There's a small villages named Berlin a few kilometers from where I was born. Most of the street names are taken from famous streets you'll find in the capital. I live in Berlin (the capital) now and still find it very amusing that the Kurfürstendamm here is a bustling strret full off shops, while the Kurfürstendamm in the village of Berlin consists of one bus stop and a trash can.
when we (from the big Berlin) had some school event near Plön, we also went to the small Berlin to see a real Kuh Damm :-) the bus driver had to be careful to start breaking in time in front of that Berlin to not accidentally exit that "town" on the other side before coming to a stop ...
A colleague's spouse (not a German speaker, obviously) once suggested they walk to "Wanderweg" sometime. With so many signs pointing to it, it couldn't be very far from their home!
DeltaCortis: Paris, Texas is quite a well-known place. But yes: in the US, you have a consistent system. You give the place name, then a comma, then the name of the state it's in. Simple, unambiguous, intuitive.
It's also very nice when the same town is referred to by two different suffixes. The Deutsche Bahn calls it "Ottersberg (Han)" (short for Hannover). The local traffic association VBN calls it "Ottersberg (bei Bremen)". Plus points for having both options presented to you by either ticket vending machine, but only one of them being accepted.
(Old comment, I know, but anyways...) It's even worse when the same station has different names in different contexts. Between Karlsruhe and Pforzheim there's a station that Deutsche Bahn calls Wilferdingen-Singen but if you take the S-Bahn run by KVV, they announce it as Remchingen.
Just north of Hamburg there exist two villages, about 20 km from each other, both named Tangstedt. At least if you drive to the wrong one of those, it won't take you hours to fix that mistake. Another pair of villages in the same area found a very German solution, though: They are officially named "Wakendorf I" and "Wakendorf II", respectively...
Hm, in the middle of Germany, there is at least three times "Poppenhausen" within rather short distance: Poppenhausen (Wasserkuppe), Poppenhausen (Lkr. Schweinfurt) and Poppenhausen (part of Hellingen). And as if that wouldn't be confusing enough, there is also a second "Hellingen" (part of Königsberg i. Bay.) almost on the way between Poppenhausen (Schweinfurt) and Poppenhausen (Hellingen)
When I drove to my home at the university, I came through the city Bettmer twice. The first quite after the half-way-point and the second nearly at my arrival.
If Wakendorf I and II is too confusing for you, you could also visit a village called Wankendorf a few kilometers away. Or Krems I or Krems II. If you're feeling adventurous, the village of Berlin might be worth a trip, it ironically shares most of its street names with the capital as well.
3:50 there's also 3 former districts of Mainz now belonging to neighbouring Wiesbaden having kept the "Mainz-" prefix which leads to a district in Wiesbaden called "Wiesbaden-Mainz-Kastel" that has a train station only called "Mainz-Kastel" without the "Wiesbaden-" prefix
Norddeich (Ostfriesland) is probably far more well-known than Norddeich by Wesselburen because it has a terminal station served by intercity trains from as far away as Leipzig. Freiburg im Breisgau could probably get away with calling itself Freiburg were it not for Freiburg Eidgenosse on the other side of the Alemannic-speaking area. They even both have cathedrals with tall single towers.
Reminds me of a tourist here in Iceland a few years back. He had booked a room at a hotel on Laugavegur, Reykjavík. When he got to the country, he rented a car and asked the gps to take him to Laugarvegur (notice the r!) - which it happely did. Several hours later, he arrived at his "destination" - in the small village of Siglufjörður, some 400 kilometres north of Reykjavík.
I work at a pizza-delivery-service in a small town called Leer (Ostfriesland) which is actually relatively close to Norddeich (Norden-Norddeich is also part of Ostfriesland). We once got a call from a customer living in Nordrhein-Westphalen 300 km to our south asking for a delivery, because he thought we were situated in Leer (Horstmar). Still a running gag 6 years later.
When I was working on the Railway in the buffet car I spoke to a lady who was on the way back from Newcastle. She'd had a very easy journey there and back, trouble was she's been to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The meeting she was supposed to attend was in Newcastle-under-Lyme. To make things worse, Newcastle-uder-Lyme's railway station had closed some 46 years previous, so it wasn't even possible to get there by train, the nearest station being Stoke-on-Trent. Similar problems in the UK.
Oldenburg in Oldenburg is named that way because it was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. The villages of Burhafe and Burhave do cause funny problems too.
The tiny towns and villages of Altenhagen, Alten-Hagen, and Alt-Hagen are all part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, all within a 75km circle. That really kills your GPS nav-system.
We have three villages called ,,Altenhagen" in our district. - Hagenburg-Altenhagen - Altenhagen (Auetal) - Altenhagen II (Messenkamp) And there is even a fourth one in the near of Altenhagen II: Altenhagen I because they were both in the former district Springe until its end in 1974. After that, the villages were assigned to different districts: I turned to Region Hannover and the other one was added to Schaumburg.
In Austria, we have Feldkirch, Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Feldkirchen an der Donau. Wiener Neustadt is actually far away from Wien. Zwettl in Niederösterreich, Zwettl an der Rodl. plus the confusingly similar names of Linz, Lienz, Liezen.
There's the town of Wernigerode in the Harz mountains in Saxony-Anhalt, and it's a popular tourist spot. There's also the tiny village of Werningerode (notice the extra N) in northern Thuringia, which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. And ever since GPS reached the consumer market, the tiny village regularly has to deal with busses full of tourists arriving there, driven by bus drivers who can't spell properly.
There are also Places that have a suffix even though they don't really need one Kempten (Allgäu) is one of those places, a town of 67,000 inhabitants in Bavarian Swabia (and arguably the oldest Town in Germany) the only other Kemptens are "Kempten am Rhein" (1,900 inh.), part of the much larger town of "Bingen am Rhein" (25,000 inh.) in Rhineland-Palatinate (guess where the suffix is from), and Kempten ZH (no. of inh. unkown), a village in the parish of Wetzikon (24,000 inh.) in the Canton of Zürich (where it got the ZH) in Switzerland.
