs have that one.
@@imrehundertwasser7094 in my experience. Village "x" in the township"y" in the borough of "z" in the county of " g" . With a telephone number from area " k".
@@mweskamppp I can only speak for New York, here you will just find a sign by the road the village or town has put up saying "welcome to xyz" As far as speed changes, that is dictated by the posted limit wherever changes occur.
And then there's the places where a road is split between two places and the sign has both mentioned. Sometimes one after the other, sometimes with a vertical line in the middle so you know which side of the road belongs to which place. Example: Cordingen Kolonie and Hünzingen Kolonie, where Cordingen Kol. belongs to the municipality of Bomlitz, while Hünzingen Kol. belongs to the town/city of Walsrode in the district Heidekreis.
Fun Fact: If you come over the main Streat in my village (the street with the bus stop and most traffic, not that we have shops), they are those yellow signs on both sides. But if you look closely, they both have the name of the village on them, but diferent cities. (Yes, it´s the same village in two towns)
Another thing I got used to seeing on these signs whilst living in Basel was "Zollgrenzbezirk" (customs border area). I was led to believe that this had something to do with special customs arrangements, if you lived in one of these places and were importing goods, but I never found out for sure.
2:02 Yay Meppen! I was born not far from there in a little village called Lathen which etymologically speaking lent it's name to London as did the river Ems to the river Thames!
Sometimes the "Kreis" is even in the name of the Kreis itself, for example Hohenlohekreis. Also: there is an option that the panel on the End-of-Urban-Area-Sign is blue which indicates an Autobahn in the given direction... These signs are not only science but at this point pure art... :D
I found it very interesting... If you have ever been a Soldier in the middle of nowhere with a translation book trying to figure all that out, you would know...I was there BC before computers... This should be on the list of required vids for new Soldiers assigned there...
struggling to imagine the intersection between "people who need to know that this town is the administrative centre of the district" and "people who don't know this until they literally reach the boundary"
Simple Answer: the name of the Village is big. Smaller are information by which (maybe its called like that) district its organised. There are different types of those "states" . Some are smaller and those smaller "states" get organised by federal states.
In Switzerland there are a lot of villages that have formed larger municipalities for financial reasons but the postal addresses don't change, so you still have the old name of the village on the envelopes (and the same postcode).
I live in Landkreis Harburg. The funny thing about this is that the former city of Harburg is part of Hamburg. Which is another federal state than the Landkreis is in. Try explaining THAT to anybody.
Things like "Stadt" (city) and "Markt" (market) are mostly of historic importance. Dating back to the middle ages a city had some additional rights and privileges compared to a village - most important freedom from serfdom. 'Bürger' inhabitants of cities were subject to the cities administration and either directly to the nobleman of this region or the Emperor. Or the church. Sometimes even more than one faction. To gain 'town charter' (as google told me 'Stadtrecht' is translated) a town needed a certain amount of inhabitants, a standing militia and city walls among other stuff. So getting a town charter was quite a goal for larger settlements back in the day. A "Markt / Marktfleck" (market / market-settlement) was a village (usualle the largest in a given area) which was granted the right to hold market days (in contrast to having just a wandering merchant dropping by every so often). This was quite the income for a village and could well be a step stone on the way to become a city one day. As said - nowadays it's pretty much irrelevant (cities have a bit different administrative stuff going on compared to villages) but hey - tradition :D "Bad" by the way as addition to the name like 'Bad Abbach' or 'Bad Füssing' has some meaning to it. Namely that the place has a natural bath / spa area. And this is often associated with cures and long time treatment / health-tourism. To get this status a settlement must have at least some natural springs and the meanings to house cure tourists.
I must add a little correction: It is allowed to drive with high beam lights (Fernlicht) within a urban area (yellow sign). However you must switch to low beam, if there is a continous street light or if there is a car in front or driving opposite to you. I asked the same question, when I was schooled for my Truck license in the Bundeswehr. My driving instructor said, continous means, if there is shadow between the different light poles, then it is not continous. And that occured only in very rare areas in cities. Source: StVO §17 Abs.2 and 2 Hauptfeldwebel as driving instructors at the BW driving school.
Actually you don't have to switch your head lights to low beam in urban areas. But you have to do that as soon as there's any street lights, which is very uncommon outside of these urban settlement areas. If the street lights are switched off (which is very common at night in small cities), you can still use your high beams inside of the urban area, as long as you are not obstructing the sight of another person using a vehicle. So as soon as you see a bicycle or another car coming towards you, low beams are mandatory at night. But that's the same inside or outside the urban settlement.
Even for a German, this was kind of interesting. It's something of a "natural order" for us, so we know all these things, but never think about them, so it is like a compressed zip file on the harddrive, but you now decompressed it and showed its content. Thanks for that. Also, the normal "end of urban driving rules" sign is not split in half to show the next place with a distance, that's a "special form" of this sign, while the normal form is just the name of the place with a red line diagonally over it.
I actually had no idea about any of this. I've been wondering what exactly a Landkreis is, though that made at least some sense to me. Gemeinde, though? Never even heard of it as such a formal thing.
Eine Gemeinde ist vom Verwaltugsstatus (?) her sowas ähnliches wie eine Stadt, nur dass es eben nicht eine große Ansiedelung von Menschen ist, sondern viele kleine, die mehrere km auseinander liegen können.
