This is true. Except for in the north west and southern Bavaria. That is where inheritance laws enabled large farms to dominate. Schleswig-Holstein when Danish had a major land redistribution that replaced villages with individual and spread out farms in part as well, and many of the lost territories that are now Poland today had a lot of land redistribution during the late 19th century and 20th centuries, when they were still German territory, where farming villages were replaced often with large, spread out farms as well. The old farm buildings of Prussians can still be found today in some areas, often in poor maintenance. After WW2 they did move many farms onto land outside of villages to reduce crowding and increase farm size and standard of living, but unlike other countries land redistribution the changes were meager.
Actually we take a lot of effort to keep it like it is. Houses may only be build in areas close to towns to avoid spreating them all over the aerea. That is why we have so much nature around despite having such a high concentration of people.
mkmm60 That is true. There is a huge amount of green in Germany considering how many people live here. I did forget to mention that but maybe I will in another video, thanks for your comment ☺
Germany does not have a lot of nature. Almost everything is covered by farm land or by cellulose factories (aka managed forrests). Only a bit in Saarland and Bayrischer Wald is nature.
The grass is used to allow the field to recover for a year. it is usually seeded with plants that produce high nitrogen, and plowed undered under. It is three field acriculture.
It's mostly because of historic reasons. Small Moorenweis for instance can track its earliest settlement back over 1200 years and a lot of small towns or villages in germany (or europe) can do the same. In medival times, crops farther then two kilometers away from an farm didn't made sense, so there were settlements every 3-4 km. And when in the last hundred years some citys got so big that suburbs would be needed there were already lots of small towns or villages around that big city where extra houses could be build instead of founding a new suburb in open countryside. This is the main reason, imho. But even in Germany we have places more like the typical "new world suburb" for instance around Wolfsburg in northern germany where there is or was huge population growth. (As for wolfsburg, it was funded by Hitler in 1938 as a city for the workers of what would later become VW and has now a population of 125 k.
S Kraus Thanks for the insight on the development of Germany it is great for us to learn more about this beautiful country. Thanks for your support and comments.
youre welcome. :-) I like your video and the insights of foreigners to our county in general as an "Denkanstoß" to differences and similarities between countrys
The little farms are a South German phenomenon. In that region the farm was often split to the sons and became so smaller over the centuries. In North Germany the farm was going to the oldest son, so the north German farmer have much larger farms on a more industrial level.
+Rick2010100 Thanks for the comment. We have not made it to the North, we hope that this summer we can go north and see more and learn more about Germany.
Don't forget, that many of these settlements have a long history. In the county Landkreis Konstanz I know two oddities: The community Aach, which is a town of approx 2500 inhabitants and is a town of old right. In opposite the neighbouring community of a single village wth the same sice has no township. And not far away you've Singen with 45'000 inhabitants. All three are fully indipentent villages, towns or whatever. Seldon a really suburb. In comparision around Stuttgart you've Sindelfingen, Esslingen and Canstatt, which were in former time fully indipentent with own historical town cores and even today even counties in their own right. But these towns and settlements have become parts of a bugger "agglomeration", a settlement area. I thinkt, the difference is the age between the settlement sturcturs in Australia / USA / Canada and the structure here in Europe. Suburbs are a more modern thing…
Torax Malu I think so also. The age of the towns has a lot to do with it, I think that is also why there are so many towns within minutes of each other, before cars it would have taken a long time to travel between them but today only minutes.
I'm wondering about what Australians learn at school. I would expect that they teach their students that suburbia is almost a solely thing that can be found in the U.S., in Canada and Australia.