FunFact about Norddeich: There's the train station "Norddeich" and the halt "Norddeich Mole", which is also where the railway ends. And they are very close to each other. About 130m between the ends of the platforms, with just a small crossing in between. It's somewhat hilarious. goo.gl/maps/Wuarmc3rAiJ2
I agree with your comments, once trying to get to the Panzer Museum in 'Munster', the sat nav took us on a trip to Münster, 278km away from the actual destination. I keyed in the umlaut version, so pilot error in reality.
For a school trip in the 90s, we (the kids) were waiting in Königstein im Taunus (near Frankfurt am Main), the bus driver was in Königstein in Saxony, 500 km away….
I would think that's very common everywhere, no? E.g. the equivalent of "Neustadt" in Germany would probably be "Newton" in the UK. (Wikipedia has entries for 38 places in the UK called "Newton".)
Here in Japan the confusion comes from the use of Kanji, or Chinese Characters. Two words or place names can be pronounced very similarly or exactly the same, even though they're written with different Kanji. If you see them written down they're obviously different, but if you only hear them spoken, or written in English, it's very possible to mix them up. This is mainly a problem for non-Japanese people living or visiting here, but I have seen Japanese people confuse words or places when they only heard them spoken in conversation.
Thulyblu I stayed with a guy who lives in Groß Klein last summer for an exchange program. I made the same comment, and he explained to me that Klein actually used to mean village, so in modern German it means Big Small, but it is meant to mean Big Village
The city of "Stadtallendorf" comes to mind. Here in the big city, many people who hear this name, laugh about it, because it begins with "Stadt" (city or town) and ends with "dorf" (village). So they mock it by saying "was the village too obviously a village to be called a city, so they added the city part to its name" and so on ;)
I really hate names that involve the word neu/new. It's ridiculous (and borderline confusing) 150 years later... I might give cities like New York or countries like New Zealand a pass here as they still are the newest of that name, but when your "new gallery" is the second oldest out of 10 there is something wrong.
3:58 Having been born in Mainz and raised in Bischofsheim, I always get a warm feeling reading Mainz in front of the name. "Rechts des Rheins ist auch noch Mainz" :D (Though admittedly running the state boarder along the Rhine looks much neater on a map.)
East Berlin, CT, USA next to Berlin, CT, USA and south east of New Britain :-) Neustadt - Often an extension of an old town and first only a district of the old one. Then growing (or divided by "new" border) and then a town itself.
In the rhine main area you can travel from Bischofsheim to Bischofsheim (near Mainz and part of Maintal). And don't forget Rot(h)enburg (Wümme, Ob der Tauber, an der Fulda, Oberlausitz, Saale...) It's like Springfield in the US.
Back when I was a kid, the series of books used at our (German) school in our English courses featured a ficticious British family, who were hosting a German exchange student named Helga - who was from Neustadt, but sadly the book didn't go into detail which of the 20 towns she was from...
My hometown couldn't be chosen as a location on Facebook because there was another town with the same name but located at a different river. Plus, there's a third town named the same but without any river.
Denmark has 3 towns all called Nykøbing (Newmarket/Neumarkt). Neither of them can claim any significant preeminence over the others, so they're all known by their suffix, namely the island they lie on, Falster, Mors, Sjælland. There are other more widespread placenames, especially "Lundby", but all of them save for one, are super tiny, and the largest isn't that big, it's biggest claim to fame is having a railway station and it's own postal code.
Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Wittenberge are also an example, if you don't know two of those exist relatively close to each other... A friend of mine once rode a train to the wrong destination ;-)
Oldenburg in Oldenburg. Was there often for work - Well, the suffix being the region doesn't make it much better than being an abbreviation of itself ...
There are 3 towns in Switzerland called Affoltern: Affoltern ZH is located in the city of Zürich, Affoltern am Albis is also in the canton of Zürich but Affoltern im Emmental is in the canton of Bern.
I once drove to Kapellenstraße in Feldkirchen, I deliberately typed in both street and town name to be sure to not end up in another town with same name. The travel time seemed reasonable, I was there years before once. When I reached the destination, it was a residential area instead of an industrial what I was expecting - There really are two streets with the same name in same named towns only an hour apart!
On my first visit to Germany I was supposed to go to the town of Munster near Hannover (central Germany), but accidentally went to Münster just above the Ruhr-area. Not quite the same name, but close enough to confuse me.
In Serbia and its region there are a lot of towns with similar names: Palanka - Turkish for military outpost Kriva, Brza, Smederevka, Bačka. Petrovac - Peter's town Bački, na Mlavi (on river Mlava), na moru (by see) Karlovac (Karl's town) Sremski, Banatski, Hrvatski (in Cro
Just for added fun - for Frankfurt you forgot the huge (sarcasm alert) settlement of "Stadt Frankfurt" in Saxony Anhalt - it consists of like 6 houses, a car junkyard and recycler, a plantation and doesnt even carry a yellow sign on the road, but a green one.
In my weekly train rides, the train always holds at "Warburg (Höxter)", although there is no Warburg that is not near Höxter and at "Bad Driburg (Westfalen)" although there is no Bad Driburg that is not in Westfalen.
Come on, you can't expect the Deutsche Bahn to keep up to date with the change of German politics in the past 100 years! They're busy making sure not too many trains are on time!
Look up all of the "Seedorf" locations!!! It took me a trip into our family Bible, that one of my nieces ended up with, to find that it's the one in Holstein that we're from. Now it's easy for me to remember. It's the one above Lubbock . . . er, Lubeck!
I just had the problem with "Glinde"... One is near Bremervörde in Lower Saxony, the other one in Schleswig-Holstein near Hamburg. My navigation system wanted me to bring to the latter but I wanted to the first one. ^^
The fact that Mainz lost part of its suburbs is due to the borders between Allied zones of occupation drawn in 1945, in this case between the French and American zones. While in most places the zonal borders were designed according to pre-existing German administrative boundaries, in a few places the Allies misrespected those and drew their borders according to what they thought was more practical, cutting through pre-existing municipalities or regional entities. In some cases this hasn't been rectified until today and still causes local discontent, such as between Mainz and Wiesbaden. In some other cases it has been corrected after 1990, such as at Amt Neuhaus (Soviet and British zone) and Berlin-Staaken (Soviet zone and British sector of Berlin).