Holy ... just randomly clicked on the video and at 0:06 the Sign appears, i realiced thats my village i'm currently live in Greetings from Mahlow,(Brandenburg), Germany :)
@@Graf_Leo_von_Caprivi Eigentlich schönes Dörfchen, nur leider mittlerweile zu dicht besiedelt. Sind '99 von Berlin nach Mahlow gezogen und damals konnte man auf der "Hauptstraße" gemütlich Mittagsschlaf machen, jetzt könnte man aufgrund der Lautstärke noch nichtmal mehr ein Auge zumachen
Slight Correction for 1:03 : The default speed limit of 50 kph does not apply to all vehicles, as claimed in the video, but only to motor-driven ones. It does not apply to bicyclists, for example.
I love everything that has to with Geography. As a child I loved to study the road atlas when driving in the car with my family. All the different colours of different roads (Autobahn, Landstraße, Deutsche Märchenstraße), the different-sized towns and villages, the shape of the landscape (Mountain, Forest, Settlement) were beautiful and smelled like adventure, culture and experience.
You don't need to change to low light beam only because you pass a yellow sign. If there is insufficient or intermittened street lighting, you are allowed to turn on your brights even though you are inside a city.
Bonus fact: there are two different sizes of these signs. Mostly you see the smaller ones because they are cheaper, but sometimes there is a small town using the big ones. As far as I know there is no rule which one to use.
Lol, wanted to mention that some villages/Stadtteile highlight their Stadt (and like if it’s a extra info, add their [Stadtteil‘s] name) and others of the same Stadt prioritize their name over the Stadt’s. And it’s exactly Wolfhagen and Söhrewald (4:00 / 4:11) where I saw it. Both Landkreis Kassel and basically my hometown :D
In Switzerland, we also have municipalities made up of several villages. These are usually the result of municipalities merging. Unlike in Germany, the postal address doesn't change, so you still write the name of the village or whatever because they still have a separate postcode.
Two things to add: "Ortsteil" is not necessary on the signs. As an example our signs read (Village Name) Landkreis Nordwestmecklenburg That's all, we don't do the stuff with the Ortsteil on the sign but it's written on our ID Card. ("(Name of the Gemeinde), OT (Village name)) OT meaning Ortsteil And in fact you don't need to write the name of the Gemeinde on a letter, you can simply put the name of your village, it will automatically be sorted correctly. The second thing is: There my be signs saying your leaving and driving to nowhere or they say you are driving to the current city. Examples: ↑Stralsund 1km Stralsund (red stroke line) Or ↑ Neues Dorf (red stroke line) The second one is because the road is leading to a Bundesstraße and there would be two villages nearby so they left it blank
I find these type of videos very interesting. I guess as Germans we never really think of all these differences on signs. so I am havin lots of "a-ha" moments here
A lot of those like Mark or Markt are leftovers from medievil times. Stadt/city is also only written on these signs if this status was already aquired through meeting certain conditions back then. Sometimes you find "cities" with 300 people or less, but they met conditions 500 years ago, so they got the title
Btw. the letter will reach his destination if you still choose the wrong name (the Ortsteil name instead of that from the Gemeinde) untill you did write the correct Postleitzahl on it. I like to call myself a Lower-Rhine Aboriginie, because I was born to a family that have lived in the same small village since centuries. So I'm proud of my heritage and as my father still lives in that village and I send him letters from time to time, I could assure you that the Post is able to deliver the letters, even if I allways write only the name and the correct Postleitzahl of the small village on the envelope.
3:30 You dont have to put the name of the Gemeinde on the letter where i live. as long as the zip code is correct you can just write the Ortsteil and it will find its way. Actually you have to write the "OT" We have multiple villages with the same street (Dorfstraße) There is no way the letter would find its way if you dont specify the Ortsteil.
And at times it gets even more confusing. I for example live in Lobberich. Thats all on most of these signs. But Lobberich is a once village that is now part of the Stadt Nettetal. So its all the same Stadt, but all those small city units are separate but still technically the same city. And Nettetal is part of Kreis Viersen. And to really mess with people the Kreis Kaldenkirchen excsists, but only for registration plates on cars. Kaldenkirchen, despite appearing as a Kreis on registration plates is actually a city thats part of Kreis Viersen.
4:32 Actually™, the rule that the upper half of the sign has to be white if the next village belongs to the same municipality, is obsolete by now. Nevertheless, existing signs with white panels will not be replaced with new ones just for that reason as far as I know (which actually would not have surprised me very much 😉) which is why they will only slowly be phased out by being replaced when necessary for other reasons.
In Norway we have some of the same default rules for urban Vs open road driving. But here you just sort of have to guess where a city or village begins and ends. Sometimes we have a singn saying you enter, but never a sign for when you leave. And to make it worse, Norwegian villages just have much more gradual fuzzy edges than the fairly compact German villages. Fortunately, while 50km/h is the default speed in cities (80 km/h on the open roads) I've never seen a road inside a city without an explicit speed limit sign. But I do occasionally drive for several minutes on country roads wondering if the previous 60 zone still applies or if I've missed a end of 60 zone sign, and are now annoying everyone behind me by driving 60 in an implicit 80 zone...
What a wonderful piece of unnecessary knowledge :-) Let me try to add something: some city names start with the word "Bad" which translates to "Bath". It indicates that there's some kind of officially approved therapeutic bath or a nice spa being offered at this place. In some places in Schleswig-Holstein e.g. this also marks them as relevant for tourism and allows shops to be open on Sundays and other public holidays under the so called "Bäderregelung". The rationale behind it being, when tourists arrive at this kind of place on a Sunday they need to be able to buy food and supplies.
