Explained in a child-friendly way: How big is Germany?
Children are incredibly curious and ask us questions in the blink of an eye every second. It gets tricky for some parents when answering. After all, our little ones don’t yet know many terms and can therefore not really understand our answers. Like the question: “How big is Germany?”. We will show you how to clearly explain the answers to your child.
How big is Germany? A simple question that doesn’t need great explanations, you’re thinking now. Admittedly, the answer is easy to find: the area of Germany is 357,376 square kilometers. But does your child even understand what square kilometers are and can they then understand the dimensions?
How big is Germany?
So that you can clearly explain to your sparrow how big Germany actually is, we have a few ideas here.
How big is Germany compared to numbers?
Children are familiar with numbers from an early age. It may take a few years before they can count to more than 1,000, but they know from a young age: anything over 1,000 or, of course, in the millions is a lot! If they can also relate the number to something they know from their everyday lives, they will probably understand the dimensions more easily. Here are five examples:
- Germany is as big as more than 50,000 soccer fields combined.
- To cover Germany with toilet paper, you would need more than 100 million rolls.
- You would have to set up over 80 million table tennis tables to get the size of Germany.
- Almost 6 million classrooms fit together in the area of Germany.
- If Germany were a parking lot, almost 40 million cars could park there.
How big is Germany compared to other countries?
If your child is already going to school, names the globe as his favorite toy or just wants to know how big Germany is in comparison to other countries, you can explain it to him as follows:
- Sweden is almost one and a half times the size of Germany.
- Australia is 22 times the size of Germany.
- Germany is more than four times the size of Austria.
- China is 27 times the size of Germany.
- Germany is almost nine times the size of the Netherlands.
Oh yes: How big was Germany in the past?
The history of Germany tells of many changes – not only in terms of our politics and population, but also our area. A few decades ago, Germany covered a much larger area than it does today. World War I and World War II changed that.
That’s how big Germany was before the First World War
When Germany was still called “German Empire”, i.e. from 1871 to 1918, the area measured a total of 540,858 square kilometers. In other words: “Germany” was then one and a half times as big as it is today.
That’s how big Germany was before the Second World War
After the First World War (1914 to 1918), the Versailles Treaty regulated that the German Empire ceded some area to Poland and France. After that, the German Reich, as Germany was called at the time, was only 468,787 square kilometers in size.
During World War II (1939-1945) Germany attempted to regain some of these territories. Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the area increased again: the so-called Greater German Reich covered 894,227 square kilometers at its peak around 1940.
Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has existed in the form and area we know it today.