Where is Bavaria?

Where is Bavaria? 8 fast facts on the geography of Germany’s prettiest province

1. Size

Bavaria is Germany’s biggest state (Bundesland) with an area of 70,548 square kilometres (27,200 square miles). That’s about a fifth of Germany’s total land mass.

GREEN: A classic Volkswagon Beetle in the city of Neustadt an der Donau, Bavaria.

It’s in Germany’s south-eastern quarter and has a population of about 12.5 million people.

2. Co-ordinates

Munich sits at the co-ordinates 48 8′ 0″ N, 11 34′ 0″E, putting it at a similar longitude to Paris in France, Quebec in Canada, Seattle in the USA, Ulan Bator in Mongolia and Vienna in Austria.



3. Rivers

The largest rivers that flow through the state are the Danube and the Main. The Danube (German: Donau) cuts a jagged line across Bavaria from Ulm/Neu-Ulm in the west to Passau in the east. The Main flows further north.

Both rivers are occasionally dubbed the “Weisswurst Equator” – the imaginary northern frontier of Bavarian culture and all it entails (including the famous white sausages).
Where this border really is depends on who you ask – vehemently traditional southern Bavarians will say it starts further south!

A MOUNTAIN SOMEWHERE: In the Bavarian Alps near Obersdorf.

4. Alps

Bring up Bavaria and many people will think of Alpine glory a la The Sound of Music. Actually only a small part of the state’s surface – the “deep south” – is alpine. It’s nonetheless a glorious area.
The Bavarian Alps include Germany’s highest peak, the Zugspitze at 2962 meters (9718 feet). Popular mountain getaway areas include Obersdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Berchtesgaden.

The Munich Weather page has the current time in Germany

5. Time

The whole of Germany is one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and sits in the Central European Time (CET) time zone. This means that it’s normally six hours ahead of New York, eight hours behind Melbourne, an hour ahead of London and the same time as Cape Town.

Between the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October it falls under Central European Summer Time (CEST), two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.



6. Neighbours

Bavaria borders on the German states of Baden-Württemberg to the west and Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony to the north. Directly to the west lies the Czech Republic and Austria, and to the south is the Austrian province of Tyrol.
Bavaria has a maritime border with Swizerland on its south-western corner, across Lake Constance (German: Bodensee).

Where is Bavaria on the map? Click here to see an interactive Bavaria map and check out where its neighbours are.

7. Regions
Bavaria is divided into seven administrative regions, these being:
- Lower Franconia (Niederfranken),
- Upper Franconia (Oberfranken),
- Middle Franconia (Mittlefranken),
- Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz),
Swabia (Schawben),
-Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern) and
-Upper Bavaria (Oberbayern).

Perhaps surprisingly, Upper Bavaria is actually south of Lower Bavaria because it gets the name from its higher altitude.




8. Cities
The largest cities in Bavaria after Munich are Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Augsburg, Würzburg, Regensburg.
The suffix “berg” comes from the German word for mountain, and “burg” means fortress or castle, as they were all historically well-fortified cities. See here for an introduction to the biggest cities in Bavaria outside Munich.