"At night you must switch your headlights to low beam" well in driving school i learned i only have to switch to low beam at night *if there is sufficient lighting on the street by for example street lamps*
Another speciality is: if two villages or cities grew so much that they touch each other: then there is no end sign but only the sign stating the new city name. And while normally the signs are on the right side of the street, that is the reason that they may also occur on the left side of the street. And often the street name changes at the same spot ...
OK, I haven't read all 517 comments on this, but I'm guessing that I probably am truly the odd man out regarding this (and also really late to the party)' I actually have been wondering about what all goes on these "delightful" signs for literally decades. As an architect, wannabe urban planner and aficionado of street architecture and roadside signage (don't get me into the fascinating world of international signage), I appreciate the explanation - even if there's still more to it. My parents and I lived in Germany a couple times when I was a child and as we drove around I suppose it always appealed to my sense of order that Germany always let you know exactly where you were and what city, town, community or district you're entering and when you're leaving. In the US, the equivalent signs (white lettering on green generally) always seemed to me to be random and haphazard. I was tickled when my wife, who is from Michigan, first took me to the town of Frankenmuth, which has spent the better part of 50-60 years promoting its German heritage. On either side of town on the main highway through it, someone thought to import and install those wonderful yellow signs telling you that you are entering Frankenmuth and when you leave they are just as you showed, with a red slash through the Frankenmuth name below and an arrow with the next town and the distance to it above. Won't change my life, but I for one, definitely watched the whole post with great interest!
2:22 "Landeshauptstadt" is an official title, wich means something like that it is the "main city" of a land in Germany. For Example: Hannover is the "Landeshauptstadt" of Niedersachsen. Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum der BRD.
You showed two signs that I see all the time. The very first one is where we are building a house and the Berlin Steglitz-Zehlendorf is where I currently live. What a coincidence 😂
One special ne you havent mentioned: Wasserstadt. I grew up in one and itbonly meant that the fact that the town is bild basically on an island betwenn lakes and has a river running through all aof the city was historically very important to the town, an that fact is true till today and they want everyone to know. also it does well for tourist catching.
4:28 the sign with the white field does not longer exist (since 2017). All new signs of this former type will now also get a yellow field! www.vzkat.de/2017/VzKat.htm
I'm pretty certain some people played too much Civilization, or Total War, or Anno, and just wanted to keep track of every single tile in the game, but completely lost control, and this turned out.
As a local, I'd like to mention that while yes, you are all very welcome in Leverkusen, but please pronounce the name properly - it's Léverkusen, with the stress on the first syllable. A lot of sports commentators get it wrong, too - for some reason it seems rather difficult ...
Objection! 02:25 Landeshauptstadt does mean something of significance, since it's concerning the 16 states that Germany consists off, namely that it is the 'capital' of the state (not the country), though it's a term that doesn't hold any legal meaning. It is however pointing out that the constitutional bodies of the states are in this city, the term can be granted by the gov. of the aforementioned state. THE notable exeption is Berlin since it's a city State AND the national capital city, but they have this odd thing going with Brandenburg, I firmly believe only the locals understand it. HOWEVER it should be noted that since Berlin and Hamburg are citystates they can't be a Landeshauptstadt. The term itself came up in the 50's before that those cities were just taht cities, apparently Wiesbaden started the whole thing. Otherwise a video well done, good job!
in short: We germans love rules and order. But making things unnecessarily complicated is something we love even more.
Not as much as you love "Klagen" ;)
Warum kompliziert wenns noch komplizierter geht?
@@thomasbraeuning1918 XD Stimmt
Als Schweizer war ich leicht iritiert auf meiner ersten Fahrt durch Deutschland (Weil am Rhein bis Hamburg). Da steht doch ernsthaft ein Schild auf der Autobahn: 130, ausser mit Anhänger, dann 100, sollte es nass sein, müssen alle 80 fahren, ausser jedoch es ist zwischen 06:00 und 22:00 Uhr, dann muss man 100 fahren.
Und das ganze muss man entziffern während man mit 180 aus der unbegrenzten Zone kommt...
@@thenamen935 Solcher Schilder werden aber in aller Regel min. ein mal wiederholt, und im Zweifel die niedrigst angezeigte Geschwindigkeit auf der rechtesmöglichen Spur fahren, dann ist man ganz sicher
I'm German and I didn't even realise how complicated this is.
Mostly because, to me, those signs just mean, "Ugh, 50 it is, I suppose..."
bei jedem video was sich über deutschland dreht aber von einem ausländer gemacht wird sind 70 % der zuschauer deutsch gibs das phänomen nur hier oder auch in anderen ländern ?
@@vericko8278 genau das frage ich mich auch
DITO!
70* :)
@@vericko8278 Das frage ich mich auch
There is a mistake:
If you enter a village with a yellow sign, it means 50 kmh speedlimit for all vehicles WITH ENGINE, so strictly speaking
with a bicycle you are allowed to drive faster :D
moment, nur fahrzeuge mit motor?
also, ein raketenbetriebenes gefährt darf so schnell fahren wie es will?
@@Apokalypse456 eine Rakete ist gleichgesetzt wie motor ;-) nur wen du aus eigener Kraft schneller fährst ist es erlaubt also fahrrad / longboard den Bergrunter ;-)
@@omid4861 O? Ich dachte, auch mit Fahrrad muss man Knöllchen zahlen.