Its worse in the US, I had my travel agency book a wrong flight ticket once (I should have been suspicious when i had to fly in a turbo prop and the taxi had no idea where my hotel was supposed to be ,) good thing was that delta provided me with a free connecting flight
3:44 could you make a video about the "AKK-Stadtteile" (Amöneburg, Kastel, Kostheim) which also used to belong to Mainz, but are now a part of Wiesbaden, but with the official Name "Wiesbaden Mainz-Amöneburg", etc. They are like both cities share them and the topic can be really entertaining (or confusing)
Well ok this is a nice, small overview. But it gets deeper. E.G. the cities share the industry taxes collected there and for Public transport it all still belongs to Mainz.
I had the problem at my first visit to Scotland. I wanted to drive from Edinburgh to Newcastle and the navigations system (a very new thing at that time) showed about 8-10(?) Newcastles without any further info. I don't know if it didn't have enough space or was just lazy. There might have been postal codes, but I didn't know that either. I thought that might just be different parts of the Newcastle (upon Tyne) I wanted, but I recognized that the drive time was much too high, so I tried a different one. I don't know if I found the right one or just went by map.
And then there is the possibility of travelling around the world without ever crossing the German Border. America, Egypt, Africa, Brazil, Cuba, California, England, Greenland, Canada, Siberia, Norway, Austria and Turkey are places in Germany. Except for Cuba and England the names are spelled the German way.... Amerika, Ägypten, Afrika, Brasilien, Kalifornien, Kanada, Sibirien, Norwegen, Österreich und Türkei.
We have three villages called ,,Altenhagen" in our district. - Hagenburg-Altenhagen - Altenhagen (Auetal) - Altenhagen II (Messenkamp) And there is even a fourth one in the near of Altenhagen II: Altenhagen I because they were both in the former district Springe until its end in 1974. After that, the villages were assigned to different districts: I turned to Region Hannover and the other one was added to Schaumburg. Another example are the villages ,,Rehren". Unofficially, they are distinguished by a suffix which describes the historical district courts they were part of, so they are named ,,Rehren AR (Amtsgericht Rodenberg)" and ,,Rehren AO (Amtsgericht Obernkirchen)".
To make it more confusing: Dresden Neustadt was actually named Altendresden (old Dresden) before it was incorporated to "new" Dresden which is now known as the old town. Altendresden only changed its name to Neustadt when it burned down and was rebuilt in baroque manner, now as "königliche Neustadt" (royal new town).
Reminds me of the time we wanted to go on holidays in Wernigerode and, due to a little typo, landed on the wrong side of the Harz in Werningerode. Can you spot the difference? Exactly.
"And where are the horses?" Queen Elisabeth after 4 hours walking tour through Marbach am Neckar, where Schiller is born, getting told, that the horses are at the Haupt- und Landgestüt Marbach on the Swabian Alb 100 km away.
Andrew, i wonder why you didn't mention the many towns in Germany that are called "Neukirchen", with or without suffixes. There must be around fifty or so, because somewhen in the middle ages, when a landlord bribed the clergy to keep his underlings at bay, he built a new church and called the place "Newchurch". But then again, where was Shakespeare allegedly born? And the French have even longer place names, I once was in a village that's called Saint Arnoult en Yvelines, And, yes, Anus does exist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anus,_Yonne
There are about 10 towns and parishes in Germany called "Neukirchen": there are also 37 towns and parishes with a locality called "Neukirchen". I went for Neustadt because it's a place name you're more likely to see on road signs. Neukirchen almost qualifies for its own video, though. As well as "Neukirchen", there are some variations like "Neukirch" and "Neunkirchen" (which really does mean "new church" and not, as you might think, "nine churches").
The village where I live is called Sande. Sande in Friesland, so on the North Sea coast. But there are also Sande in Norway, in Denmark, as a district of the city of Paderborn and other cities ... on the DB website you also had to watch out like crazy until last year, but that is now apparently corrected. Since no one knows the place, I always say to people from outside that I live in the direction of Oldenburg ... Oldenburg in Oldenburg and yes Fehmarn is nice and all, but I do not live in Oldenburg in Holstein and yes, that is a total different direction. Had this debate more than once, surprisingly.
Because getting a group of about 40 or 50 people with all their luggage onto trains, with several transfers, is difficult and expensive. Also, there are no trains on Juist, so they'd all have to walk from the harbour.
I'm from the same Landkreis as Freiburg/Elbe, whenever I meet someone from Freiburg (and they of course only say Freiburg) I ask them if they are from my area lmao
That exact same mistake was made by some patrons that stayed at the hotel in Norden that we were staying in. The innkeeper told us that they punched it in the gps system and landed... well, in the "wrong" Norddeich. :D (Postleitzahlen helfen!)
On the small Topic of places with "Mainz" as part of their name, without actually being part of Mainz. Mainz-Kastell, is part of Wiesbaden, the Capital of Hessen on the other side of the Rhine
Living as I did near a town called Alton in the south of the UK there were a number of occasions when I was there bearer of the ill news that alton towers theme park was several hours away in the midlands 🤦🏻
Not Germany, but I was once on a coach which took us to Schwarzach im Pongau when we were expected in Schwarzach, Vorarlberg. Distance: ~400 km. Obviously, the error was not correctable in a reasonable amount of time, so we spent a pleasant afternoon hiking the Liechtenstein Gorge instead of the planned cultural program. (And more confusingly, Lichtenstein Gorge, near Schwarzarch im Pongau, is nowhere near the country of Lichtenstein, which is just a short distance from Schwarzach, Vorarlberg.)
Thank you! I always wondered, why it is called Oldenburg in Oldenburg. I didn't know that there was a second town called Oldenburg in Schleswig - Holstein, but now I know the answer to my question. :-) By the way: Oldenburg is also the Landkreis. So Oldenburg in Oldenburg also means that it's the town of Oldenburg in the Landkreis of Oldenburg.
No. Oldenburg is not part of the Landkreis and never was. It's called so, because it was the capital of the state of the same name until 1946, when it was merged with Hannover, Braunschweig and Schaumburg-Lippe to the new state of Lower Saxony.
