Bremen (German pronunciation: [ˈbʁeːmən] ), officially the City Municipality of Bremen, is the capital of the German state of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (Freie Hansestadt Bremen) a two-city-state consisting of the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. It is an important port city with about 586,000 inhabitants, the Hanseatic city is the 11th-largest city of Germany and the second-largest city in Northern Germany after Hamburg.
Bremen is the largest city on the River Weser, the longest river flowing entirely in Germany, lying some 60 km (37 mi) upstream from its mouth into the North Sea at Bremerhaven, and is completely surrounded by the state of Lower Saxony. Bremen is the centre of the Northwest Metropolitan Region, which also includes the cities of Oldenburg and Bremerhaven, and has a population of around 2.8 million people. Bremen is contiguous with the Lower Saxon towns of Delmenhorst, Stuhr, Achim, Weyhe, Schwanewede and Lilienthal. There is an exclave of Bremen in Bremerhaven, the "Citybremian Overseas Port Area Bremerhaven" (Stadtbremisches Überseehafengebiet Bremerhaven). Bremen is the third-largest city in the Low German dialect area after Hamburg and Dortmund.