And a second one: The switch of light to low beam is not neccessary. You can keep head lights when the streets are dark because there is no city lights.
soweit ich weiß das du nur mit dem Fahrrad schneller fahren sofern du keine Möglichkeit der Kontrolle deiner Geschwindigkeit hast. Sprich wenn du ein GPS-Gerät mit Geschwindigkeitsanzeige montiert hast und mit 80 km/h durch die Stadt fährst hast du ein Problem.
Hmm even as a holder of a German driver's license, I did learn something new today. Never really thought about all the differences.
are you serious?
Me too. I almost never read these signs. I just slow down to 50 km/h.
Nein er ist falsch, man darf auch mit Fernlicht durch die Ortschaft fahren, wenn keine Laternen angebracht wurden
@@wertwert4016 nicht wirklich nein innerorts ist Fernlicht generell verboten, ausderm in welchem Ort gibt es keine Straßenlaternen
wert wert da muss wohl wer seine Theorie wieder auffrischen.
In other words, yellow signs are the creative outlet for civil servants.
yes. some have macaroni glued to them
@@juergenpotzkothen yeah and other are stolen at regular intervals, like "Wacken" :D
@@666LonesomeSailor The Wacken sign must be a valuable collectible.
The fifth time the sign of Coswig was stolen, the mayor set up a new sign on where the old sign was located. The new sign said info about the cost of a new sign.
Incorrect. They're the creative outlet of local politician.
Bundesverband der Bäder ist EMPÖRT !
Er hat keine Bäder erwähnt.
Bad Füssingen, Bad Fallingbostel und so.
Oder die Hansestädte!!1elf!
Bad Falling muss aufjedenfall rein! Wieso? Naja, is die Drogenhochburg im Süd-Heidekreis xDDD
@@marvinrazor597 Ich komme aus Soltau... und sie so ?
@@Espen.Johannesen Ebenfalls, grüße aus der Celler Straße!
@@marvinrazor597 Ich bin ehr so der Hötzinger typ.
Another great one:
Landeshauptstadt
Wiesbaden
Stadtteil
Mainz-Kastel
Try to explain this to a foreigner😅
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKK-Konflikt we will never give up the fight!
Thanks! Knowing about this helps a ton when trying to place Wiesbaden and Mainz on a map :)
Which is totally NOT Mainz. Mainz is over there.
Don't care, not my region to fight over. But I can quickly point to either city now.
errr, try to explain that to a citizen of Mainz. You'll need a fast horse or better car. *lol*
Having recently started playing geoguessr (mostly in the UK), I really appreciate all the signs we have in Germany...
👍 ja genau! Ich frag mich jedesmal bei geoguessr wie die Leute in den USA oder Canada wissen in welchem Kaff sie gerade sind. So ein amtliches Ortsschild ist schon ne feine Sache. 😁
@@Franziska_Nerlich Dafür weiß man in den USA immer sofort, in welchem Land man ist, weil unter Garantie irgendwo die Flagge weht.
So how do you like the details on London street corners?
Totally changed my life. Nothing will ever be the same.
Congratulations. Now inform yourself about the nonexistance of the City of Bielefeld.
@@mweskamppp Noone has ever been there, and anyone claiming to, are one of the "them"
@@vrenak Good. I guess me being "there" is an installed memory then.
@@mweskamppp Bielefeld, the greman Area51 hihihihihi schon lustig wie sich dieses Mysterium als ein Meme sooo lange halten kann.
@@666LonesomeSailor Warum nicht. Waas? meme? Du bist einer von Ihnen... Ist so einfach mit dem unsichtbaren Sündenbock. Fast wie mit den britischen Politikern und Brüssel. Irgendwas läuft schief: Brüssel wars!! Irgendwas läuft gut: haben wir das nicht gut gemacht?
Is this video going to change your life?
No, of course not.
Is it something you need to know?
Unlikely.
Is it interesting?
Propably not.
Oh man, you know how to promote your videos!
I think this is what the Brits call "self-deprecating humor" ;-)
But, did you watch to the end? I did.
Of course I watched to the end! Well, not necessarily the outro, which is always the same, but the part which is called "main content".
he is jsut honest and not you get disapointed
After a stressful day, I feel relaxed now :-)
Since I'm from Germany and know about these signs, one could consider this video pretty boring for me, but I learned some new details... and since I travel abroad now and then, it motivates me to learn more about the road signs in the countries I'm visiting. Thanks a lot! I definitely had fun watching this.
4:30 I'm German and I didn't know that difference. I'm pretty sure, that over 90 percent of Germans also don't know that. I always thought, one is an old and the other a new version of signs
i've never even noticed that there're two different versions :D
@@sinamt2982 same
1:10 You have to switch to low beam at night only if there is a continous road lighting - otherwise you can use the high beam ( if there is no opposite traffic, or a car/bike in front of you)
0:36 I disagree
You can make anything interesting
Agreed!!
I agree too. I'm always surprised at just how interesting these topics end up being in your videos. Thanks!
I never realised, that only we lower saxons have the "samtgemeinde" mentioned on the signs.
I know a few places that belong to one but don't have it mentioned on their signs... Never saw it really, tbh.
And when I did, I probably just never gave it a second thought.