@@Nikioko And to make it even more confusing: Until 1918 Oldenburg (OIdb) was called Oldenburg im Großherzogtum (or just Oldenburg i.G. or Oldenburg (Ghzgt.) ). Funny enough, Oldenburg in Holstein was located next to the Fürstentum Lübeck (Principality of Lubeck) which was part of the Großherzogtum Oldenburg (Grand Duchy of Oldenburg). So if you lived in the Principality of Lubeck, Oldenburg i.G. was the capital of your country but 300km away, Oldenburg in Holstein was part of a different country just nearby. The Principality of Lubeck again had nothing to do with the Hanseatic City of Lubeck but consisted of cities like Eutin or Schwartau.
Just recently I noticed that there actually are two villages by the same name in my area, both just a few kilometres from where I live (and from each other). I knew the name, but I wasn't aware there were two of them.
es gibt noch ein Oldenburg in der Gemeinde Züssow (Mecklemburg-Vorpommern) die haben aber nicht mal 50 Einwohner. Mit diesem Fakt kann man aber noch so manchen Stadt-Oldenburger trotzdem noch sehr gut zum staunen bringen.
We're not immune in the UK - I had a driver who had to deliver some furniture from Manchester to Bradford in Yorlshire about 30 miles away and a very well known city - he ended up in Bradford on Avon, over 200 miles away !!!! This was before mobile phones so we had no way of contacting him when the customer rang to ask where their delivery was it's called Stupidity in English !
And don‘t forget the famous „Altstadt“ you can find almost everywhere all over Germany. 😉 BTW, there is also Brazil and California in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (I‘m too lazy to look up the English pronunciation 😉)
Many years ago, way before mobile phones, I worked for a trucking company in a town east of Cologne. A driver was supposed to take a load to Mönchengladbach. The boss did not hear from him for hours, when finally he got a phone call: "I'm in München but can't find Gladbach." True story. Another true story in relation to all the Neustadts: After WWII you needed a pass to travel with trucks. One of the zoos tried to get up and running again, and to get supplies and to rescue some animals from other zoos, they needed to travel. A lot. With a truck. So they asked the American authorities for a long-term permit to travel to Neustadt.
Bare zip codes may lead wrong, too: There's three streets "Eichenstraße" in 90587 (in different villages), making it difficult for those who rely on it with their satnav. British postcodes are better - they lead to a designated location or to a very narrow area even when the street isn't in the satnav's list.
In the USA, generally, the post office only allowed one town names (x) per state- towns were forced to change their names. Lawndale (northern CA) forced to select new name, now Colma. Mind you there are 2 Brentwoods in California but one is an LA neighborhood
one little detail/mistak to Freiburg (im Breisgau) there is another Freiburg (im Üechtland) in switzerland and both cities was founded by the same knights so the name is to differ this two cities in the first place.
I am quite sure that Freiburg got the addition "im Breisgau" to distinguish it from the much closer Freiburg im Üechtland in Switzerland. And Freiburg im Breisgau is not *in* but on the edge of the Black Forest. /nitpicking off
Yeah, no fair. You have mastered standard German, now they want you to learn obscure dialects...Our umlaut-diphtongs are something that throws most Germans for a loop...Which make s us snigger at Std. German "Müsli" loaned from Swiss German, but really meaning "Mäuschen"...The two Freiburgs are actually sister cities, both being founded by the Zähringer.
There's a small villages named Berlin a few kilometers from where I was born. Most of the street names are taken from famous streets you'll find in the capital. I live in Berlin (the capital) now and still find it very amusing that the Kurfürstendamm here is a bustling strret full off shops, while the Kurfürstendamm in the village of Berlin consists of one bus stop and a trash can.
when we (from the big Berlin) had some school event near Plön, we also went to the small Berlin to see a real Kuh Damm :-)
the bus driver had to be careful to start breaking in time in front of that Berlin to not accidentally exit that "town" on the other side before coming to a stop ...
When I was younger I always questioned why there were so many towns called "ausfahrt" in Germany....
A colleague's spouse (not a German speaker, obviously) once suggested they walk to "Wanderweg" sometime. With so many signs pointing to it, it couldn't be very far from their home!
In the US like ever city has another one with the same name. Springfield is the most common, with 35 cities called springfield.
I only know Springfeeel
Mailmanq That's why the town in the Simpsons is named that, to make it implaceable.
doooh!
It always amuses me when I see "Paris, France" from some Americans. Like anyone would ever talk about "Paris, Ohio" or whatever.
DeltaCortis: Paris, Texas is quite a well-known place.
But yes: in the US, you have a consistent system. You give the place name, then a comma, then the name of the state it's in. Simple, unambiguous, intuitive.
It's also very nice when the same town is referred to by two different suffixes.
The Deutsche Bahn calls it "Ottersberg (Han)" (short for Hannover).
The local traffic association VBN calls it "Ottersberg (bei Bremen)".
Plus points for having both options presented to you by either ticket vending machine, but only one of them being accepted.
(Old comment, I know, but anyways...)
It's even worse when the same station has different names in different contexts. Between Karlsruhe and Pforzheim there's a station that Deutsche Bahn calls Wilferdingen-Singen but if you take the S-Bahn run by KVV, they announce it as Remchingen.
Just north of Hamburg there exist two villages, about 20 km from each other, both named Tangstedt. At least if you drive to the wrong one of those, it won't take you hours to fix that mistake.
Another pair of villages in the same area found a very German solution, though: They are officially named "Wakendorf I" and "Wakendorf II", respectively...
Hm, in the middle of Germany, there is at least three times "Poppenhausen" within rather short distance: Poppenhausen (Wasserkuppe), Poppenhausen (Lkr. Schweinfurt) and Poppenhausen (part of Hellingen). And as if that wouldn't be confusing enough, there is also a second "Hellingen" (part of Königsberg i. Bay.) almost on the way between Poppenhausen (Schweinfurt) and Poppenhausen (Hellingen)
When I drove to my home at the university, I came through the city Bettmer twice. The first quite after the half-way-point and the second nearly at my arrival.
Can't wait for Wakendorf III
If Wakendorf I and II is too confusing for you, you could also visit a village called Wankendorf a few kilometers away. Or Krems I or Krems II. If you're feeling adventurous, the village of Berlin might be worth a trip, it ironically shares most of its street names with the capital as well.