It depends. So, not so much black and white. It's based on history of your region. Don't forget: before germany got united up to 35 german kingdoms/tribes existed and formed allies to fight against each other. They lived by each other but had a different history. What you see is a far modern Germany cause 50-90% of its building were destroyed by end of war as to be seen here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_W%C3%BCrzburg_in_World_War_II?wprov=sfla1 But the rebuild started along the old street and private property borders so no chance to change it that much. From the east of germany about 20 Millions refugees had fled before russian army over the baltic sea, by train, feet, horse, trecks. They arrived and had nothing or died. Therfore with the growing economy in the back new building area were created, cheap farm land where the german refugees could help each other to errect houses. These areas have buildings from early 50ies, are near the previous cities. And then you have the villages called Weiler or Flecken which don't have a yellow city sign what means 50 km/h street limit, they are too small and got mainly green sign with its name. These are the result of developing a region. You had to cities like Munich and Augsburg and a path, that became a way and later main road. In between farmer were alliwed to settle by church or duke and had to pay. to fortify and conquer the area the next village was founded each time population growth was high and no deadly flues or diseaes appeared. The farm had not so many fields of corn for so many children so it was time to conquer the next part. ... some of these settle area gree faster and became cities or typically 5 smaller were united under one name for better planning cause otherwise each village needs a firestation and hospital ... far too expensive. And please take a look at the map of Stuttgart and Göppingen. All bigbstreets lead to the capitol Stuttgart, mostly along the valleys of smaller rivers. The area along that highway was loud so mid 1990ies they started the american way of industrial areas along the otherwise useless ground along the highway. city grew and now you can jump from one town to the other over 50 km along the river valley to concentrate people and buildings. In Munich all previous suburbs had been integrated into that city area for better planing results. But there had been more villages before caught by Munich expansion which had less than half the size 50 years ago, Bavaria was a poor country and the heritage was always devided to all whereas in the north the oldest or youngest got nearly everything of the farm. And this led to something people don't really know: The US population has by far mostly german roots. Why? Families in the north had 10 or more children but they had just 1 building / farm which wasn't big enough to give each a part, only 1 got all. From 1830 on villages with nowadays 1000 inhabitants and then 250 inhabitants lost 100s by emigration to US or Southern america. From the southern part like Baden Württemberg many were political refugees after riots of 1848. So many different tribes and rules but about 1930 new settle area were no longer available when Hitler became popular ddue the loss of parts of germany to the new founded poland. So he went on by saying "our future is the east" to give the mothers of soldiers reason why another war and attack on russia.
What you want to study is the history of the rural land and city development in Germany, that reaches back not only 70 years, but rather more then 1.000 years. When did the first settlers arrive in Australia again? You could look up easily the development of agricultural development since the middle ages, how many people made a living of it compared with today. You ought to look up the industrial revolution and the centers of that in Germany and how it has changed. Yes, it is very different to Australia, but that is exactly the reason, why you made this vid in the first place, isn`t it?
Most of your observations are correct - it's just a small country areawise with a lot of people living here .... in Australia (or the U.S.A. or the countries up North in Europe) the ratio is reversed - which contributes to a feeling of being less crowded. Just a small hint as to the customary introduction. Here we go on a 'ladies first' basis, which would mean: Your wife is named first, you as the husband second .... the same applies when meeting people. You would say "May I introduce you to my wife QYZ, I'm WYZ, nice to meet you"
I actually get the opposite feeling. Anywhere I drive in the US all I see is suburbs, endless miles of suburbs and OSB board apartments. Only until you drive a REALLY long way do you start to see fields and any sort of agricultural activity. A lot of it is just junk sprawl. in Germany, at least when I lived there, the concentration is higher, a bit less space for houses, but you don't have to go so far to see lots of open space.
ericpoperic She is, but seeing more views and more comments is really encouraging her, maybe she will soon start answering comments. Thanks for the comment and I hope you enjoy the next video :)
Please stop claiming that you show what Germany looks like or how Germans live. You can't generalize from your experiences in a small German village or from your experiences in Upper Bavaria to the whole of Germany. People from the U.S. do that all the time, that's so annoying. Village or town structures differ strongly between different regions of Germany. What you state about Germany makes maybe sense for small villages in Upper Bavaria, but it's stupid when you generalize it.
@Sebastian Urbas - Your comment is incredibly rude and ill-informed. They were very clear that they were sharing observations locally and invited comments regarding how things differ elsewhere in Germany.