Even better, the word Samtgemeinde isn't used anywhere else either. I know it as "Großgemeinde", or just "Gemeinde", even though it consists of different villages, all several kilometers apart but under the same municipality.
Read this one for the first time today and I am unable to wrap my head around it. "Samt" is a fabric or it has been until today. Seriously I'm not that ignorant not to know that "samt" is a well known and often used word meaning roughly "zusammen" oder "mit".
@CologneCarter Think of "gesamt".
Samtgemeinde? Ist das sowas wie bei uns die VGs (Verbandsgemeinde)
2:24 my favorite is "Bundesstadt Bonn", to rember it once was "BundesHAUPTstadt Bonn"
@@therisj omg!
Es haben ja noch ein paar Ministerien ihren Hauptsitz in Bonn - mindestens aber alle einen Zweitsitz.
In North Rhine-Westphalia it is possible to put a surname to the cities name like "Stadt der Fernuniversität Hagen", a lot of "Hansestadt something", "Klingenstadt Solingen". I think it is possible in other states too.
Da habe ich auch direkt dran gedacht 😄
Most important it was "BundeshauptstadtOhneNennnenswertesNachtleben", now it is "BundesstadtOhneNennnenswertesNachtleben", no big difference!
Not to forget they sold bad wine there! After a visit to the Aennchen we had a headache the next day and could hardly follow the tour in the Bundestag.
I used to live in Marienfeld, the sign called it die Mähdrescherstadt, because Claas build combine harvesters in Harsewinkel.
Das sind so Sachen, da kann man sich wirklich nicht vorstellen, dass das für andere Menschen kompliziert sein kann, wenn man es selbst tagtäglich sieht. Und ich hätte nie erwartet, einige der Ortsschilder von so unbedeutenden Orten in einem Video zu sehen, was eine solche Reichweite hat :)
Never thought, things as normal to someone used to it can be so confusing to others. And some of the so remarkably unimportant mentioned places I would never have dreamed of seeing them in a video with sich a huge audience.
I was surprised to be surprised that there are so many varieties of Ortschilder. Even though I pass them on a daily basis.
@1:10 No, you don't have to switch off the high beams. If the lighting is insufficient, you can drive with high beam in a city, provided that you don't have traffic (cars, bicycles, ...) coming your way
4:31 the white panel is on new signs now always yellow
My favourite one is:
Pleitmannswang-
Peutenmühle
Gemeinde Türkenfeld
Kreis Fürstenfeldbruck
Barely fits on the sign
Türkenfeld, hm?
There isn't room in my head for the information in this video, but I love that you made it anyway. This channel is absolute gold and gives this stranded Brexitlander severe pangs of Deutschlandweh. Thank you!
You changed my life with this video. And that was even before the section with the advanced stuff.
Surely, you Brits must acknowledge now that at least when it comes to involuntary humor, we Germans aren't doing all too bad, really? We're not on a par with Brits in the field of "ridiculous", but we're not trailing far behind either :D
In our district all village signs say (for example the borough of the city, which I'm working in)
Dausfeld
Stadt Prüm
Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm (Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm is simply the district.) All village signs have that one.
This helps explain the nomenclature in Pennsylvania!!
It does?
@@imrehundertwasser7094 in my experience. Village "x" in the township"y" in the borough of "z" in the county of " g" . With a telephone number from area " k".
@@kandkmotorsports How is it organized in the rest of the states?
@@mweskamppp I can only speak for New York, here you will just find a sign by the road the village or town has put up saying "welcome to xyz" As far as speed changes, that is dictated by the posted limit wherever changes occur.
@@kandkmotorsports There are "Willkommen in XYZ"-signs in germany, too. But there has to be a yellow Ortsschild nevertheless!
Aschaffenburg is a beautiful city and Landkreis/"district" (Shown in the thumbnail)
And then there's the places where a road is split between two places and the sign has both mentioned. Sometimes one after the other, sometimes with a vertical line in the middle so you know which side of the road belongs to which place.
Example: Cordingen Kolonie and Hünzingen Kolonie, where Cordingen Kol. belongs to the municipality of Bomlitz, while Hünzingen Kol. belongs to the town/city of Walsrode in the district Heidekreis.
Fun Fact: If you come over the main Streat in my village (the street with the bus stop and most traffic, not that we have shops), they are those yellow signs on both sides. But if you look closely, they both have the name of the village on them, but diferent cities. (Yes, it´s the same village in two towns)
Another thing I got used to seeing on these signs whilst living in Basel was "Zollgrenzbezirk" (customs border area). I was led to believe that this had something to do with special customs arrangements, if you lived in one of these places and were importing goods, but I never found out for sure.
If you live in a "Zollgrenzbezirk" your duty-free amounts are smaller.
2:02 Yay Meppen! I was born not far from there in a little village called Lathen which etymologically speaking lent it's name to London as did the river Ems to the river Thames!
Sometimes the "Kreis" is even in the name of the Kreis itself, for example Hohenlohekreis. Also: there is an option that the panel on the End-of-Urban-Area-Sign is blue which indicates an Autobahn in the given direction...
These signs are not only science but at this point pure art... :D
And sometimes it's not blue but empty yellow (still with the ref line) to indicate there's not really anything there.
I found it very interesting...
If you have ever been a Soldier in the middle of nowhere with a translation book trying to figure all that out, you would know...I was there BC before computers...
This should be on the list of required vids for new Soldiers assigned there...