I think it's BettmAr (between Braunschweig and Hildesheim) ;)
If you DO end up in Neustadt though, keep your eyes peeled for witches and/or a talking elephant walking trough town freely
And a flamboyant reporter zooming around town on her scooter.
When you End up in Neustadt in Holstein you can at least visit Hansapark
3:50 there's also 3 former districts of Mainz now belonging to neighbouring Wiesbaden having kept the "Mainz-" prefix which leads to a district in Wiesbaden called "Wiesbaden-Mainz-Kastel" that has a train station only called "Mainz-Kastel" without the "Wiesbaden-" prefix
Norddeich (Ostfriesland) is probably far more well-known than Norddeich by Wesselburen because it has a terminal station served by intercity trains from as far away as Leipzig.
Freiburg im Breisgau could probably get away with calling itself Freiburg were it not for Freiburg Eidgenosse on the other side of the Alemannic-speaking area. They even both have cathedrals with tall single towers.
That's why you always check the ZIP code :P
Das war auch meine Idee - Postleitzahlen können helfen - fünfstellige Zahlen sind doch recht einfach (vgl. britische postal codes)
Reminds me of a tourist here in Iceland a few years back.
He had booked a room at a hotel on Laugavegur, Reykjavík. When he got to the country, he rented a car and asked the gps to take him to Laugarvegur (notice the r!) - which it happely did.
Several hours later, he arrived at his "destination" - in the small village of Siglufjörður, some 400 kilometres north of Reykjavík.
I work at a pizza-delivery-service in a small town called Leer (Ostfriesland) which is actually relatively close to Norddeich (Norden-Norddeich is also part of Ostfriesland). We once got a call from a customer living in Nordrhein-Westphalen 300 km to our south asking for a delivery, because he thought we were situated in Leer (Horstmar). Still a running gag 6 years later.
I think it's more likely for Freiburg im Breisgau, that it had to be distinguish from Freiburg im Üechtland - that's Fribourg in Switzerland.
"school children are always up for an adventure" made me laugh 😂
I once took a limo from New York City to Farmingdale...well he was supposed to go to Farmingdale, NY, but he went to Farmingdale, NJ.
When I was working on the Railway in the buffet car I spoke to a lady who was on the way back from Newcastle. She'd had a very easy journey there and back, trouble was she's been to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The meeting she was supposed to attend was in Newcastle-under-Lyme. To make things worse, Newcastle-uder-Lyme's railway station had closed some 46 years previous, so it wasn't even possible to get there by train, the nearest station being Stoke-on-Trent. Similar problems in the UK.
Oldenburg in Oldenburg is named that way because it was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg.
The villages of Burhafe and Burhave do cause funny problems too.
The tiny towns and villages of Altenhagen, Alten-Hagen, and Alt-Hagen are all part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, all within a 75km circle.
That really kills your GPS nav-system.
RustyDust101 And then there's Altenhagen near Bielefeld and the district Hagen-Altenhagen in the city of Hagen, both in Westphalia
We have three villages called ,,Altenhagen" in our district.
- Hagenburg-Altenhagen
- Altenhagen (Auetal)
- Altenhagen II (Messenkamp)
And there is even a fourth one in the near of Altenhagen II: Altenhagen I because they were both in the former district Springe until its end in 1974. After that, the villages were assigned to different districts: I turned to Region Hannover and the other one was added to Schaumburg.
Re Neustadt, there are about twenty Newtowns in the UK, too.
Never underestimate the power of consistency, especially in essential information (like place names).
In Italy we have the exact same problem.
In Austria, we have Feldkirch, Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Feldkirchen an der Donau. Wiener Neustadt is actually far away from Wien. Zwettl in Niederösterreich, Zwettl an der Rodl. plus the confusingly similar names of Linz, Lienz, Liezen.
There's the town of Wernigerode in the Harz mountains in Saxony-Anhalt, and it's a popular tourist spot. There's also the tiny village of Werningerode (notice the extra N) in northern Thuringia, which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. And ever since GPS reached the consumer market, the tiny village regularly has to deal with busses full of tourists arriving there, driven by bus drivers who can't spell properly.
There are also Places that have a suffix even though they don't really need one
Kempten (Allgäu) is one of those places, a town of 67,000 inhabitants in Bavarian Swabia
(and arguably the oldest Town in Germany)
the only other Kemptens are "Kempten am Rhein" (1,900 inh.), part of the much larger town of "Bingen am Rhein" (25,000 inh.) in Rhineland-Palatinate (guess where the suffix is from),
and Kempten ZH (no. of inh. unkown), a village in the parish of Wetzikon (24,000 inh.) in the Canton of Zürich (where it got the ZH) in Switzerland.
FunFact about Norddeich: There's the train station "Norddeich" and the halt "Norddeich Mole", which is also where the railway ends. And they are very close to each other. About 130m between the ends of the platforms, with just a small crossing in between. It's somewhat hilarious.
goo.gl/maps/Wuarmc3rAiJ2
And at least when I used to go through there, I seem to remember the train stopping at both!
I agree with your comments, once trying to get to the Panzer Museum in 'Munster', the sat nav took us on a trip to Münster, 278km away from the actual destination. I keyed in the umlaut version, so pilot error in reality.
For a school trip in the 90s, we (the kids) were waiting in Königstein im Taunus (near Frankfurt am Main), the bus driver was in Königstein in Saxony, 500 km away….
That was funny. You can use the postcode in the navi to find the right Neustadt or Niedernhausen or many other multiple townnames.
Allendorf is also quite confusing sometimes. In THE region around gießen alone there are three.
I would think that's very common everywhere, no? E.g. the equivalent of "Neustadt" in Germany would probably be "Newton" in the UK. (Wikipedia has entries for 38 places in the UK called "Newton".)
Here in Japan the confusion comes from the use of Kanji, or Chinese Characters. Two words or place names can be pronounced very similarly or exactly the same, even though they're written with different Kanji. If you see them written down they're obviously different, but if you only hear them spoken, or written in English, it's very possible to mix them up. This is mainly a problem for non-Japanese people living or visiting here, but I have seen Japanese people confuse words or places when they only heard them spoken in conversation.
There are also funny district names like Rostock - Groß Klein (Big Small) or Magdeburg Alte Neustadt (Old Newtown). Do you guys know more?
