Central Germany

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The Federal States of Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt

Central Germany is not the exact center of Germany, but is mainly used for a region around Leipzig where the three federal states - Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt meet. The governments of these states endeavor to establish Mitteldeutschland (central Germany) as a trademark. Historically also including most of Hesse, parts of Franconia and the South of Lower Saxony the region is described as an area between the Harz Mountains in the West and Lusatia in the East as well as the Fläming in the North and Ore Mountains/Thuringian Forest in the South, while the North of Saxony-Anhalt is often regarded to be a part of North-eastern or Northern Germany. Until 1937, before the Second World War, this area was regarded to be in the middle of Germany due to it being approximately midpoint between Aachen and Königsberg, and was the central region of the three main German industrial areas Ruhr area, Leipzig-Halle and Upper Silesia. After 1945, when Germany lost its historical eastern provinces, the area fell into what is more or less in the eastern part of remaining German territory. For decades until the Ostpolitik, central Germany was used in official West German usage, supported by both the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party alike, to denote the area that became the German Democratic Republic and by a large number of Germans expelled from its historical eastern provinces residing in West Germany who held a wide range of political views, from left to right. When the Oder-Neisse line was accepted by the West German government as the fixed eastern border of Germany in 1990 during German reunification, this view was only promoted by far-rights and revanchists. However, activists (Aktion Mitteldeutschland e.V.) promoted in the Nineties that the larger Leipzig-Halle area would profit by claiming to be an economical identity, and separate from the other parts of the former East Germany, Brandenburg-Berlin and Mecklenburg.

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The use of the term Central Germany is meant to underline the central location in Middle Europe and to remind of the industrial glory of the area in former times. It was for centuries the most advanced area of Germany during the industrialization and the earlier Protestant Reformation. So mainly it has become an advertising slogan.

ARD, the consortium of public broadcasting institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany, uses the term for Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Middle German Broadcast) which is one of its members. It is often used by private companies that are located around Leipzig, Halle and Dessau. The term is also used in sports competitions, Mitteldeutsche Meisterschaften (Middle German Championships).

There are different methods for determing the geographical center. Most of them result in a point in Middle Germany. The geographical center of Germany (Niederdorla) lies in the south-west of Middle Germany.