O - lost in germany with all necessary information around but some lack of training.
You forgotthe most important of all qualifiers: "Kreisfreie Stadt"
I didn't forget it. It doesn't appear on the signs. This would be something for a video about German local government.
struggling to imagine the intersection between "people who need to know that this town is the administrative centre of the district" and "people who don't know this until they literally reach the boundary"
Simple Answer: the name of the Village is big. Smaller are information by which (maybe its called like that) district its organised. There are different types of those "states" . Some are smaller and those smaller "states" get organised by federal states.
On the sign in the thumbnail, the name of the municipality is big, and the name of the village is in smaller type.
No! Altdorf is the capital city of the Imperium of Man and residence of Karl Frans, our beloved Emperor!
Franz...
In Switzerland there are a lot of villages that have formed larger municipalities for financial reasons but the postal addresses don't change, so you still have the old name of the village on the envelopes (and the same postcode).
I live in Landkreis Harburg. The funny thing about this is that the former city of Harburg is part of Hamburg. Which is another federal state than the Landkreis is in. Try explaining THAT to anybody.
Thank you very much for the explanation. I never realized how complicating and confusing these signs are.
Things like
"Stadt" (city) and "Markt" (market) are mostly of historic importance.
Dating back to the middle ages a city had some additional rights and privileges compared to a village - most important freedom from serfdom. 'Bürger' inhabitants of cities were subject to the cities administration and either directly to the nobleman of this region or the Emperor. Or the church. Sometimes even more than one faction.
To gain 'town charter' (as google told me 'Stadtrecht' is translated) a town needed a certain amount of inhabitants, a standing militia and city walls among other stuff. So getting a town charter was quite a goal for larger settlements back in the day.
A "Markt / Marktfleck" (market / market-settlement) was a village (usualle the largest in a given area) which was granted the right to hold market days (in contrast to having just a wandering merchant dropping by every so often). This was quite the income for a village and could well be a step stone on the way to become a city one day.
As said - nowadays it's pretty much irrelevant (cities have a bit different administrative stuff going on compared to villages) but hey - tradition :D
"Bad" by the way as addition to the name like 'Bad Abbach' or 'Bad Füssing' has some meaning to it. Namely that the place has a natural bath / spa area. And this is often associated with cures and long time treatment / health-tourism. To get this status a settlement must have at least some natural springs and the meanings to house cure tourists.
I must add a little correction: It is allowed to drive with high beam lights (Fernlicht) within a urban area (yellow sign). However you must switch to low beam, if there is a continous street light or if there is a car in front or driving opposite to you. I asked the same question, when I was schooled for my Truck license in the Bundeswehr. My driving instructor said, continous means, if there is shadow between the different light poles, then it is not continous. And that occured only in very rare areas in cities. Source: StVO §17 Abs.2 and 2 Hauptfeldwebel as driving instructors at the BW driving school.
Actually you don't have to switch your head lights to low beam in urban areas. But you have to do that as soon as there's any street lights, which is very uncommon outside of these urban settlement areas. If the street lights are switched off (which is very common at night in small cities), you can still use your high beams inside of the urban area, as long as you are not obstructing the sight of another person using a vehicle. So as soon as you see a bicycle or another car coming towards you, low beams are mandatory at night. But that's the same inside or outside the urban settlement.
The video nobody didn't realize they couldn't not do without!
Even for a German, this was kind of interesting. It's something of a "natural order" for us, so we know all these things, but never think about them, so it is like a compressed zip file on the harddrive, but you now decompressed it and showed its content. Thanks for that. Also, the normal "end of urban driving rules" sign is not split in half to show the next place with a distance, that's a "special form" of this sign, while the normal form is just the name of the place with a red line diagonally over it.
I actually had no idea about any of this. I've been wondering what exactly a Landkreis is, though that made at least some sense to me.
Gemeinde, though? Never even heard of it as such a formal thing.
Eine Gemeinde ist vom Verwaltugsstatus (?) her sowas ähnliches wie eine Stadt, nur dass es eben nicht eine große Ansiedelung von Menschen ist, sondern viele kleine, die mehrere km auseinander liegen können.
2:30 Happy. Lol. I'm living in Wolfenbüttel since like 18 years now and I have never seen it in a not-German Video.
Holy ... just randomly clicked on the video and at 0:06 the Sign appears, i realiced thats my village i'm currently live in
Greetings from Mahlow,(Brandenburg), Germany :)
Von Königs Wusterhausen nach Potsdam, bin ich schon öfters durch Mahlow durchgefahren. 🙋🏻♂️
@@Graf_Leo_von_Caprivi Eigentlich schönes Dörfchen, nur leider mittlerweile zu dicht besiedelt. Sind '99 von Berlin nach Mahlow gezogen und damals konnte man auf der "Hauptstraße" gemütlich Mittagsschlaf machen, jetzt könnte man aufgrund der Lautstärke noch nichtmal mehr ein Auge zumachen
@@WoodiOul
Ja, das schon. Ist auch viel neu gebaut worden. 🤔
Slight Correction for 1:03 : The default speed limit of 50 kph does not apply to all vehicles, as claimed in the video, but only to motor-driven ones. It does not apply to bicyclists, for example.
I actually have gone faster than that on my bike. On flat land.
Granted, the wind was at my back.
As a native German of 26 years I learned a lot from this video :)
Prokrastinator Echt? Ich bin 17 und habe bei diesem Video nichts gelernt, da ich alles schon wusste...