Thulyblu I stayed with a guy who lives in Groß Klein last summer for an exchange program. I made the same comment, and he explained to me that Klein actually used to mean village, so in modern German it means Big Small, but it is meant to mean Big Village
The city of "Stadtallendorf" comes to mind. Here in the big city, many people who hear this name, laugh about it, because it begins with "Stadt" (city or town) and ends with "dorf" (village). So they mock it by saying "was the village too obviously a village to be called a city, so they added the city part to its name" and so on ;)
Or maybe Dummerstorf (near Rostock) which might roughly translate to "Dumbers fillage" (can't even spell village right xD ;)
I really hate names that involve the word neu/new. It's ridiculous (and borderline confusing) 150 years later... I might give cities like New York or countries like New Zealand a pass here as they still are the newest of that name, but when your "new gallery" is the second oldest out of 10 there is something wrong.
There's a Klein-Gerau next to a Groß-Gerau where I live.
1:49 and the Swiss city of Freiburg, although that Freiburg goes usualy by it's french name Fribourg
3:58 Having been born in Mainz and raised in Bischofsheim, I always get a warm feeling reading Mainz in front of the name. "Rechts des Rheins ist auch noch Mainz" :D (Though admittedly running the state boarder along the Rhine looks much neater on a map.)
East Berlin, CT, USA next to Berlin, CT, USA and south east of New Britain :-)
Neustadt - Often an extension of an old town and first only a district of the old one. Then growing (or divided by "new" border) and then a town itself.
In the rhine main area you can travel from Bischofsheim to Bischofsheim (near Mainz and part of Maintal). And don't forget Rot(h)enburg (Wümme, Ob der Tauber, an der Fulda, Oberlausitz, Saale...) It's like Springfield in the US.
Back when I was a kid, the series of books used at our (German) school in our English courses featured a ficticious British family, who were hosting a German exchange student named Helga - who was from Neustadt, but sadly the book didn't go into detail which of the 20 towns she was from...
Like Neustadt, check the number of places called Newton in England (and Scotland & Wales)
My hometown couldn't be chosen as a location on Facebook because there was another town with the same name but located at a different river. Plus, there's a third town named the same but without any river.
There are 4 villages called Buchs in Switzerland and they are located in the cantons of Zürich, Aargau, St. Gallen and Lucerne.
LOL Now I'm really lost! Love your work Mr. Boss!!
Denmark has 3 towns all called Nykøbing (Newmarket/Neumarkt). Neither of them can claim any significant preeminence over the others, so they're all known by their suffix, namely the island they lie on, Falster, Mors, Sjælland. There are other more widespread placenames, especially "Lundby", but all of them save for one, are super tiny, and the largest isn't that big, it's biggest claim to fame is having a railway station and it's own postal code.
Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Wittenberge are also an example, if you don't know two of those exist relatively close to each other... A friend of mine once rode a train to the wrong destination ;-)
There is also Wittenburg.
Oldenburg in Oldenburg. Was there often for work - Well, the suffix being the region doesn't make it much better than being an abbreviation of itself ...
There are 3 towns in Switzerland called Affoltern: Affoltern ZH is located in the city of Zürich, Affoltern am Albis is also in the canton of Zürich but Affoltern im Emmental is in the canton of Bern.
I once drove to Kapellenstraße in Feldkirchen, I deliberately typed in both street and town name to be sure to not end up in another town with same name. The travel time seemed reasonable, I was there years before once. When I reached the destination, it was a residential area instead of an industrial what I was expecting - There really are two streets with the same name in same named towns only an hour apart!
On my first visit to Germany I was supposed to go to the town of Munster near Hannover (central Germany), but accidentally went to Münster just above the Ruhr-area. Not quite the same name, but close enough to confuse me.
There are also still a lot of Reichenbach and we also have a village and not only the town with the name Schwerin
In Serbia and its region there are a lot of towns with similar names:
Palanka - Turkish for military outpost
Kriva, Brza, Smederevka, Bačka.
Petrovac - Peter's town
Bački, na Mlavi (on river Mlava), na moru (by see)
Karlovac (Karl's town)
Sremski, Banatski, Hrvatski (in Cro
It's like looking for the river Avon in England... one of our Stratfords is on one of those Avons.
and Avon means river. So the River Avon is River River.
Ich empfehle Postleitzahlen.
Sollte helfen! *lach*
Genau mein gedanke!
Postleitzahlen nützen dir nix am Fahrkartenautomaten
Ich empfehle die Karte anzuschauen
I am from "Neunkirchen" - of which plenty much exist.
Mine is the one in Siegerland...
And Neunkirchen where I live is in Saarland
Just for added fun - for Frankfurt you forgot the huge (sarcasm alert) settlement of "Stadt Frankfurt" in Saxony Anhalt - it consists of like 6 houses, a car junkyard and recycler, a plantation and doesnt even carry a yellow sign on the road, but a green one.
@3:25 On the other hand, what is unmistakeably clear is the post code. Do navigation systems work with post codes?
yes, I'm pretty sure they do, at least my TomTom does it
In my weekly train rides, the train always holds at "Warburg (Höxter)", although there is no Warburg that is not near Höxter and at "Bad Driburg (Westfalen)" although there is no Bad Driburg that is not in Westfalen.
i guess they sometimes just mention the vague region you're in, when the specific location is too small/unimportant for anyone to recognize. :)
Come on, you can't expect the Deutsche Bahn to keep up to date with the change of German politics in the past 100 years! They're busy making sure not too many trains are on time!
There's a Bettmar about 20 km down the road of Bettmar.
And we also have a Halle in Belgium (and it looks like all of the Halles create some sort of straight line... kinda)
Look up all of the "Seedorf" locations!!!
It took me a trip into our family Bible, that one of my nieces ended up with, to find that it's the one in Holstein that we're from.
Now it's easy for me to remember. It's the one above Lubbock . . . er, Lubeck!