This is true. Except for in the north west and southern Bavaria. That is where inheritance laws enabled large farms to dominate. Schleswig-Holstein when Danish had a major land redistribution that replaced villages with individual and spread out farms in part as well, and many of the lost territories that are now Poland today had a lot of land redistribution during the late 19th century and 20th centuries, when they were still German territory, where farming villages were replaced often with large, spread out farms as well. The old farm buildings of Prussians can still be found today in some areas, often in poor maintenance. After WW2 they did move many farms onto land outside of villages to reduce crowding and increase farm size and standard of living, but unlike other countries land redistribution the changes were meager.
Actually we take a lot of effort to keep it like it is. Houses may only be build in areas close to towns to avoid spreating them all over the aerea. That is why we have so much nature around despite having such a high concentration of people.
mkmm60 That is true. There is a huge amount of green in Germany considering how many people live here. I did forget to mention that but maybe I will in another video, thanks for your comment ☺
Germany does not have a lot of nature. Almost everything is covered by farm land or by cellulose factories (aka managed forrests). Only a bit in Saarland and Bayrischer Wald is nature.
What you mean is untouched nature in reservations. Our nature is used for food and wood production, but is is nature.
The grass is used to allow the field to recover for a year. it is usually seeded with plants that produce high nitrogen, and plowed undered under. It is three field acriculture.
+Petra Meyer Thanks for the info. I had no idea how it worked. It's great to learn how things work.
It's mostly because of historic reasons. Small Moorenweis for instance can track its earliest settlement back over 1200 years and a lot of small towns or villages in germany (or europe) can do the same. In medival times, crops farther then two kilometers away from an farm didn't made sense, so there were settlements every 3-4 km.
And when in the last hundred years some citys got so big that suburbs would be needed there were already lots of small towns or villages around that big city where extra houses could be build instead of founding a new suburb in open countryside. This is the main reason, imho.
But even in Germany we have places more like the typical "new world suburb" for instance around Wolfsburg in northern germany where there is or was huge population growth. (As for wolfsburg, it was funded by Hitler in 1938 as a city for the workers of what would later become VW and has now a population of 125 k.
S Kraus Thanks for the insight on the development of Germany it is great for us to learn more about this beautiful country. Thanks for your support and comments.
youre welcome. :-) I like your video and the insights of foreigners to our county in general as an "Denkanstoß" to differences and similarities between countrys
The little farms are a South German phenomenon. In that region the farm was often split to the sons and became so smaller over the centuries. In North Germany the farm was going to the oldest son, so the north German farmer have much larger farms on a more industrial level.
+Rick2010100 Thanks for the comment. We have not made it to the North, we hope that this summer we can go north and see more and learn more about Germany.
Don't forget, that many of these settlements have a long history. In the county Landkreis Konstanz I know two oddities: The community Aach, which is a town of approx 2500 inhabitants and is a town of old right. In opposite the neighbouring community of a single village wth the same sice has no township. And not far away you've Singen with 45'000 inhabitants. All three are fully indipentent villages, towns or whatever. Seldon a really suburb.
In comparision around Stuttgart you've Sindelfingen, Esslingen and Canstatt, which were in former time fully indipentent with own historical town cores and even today even counties in their own right. But these towns and settlements have become parts of a bugger "agglomeration", a settlement area. I thinkt, the difference is the age between the settlement sturcturs in Australia / USA / Canada and the structure here in Europe. Suburbs are a more modern thing…
Torax Malu I think so also. The age of the towns has a lot to do with it, I think that is also why there are so many towns within minutes of each other, before cars it would have taken a long time to travel between them but today only minutes.
I'm wondering about what Australians learn at school. I would expect that they teach their students that suburbia is almost a solely thing that can be found in the U.S., in Canada and Australia.
It depends. So, not so much black and white.
It's based on history of your region.
Don't forget: before germany got united up to 35 german kingdoms/tribes existed and formed allies to fight against each other.
They lived by each other but had a different history.
What you see is a far modern Germany cause 50-90% of its building were destroyed by end of war as to be seen here
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_W%C3%BCrzburg_in_World_War_II?wprov=sfla1
But the rebuild started along the old street and private property borders so no chance to change it that much.
From the east of germany about 20 Millions refugees had fled before russian army over the baltic sea, by train, feet, horse, trecks. They arrived and had nothing or died. Therfore with the growing economy in the back new building area were created, cheap farm land where the german refugees could help each other to errect houses. These areas have buildings from early 50ies, are near the previous cities.