I love everything that has to with Geography. As a child I loved to study the road atlas when driving in the car with my family.
All the different colours of different roads (Autobahn, Landstraße, Deutsche Märchenstraße), the different-sized towns and villages, the shape of the landscape (Mountain, Forest, Settlement) were beautiful and smelled like adventure, culture and experience.
Well, I'd love to see a next video in which you covered all possible combinations.
cool that you took Mahlow. just next to my village :)
You don't need to change to low light beam only because you pass a yellow sign. If there is insufficient or intermittened street lighting, you are allowed to turn on your brights even though you are inside a city.
The sign of my home village is completely filled with text I like it it looks very special
Bonus fact: there are two different sizes of these signs. Mostly you see the smaller ones because they are cheaper, but sometimes there is a small town using the big ones. As far as I know there is no rule which one to use.
Lol, wanted to mention that some villages/Stadtteile highlight their Stadt (and like if it’s a extra info, add their [Stadtteil‘s] name) and others of the same Stadt prioritize their name over the Stadt’s.
And it’s exactly Wolfhagen and Söhrewald (4:00 / 4:11) where I saw it. Both Landkreis Kassel and basically my hometown :D
In Switzerland, we also have municipalities made up of several villages. These are usually the result of municipalities merging. Unlike in Germany, the postal address doesn't change, so you still write the name of the village or whatever because they still have a separate postcode.
What a miracle, I live at Kirchheim unter Teck. Greetings!!!
Two things to add:
"Ortsteil" is not necessary on the signs. As an example our signs read
(Village Name)
Landkreis
Nordwestmecklenburg
That's all, we don't do the stuff with the Ortsteil on the sign but it's written on our ID Card. ("(Name of the Gemeinde), OT (Village name)) OT meaning Ortsteil
And in fact you don't need to write the name of the Gemeinde on a letter, you can simply put the name of your village, it will automatically be sorted correctly.
The second thing is: There my be signs saying your leaving and driving to nowhere or they say you are driving to the current city. Examples:
↑Stralsund 1km
Stralsund (red stroke line)
Or
↑
Neues Dorf (red stroke line)
The second one is because the road is leading to a Bundesstraße and there would be two villages nearby so they left it blank
I find these type of videos very interesting. I guess as Germans we never really think of all these differences on signs. so I am havin lots of "a-ha" moments here
The light reflecting of your chair sometimes makes it look like you are in a cold room and you can see your breath
only me?
well....
Oh, wie schön. Hier gibt es noch Regelungsbedarf. Fangt schon mal an, ich komme dann dazu!
This video puts 42 as the answer to everything into obliviation. Love it!
i actually live in Leverkusen, was kind of surprised when it came up
A lot of those like Mark or Markt are leftovers from medievil times. Stadt/city is also only written on these signs if this status was already aquired through meeting certain conditions back then. Sometimes you find "cities" with 300 people or less, but they met conditions 500 years ago, so they got the title
In a few federal states of Germany we' ve "Ämter". They are smaller than a "Landkreis" and bigger than a "Gemeinde" .
2:03 When i read "Stadt" on an "Ortseingangsschild", as a german I would think about the city/municipal charter in first place.
Btw. the letter will reach his destination if you still choose the wrong name (the Ortsteil name instead of that from the Gemeinde) untill you did write the correct Postleitzahl on it. I like to call myself a Lower-Rhine Aboriginie, because I was born to a family that have lived in the same small village since centuries. So I'm proud of my heritage and as my father still lives in that village and I send him letters from time to time, I could assure you that the Post is able to deliver the letters, even if I allways write only the name and the correct Postleitzahl of the small village on the envelope.
3:30 You dont have to put the name of the Gemeinde on the letter where i live. as long as the zip code is correct you can just write the Ortsteil and it will find its way. Actually you have to write the "OT" We have multiple villages with the same street (Dorfstraße) There is no way the letter would find its way if you dont specify the Ortsteil.
Back in the day, my hometown also had the Reg. Bez. listed. It was Köln. The Regierungsbezirk, not my hometown.
And at times it gets even more confusing. I for example live in Lobberich. Thats all on most of these signs. But Lobberich is a once village that is now part of the Stadt Nettetal. So its all the same Stadt, but all those small city units are separate but still technically the same city. And Nettetal is part of Kreis Viersen. And to really mess with people the Kreis Kaldenkirchen excsists, but only for registration plates on cars. Kaldenkirchen, despite appearing as a Kreis on registration plates is actually a city thats part of Kreis Viersen.
4:32 Actually™, the rule that the upper half of the sign has to be white if the next village belongs to the same municipality, is obsolete by now. Nevertheless, existing signs with white panels will not be replaced with new ones just for that reason as far as I know (which actually would not have surprised me very much 😉) which is why they will only slowly be phased out by being replaced when necessary for other reasons.
2:23 The most impressive and appealing title surley is: Bremervörde - Staatlich anerkannter Erholungsort
In Norway we have some of the same default rules for urban Vs open road driving. But here you just sort of have to guess where a city or village begins and ends. Sometimes we have a singn saying you enter, but never a sign for when you leave. And to make it worse, Norwegian villages just have much more gradual fuzzy edges than the fairly compact German villages.
Fortunately, while 50km/h is the default speed in cities (80 km/h on the open roads) I've never seen a road inside a city without an explicit speed limit sign. But I do occasionally drive for several minutes on country roads wondering if the previous 60 zone still applies or if I've missed a end of 60 zone sign, and are now annoying everyone behind me by driving 60 in an implicit 80 zone...