I just had the problem with "Glinde"... One is near Bremervörde in Lower Saxony, the other one in Schleswig-Holstein near Hamburg. My navigation system wanted me to bring to the latter but I wanted to the first one. ^^
The fact that Mainz lost part of its suburbs is due to the borders between Allied zones of occupation drawn in 1945, in this case between the French and American zones. While in most places the zonal borders were designed according to pre-existing German administrative boundaries, in a few places the Allies misrespected those and drew their borders according to what they thought was more practical, cutting through pre-existing municipalities or regional entities. In some cases this hasn't been rectified until today and still causes local discontent, such as between Mainz and Wiesbaden. In some other cases it has been corrected after 1990, such as at Amt Neuhaus (Soviet and British zone) and Berlin-Staaken (Soviet zone and British sector of Berlin).
Its worse in the US, I had my travel agency book a wrong flight ticket once (I should have been suspicious when i had to fly in a turbo prop and the taxi had no idea where my hotel was supposed to be ,) good thing was that delta provided me with a free connecting flight
3:44 could you make a video about the "AKK-Stadtteile" (Amöneburg, Kastel, Kostheim) which also used to belong to Mainz, but are now a part of Wiesbaden, but with the official Name "Wiesbaden Mainz-Amöneburg", etc. They are like both cities share them and the topic can be really entertaining (or confusing)
Here you go: ruclips.net/video/7IfAp82fH-8/видео.htmlm36s
Well ok this is a nice, small overview. But it gets deeper. E.G. the cities share the industry taxes collected there and for Public transport it all still belongs to Mainz.
I had the problem at my first visit to Scotland. I wanted to drive from Edinburgh to Newcastle and the navigations system (a very new thing at that time) showed about 8-10(?) Newcastles without any further info. I don't know if it didn't have enough space or was just lazy. There might have been postal codes, but I didn't know that either. I thought that might just be different parts of the Newcastle (upon Tyne) I wanted, but I recognized that the drive time was much too high, so I tried a different one. I don't know if I found the right one or just went by map.
And then there is the possibility of travelling around the world without ever crossing the German Border. America, Egypt, Africa, Brazil, Cuba, California, England, Greenland, Canada, Siberia, Norway, Austria and Turkey are places in Germany. Except for Cuba and England the names are spelled the German way.... Amerika, Ägypten, Afrika, Brasilien, Kalifornien, Kanada, Sibirien, Norwegen, Österreich und Türkei.
CologneCarter Brasilien und Kalifornien sind ca. 20 min von hier und England ist auch nicht so weit 😂
I mean, England is spelled the exact same way in German and English, so you could argue that all of these places but Cuba are spelled the German way.
Bei uns ist Texas oder der Wohnplatz Klein Amerika nicht weit😂
My hometown in a video... (Oldenburg - the bigger one of the two)
We have three villages called ,,Altenhagen" in our district.
- Hagenburg-Altenhagen
- Altenhagen (Auetal)
- Altenhagen II (Messenkamp)
And there is even a fourth one in the near of Altenhagen II: Altenhagen I because they were both in the former district Springe until its end in 1974. After that, the villages were assigned to different districts: I turned to Region Hannover and the other one was added to Schaumburg.
Another example are the villages ,,Rehren". Unofficially, they are distinguished by a suffix which describes the historical district courts they were part of, so they are named ,,Rehren AR (Amtsgericht Rodenberg)" and ,,Rehren AO (Amtsgericht Obernkirchen)".
It gets even better when you include smaller villages :)
There is a village in Schleswig-Holstein called Berlin.
And they have at least a street "Kurfürstendamm" and also "Unter den Linden"
Dresden Neustadt = part of Dresden at the other side of the Elbe.
Wiener Neustadt = not part of Wien at all, next larger city when you go south.
To make it more confusing: Dresden Neustadt was actually named Altendresden (old Dresden) before it was incorporated to "new" Dresden which is now known as the old town. Altendresden only changed its name to Neustadt when it burned down and was rebuilt in baroque manner, now as "königliche Neustadt" (royal new town).
Reminds me of the time we wanted to go on holidays in Wernigerode and, due to a little typo, landed on the wrong side of the Harz in Werningerode. Can you spot the difference? Exactly.
4:06 Mainz... ist ein schreckiches Loch :D
"And where are the horses?" Queen Elisabeth after 4 hours walking tour through Marbach am Neckar, where Schiller is born, getting told, that the horses are at the Haupt- und Landgestüt Marbach on the Swabian Alb 100 km away.
Andrew, i wonder why you didn't mention the many towns in Germany that are called "Neukirchen", with or without suffixes. There must be around fifty or so, because somewhen in the middle ages, when a landlord bribed the clergy to keep his underlings at bay, he built a new church and called the place "Newchurch".
But then again, where was Shakespeare allegedly born? And the French have even longer place names, I once was in a village that's called Saint Arnoult en Yvelines,
And, yes, Anus does exist:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anus,_Yonne
There are about 10 towns and parishes in Germany called "Neukirchen": there are also 37 towns and parishes with a locality called "Neukirchen". I went for Neustadt because it's a place name you're more likely to see on road signs.
Neukirchen almost qualifies for its own video, though. As well as "Neukirchen", there are some variations like "Neukirch" and "Neunkirchen" (which really does mean "new church" and not, as you might think, "nine churches").
The village where I live is called Sande. Sande in Friesland, so on the North Sea coast. But there are also Sande in Norway, in Denmark, as a district of the city of Paderborn and other cities ... on the DB website you also had to watch out like crazy until last year, but that is now apparently corrected. Since no one knows the place, I always say to people from outside that I live in the direction of Oldenburg ... Oldenburg in Oldenburg and yes Fehmarn is nice and all, but I do not live in Oldenburg in Holstein and yes, that is a total different direction. Had this debate more than once, surprisingly.
i would bet there are even more Neuenkirchen then Neustaadt. :D
juist means correct in dutch, seems like the busdriver wasnt.
Why didn't they use the train? There are many many Intercity trains to Norddeich Mole, the Norddeich they wanted to go to
Because getting a group of about 40 or 50 people with all their luggage onto trains, with several transfers, is difficult and expensive. Also, there are no trains on Juist, so they'd all have to walk from the harbour.
I'm from the same Landkreis as Freiburg/Elbe, whenever I meet someone from Freiburg (and they of course only say Freiburg) I ask them if they are from my area lmao
That exact same mistake was made by some patrons that stayed at the hotel in Norden that we were staying in. The innkeeper told us that they punched it in the gps system and landed... well, in the "wrong" Norddeich. :D (Postleitzahlen helfen!)