And then you have the villages called Weiler or Flecken which don't have a yellow city sign what means 50 km/h street limit, they are too small and got mainly green sign with its name.
These are the result of developing a region. You had to cities like Munich and Augsburg and a path, that became a way and later main road. In between farmer were alliwed to settle by church or duke and had to pay. to fortify and conquer the area the next village was founded each time population growth was high and no deadly flues or diseaes appeared. The farm had not so many fields of corn for so many children so it was time to conquer the next part. ... some of these settle area gree faster and became cities or typically 5 smaller were united under one name for better planning cause otherwise each village needs a firestation and hospital ... far too expensive.
And please take a look at the map of Stuttgart and Göppingen. All bigbstreets lead to the capitol Stuttgart, mostly along the valleys of smaller rivers. The area along that highway was loud so mid 1990ies they started the american way of industrial areas along the otherwise useless ground along the highway. city grew and now you can jump from one town to the other over 50 km along the river valley to concentrate people and buildings.
In Munich all previous suburbs had been integrated into that city area for better planing results. But there had been more villages before caught by Munich expansion which had less than half the size 50 years ago, Bavaria was a poor country and the heritage was always devided to all whereas in the north the oldest or youngest got nearly everything of the farm.
And this led to something people don't really know:
The US population has by far mostly german roots.
Why? Families in the north had 10 or more children but they had just 1 building / farm which wasn't big enough to give each a part, only 1 got all. From 1830 on villages with nowadays 1000 inhabitants and then 250 inhabitants lost 100s by emigration to US or Southern america.
From the southern part like Baden Württemberg many were political refugees after riots of 1848.
So many different tribes and rules but about 1930 new settle area were no longer available when Hitler became popular ddue the loss of parts of germany to the new founded poland. So he went on by saying "our future is the east" to give the mothers of soldiers reason why another war and attack on russia.
You have to see that development in our Country in a Historical Context.It's way older than Australia.
What you want to study is the history of the rural land and city development in Germany, that reaches back not only 70 years, but rather more then 1.000 years.
When did the first settlers arrive in Australia again?
You could look up easily the development of agricultural development since the middle ages, how many people made a living of it compared with today. You ought to look up the industrial revolution and the centers of that in Germany and how it has changed.
Yes, it is very different to Australia, but that is exactly the reason, why you made this vid in the first place, isn`t it?
Most of your observations are correct - it's just a small country areawise with a lot of people living here .... in Australia (or the U.S.A. or the countries up North in Europe) the ratio is reversed - which contributes to a feeling of being less crowded.
Just a small hint as to the customary introduction. Here we go on a 'ladies first' basis, which would mean: Your wife is named first, you as the husband second .... the same applies when meeting people. You would say "May I introduce you to my wife QYZ, I'm WYZ, nice to meet you"
I actually get the opposite feeling. Anywhere I drive in the US all I see is suburbs, endless miles of suburbs and OSB board apartments. Only until you drive a REALLY long way do you start to see fields and any sort of agricultural activity. A lot of it is just junk sprawl. in Germany, at least when I lived there, the concentration is higher, a bit less space for houses, but you don't have to go so far to see lots of open space.
Vanessa is a little shy, isn't she? ;-) Best wishes from Berlin.
ericpoperic She is, but seeing more views and more comments is really encouraging her, maybe she will soon start answering comments. Thanks for the comment and I hope you enjoy the next video :)
Hey dear...i am from India...nice video
Like country side any where theres lots greenery
Please stop claiming that you show what Germany looks like or how Germans live. You can't generalize from your experiences in a small German village or from your experiences in Upper Bavaria to the whole of Germany. People from the U.S. do that all the time, that's so annoying. Village or town structures differ strongly between different regions of Germany. What you state about Germany makes maybe sense for small villages in Upper Bavaria, but it's stupid when you generalize it.
@Sebastian Urbas - Your comment is incredibly rude and ill-informed. They were very clear that they were sharing observations locally and invited comments regarding how things differ elsewhere in Germany.