Schiebelau! Wie kommst du denn darauf? Das sind doch nur drei Häuser und zwei Spitzbuben, wie meine Eltern sagen :D
What a wonderful piece of unnecessary knowledge :-) Let me try to add something: some city names start with the word "Bad" which translates to "Bath". It indicates that there's some kind of officially approved therapeutic bath or a nice spa being offered at this place. In some places in Schleswig-Holstein e.g. this also marks them as relevant for tourism and allows shops to be open on Sundays and other public holidays under the so called "Bäderregelung". The rationale behind it being, when tourists arrive at this kind of place on a Sunday they need to be able to buy food and supplies.
"At night you must switch your headlights to low beam"
well in driving school i learned i only have to switch to low beam at night *if there is sufficient lighting on the street by for example street lamps*
Another speciality is: if two villages or cities grew so much that they touch each other: then there is no end sign but only the sign stating the new city name. And while normally the signs are on the right side of the street, that is the reason that they may also occur on the left side of the street. And often the street name changes at the same spot ...
OK, I haven't read all 517 comments on this, but I'm guessing that I probably am truly the odd man out regarding this (and also really late to the party)' I actually have been wondering about what all goes on these "delightful" signs for literally decades. As an architect, wannabe urban planner and aficionado of street architecture and roadside signage (don't get me into the fascinating world of international signage), I appreciate the explanation - even if there's still more to it. My parents and I lived in Germany a couple times when I was a child and as we drove around I suppose it always appealed to my sense of order that Germany always let you know exactly where you were and what city, town, community or district you're entering and when you're leaving. In the US, the equivalent signs (white lettering on green generally) always seemed to me to be random and haphazard. I was tickled when my wife, who is from Michigan, first took me to the town of Frankenmuth, which has spent the better part of 50-60 years promoting its German heritage. On either side of town on the main highway through it, someone thought to import and install those wonderful yellow signs telling you that you are entering Frankenmuth and when you leave they are just as you showed, with a red slash through the Frankenmuth name below and an arrow with the next town and the distance to it above. Won't change my life, but I for one, definitely watched the whole post with great interest!
Even as a German I had learned something new😂
4:30 the upper sign is quit close to me like 7-10km to the south east
I learn new things from this video, and I think it's interesting!
Don't forget Kurort, like Kurort Rathen, designating a beautiful town tourists should like to visit :)
Well, done! You explained this topic in a very entertaining way. 👍
2:22 "Landeshauptstadt" is an official title, wich means something like that it is the "main city" of a land in Germany. For Example: Hannover is the "Landeshauptstadt" of Niedersachsen.
Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum der BRD.
Ganz ehrlich? Für einen Bürger Deutschlands, redest Du echt gut und verständlich Englisch! Props 2 u ;)
Even as a German I learned some new things. Funny thing is, the thumbnail shows a town I drive through every day. Which is in the middle of nowehere.
You showed two signs that I see all the time. The very first one is where we are building a house and the Berlin Steglitz-Zehlendorf is where I currently live. What a coincidence 😂
One special ne you havent mentioned: Wasserstadt. I grew up in one and itbonly meant that the fact that the town is bild basically on an island betwenn lakes and has a river running through all aof the city was historically very important to the town, an that fact is true till today and they want everyone to know. also it does well for tourist catching.
Stadt means in Monarchie Times the King allowed a village to hold a market and the head of city Mayor/Duke to gain taxes from trading
What about "Ritterstadt Köthen"?
LeL
E. Schmidt Nicht übel...
4:28 the sign with the white field does not longer exist (since 2017). All new signs of this former type will now also get a yellow field!
www.vzkat.de/2017/VzKat.htm
3:30 we are famous now, Rewboss mentioned us in his video😂 by the way, it's pronounced with a short 'a' and not a long 'a' :)
Why is TH-cam recommending this to me?🤔
I don't need this Video. I'm a bit confused
@@GnaeusDomitius this might be true, but i am from Germany, so i know these signs and know, what they say
I'm pretty certain some people played too much Civilization, or Total War, or Anno, and just wanted to keep track of every single tile in the game, but completely lost control, and this turned out.
I realy enjoy watching. Good Job.
Wow. I'm from germany! This was interesting
As a local, I'd like to mention that while yes, you are all very welcome in Leverkusen, but please pronounce the name properly - it's Léverkusen, with the stress on the first syllable. A lot of sports commentators get it wrong, too - for some reason it seems rather difficult ...
At 2:05 the meppen sign is wrong. I live there and on the signs it says "Kreisstadt Meppen"
Objection! 02:25
Landeshauptstadt does mean something of significance, since it's concerning the 16 states that Germany consists off, namely that it is the 'capital' of the state (not the country), though it's a term that doesn't hold any legal meaning. It is however pointing out that the constitutional bodies of the states are in this city, the term can be granted by the gov. of the aforementioned state. THE notable exeption is Berlin since it's a city State AND the national capital city, but they have this odd thing going with Brandenburg, I firmly believe only the locals understand it.
HOWEVER it should be noted that since Berlin and Hamburg are citystates they can't be a Landeshauptstadt.
The term itself came up in the 50's before that those cities were just taht cities, apparently Wiesbaden started the whole thing.
Otherwise a video well done, good job!