Neustadt an der Aisch...I used to live in Hoechstadt on der Aisch
On the small Topic of places with "Mainz" as part of their name, without actually being part of Mainz. Mainz-Kastell, is part of Wiesbaden, the Capital of Hessen on the other side of the Rhine
Living as I did near a town called Alton in the south of the UK there were a number of occasions when I was there bearer of the ill news that alton towers theme park was several hours away in the midlands 🤦🏻
Not Germany, but I was once on a coach which took us to Schwarzach im Pongau when we were expected in Schwarzach, Vorarlberg. Distance: ~400 km. Obviously, the error was not correctable in a reasonable amount of time, so we spent a pleasant afternoon hiking the Liechtenstein Gorge instead of the planned cultural program. (And more confusingly, Lichtenstein Gorge, near Schwarzarch im Pongau, is nowhere near the country of Lichtenstein, which is just a short distance from Schwarzach, Vorarlberg.)
Oh, and there's also another Freiburg in Switzerland. Luckily, it speaks french, so the residents call it Fribourg.
Greetings from the Neustadt in Bremen! 😜
Thank you! I always wondered, why it is called Oldenburg in Oldenburg. I didn't know that there was a second town called Oldenburg in Schleswig - Holstein, but now I know the answer to my question. :-) By the way: Oldenburg is also the Landkreis. So Oldenburg in Oldenburg also means that it's the town of Oldenburg in the Landkreis of Oldenburg.
No. Oldenburg is not part of the Landkreis and never was. It's called so, because it was the capital of the state of the same name until 1946, when it was merged with Hannover, Braunschweig and Schaumburg-Lippe to the new state of Lower Saxony.
@@Nikioko And to make it even more confusing: Until 1918 Oldenburg (OIdb) was called Oldenburg im Großherzogtum (or just Oldenburg i.G. or Oldenburg (Ghzgt.) ). Funny enough, Oldenburg in Holstein was located next to the Fürstentum Lübeck (Principality of Lubeck) which was part of the Großherzogtum Oldenburg (Grand Duchy of Oldenburg). So if you lived in the Principality of Lubeck, Oldenburg i.G. was the capital of your country but 300km away, Oldenburg in Holstein was part of a different country just nearby. The Principality of Lubeck again had nothing to do with the Hanseatic City of Lubeck but consisted of cities like Eutin or Schwartau.
Norddeich Mole heißt die Haltestelle bei der DB, wenn man mit dem Schiff auf die Inseln möchte.
Just recently I noticed that there actually are two villages by the same name in my area, both just a few kilometres from where I live (and from each other). I knew the name, but I wasn't aware there were two of them.
Just the other day documentary about Freiburg (im Breisgau) featured an aerial shot of Friburg in Switzerland 🤣
es gibt noch ein Oldenburg in der Gemeinde Züssow (Mecklemburg-Vorpommern) die haben aber nicht mal 50 Einwohner. Mit diesem Fakt kann man aber noch so manchen Stadt-Oldenburger trotzdem noch sehr gut zum staunen bringen.
Sulzbach
Malte Modler Landkreis Harburg hat auch noch so ein winz Oldenburg.
I live in Blankenburg. Not that Blankenburg in Harz but Berlin Blankenburg :D
We're not immune in the UK - I had a driver who had to deliver some furniture from Manchester to Bradford in Yorlshire about 30 miles away and a very well known city - he ended up in Bradford on Avon, over 200 miles away !!!! This was before mobile phones so we had no way of contacting him when the customer rang to ask where their delivery was it's called Stupidity in English !
And don‘t forget the famous „Altstadt“ you can find almost everywhere all over Germany. 😉 BTW, there is also Brazil and California in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (I‘m too lazy to look up the English pronunciation 😉)
Many years ago, way before mobile phones, I worked for a trucking company in a town east of Cologne. A driver was supposed to take a load to Mönchengladbach. The boss did not hear from him for hours, when finally he got a phone call: "I'm in München but can't find Gladbach." True story. Another true story in relation to all the Neustadts: After WWII you needed a pass to travel with trucks. One of the zoos tried to get up and running again, and to get supplies and to rescue some animals from other zoos, they needed to travel. A lot. With a truck. So they asked the American authorities for a long-term permit to travel to Neustadt.
Also never confuse Neukölln with a new suburb of Köln
Bare zip codes may lead wrong, too: There's three streets "Eichenstraße" in 90587 (in different villages), making it difficult for those who rely on it with their satnav.
British postcodes are better - they lead to a designated location or to a very narrow area even when the street isn't in the satnav's list.
Dutch post codes lead exclusively to one street and only to the even or odd houses at that. Four numbers, two letters, perfectly understandable.
It gets interesting with long streets that go through multiple postal codes.
Freiburg im Breisgau lies not in nor is a part of the Black Forest. It lies between the Black Forest and the Rhine.
In the USA, generally, the post office only allowed one town names (x) per state- towns were forced to change their names. Lawndale (northern CA) forced to select new name, now Colma.
Mind you there are 2 Brentwoods in California but one is an LA neighborhood
Sometimes the names were there a couple centuries before any postal service. And in many cases they were in different countries at the time.
Whoa... you're not wearing a sweater. Also, my brother went to Neusdadt in the Rhineland... and yeah there are so many.
one little detail/mistak to Freiburg (im Breisgau) there is another Freiburg (im Üechtland) in switzerland and both cities was founded by the same knights so the name is to differ this two cities in the first place.
Is there also not a Freiburg am Neckar?
No. That´s actually FreiBERG. :)
I am quite sure that Freiburg got the addition "im Breisgau" to distinguish it from the much closer Freiburg im Üechtland in Switzerland. And Freiburg im Breisgau is not *in* but on the edge of the Black Forest. /nitpicking off
I didn't want to have to try to pronounce "Üechteland"...
Yeah, no fair. You have mastered standard German, now they want you to learn obscure dialects...Our umlaut-diphtongs are something that throws most Germans for a loop...Which make s us snigger at Std. German "Müsli" loaned from Swiss German, but really meaning "Mäuschen"...The two Freiburgs are actually sister cities, both being founded by the Zähringer.
3:05 you forgot FFM ;)