Germans facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Germans
*Deutsche*
Total population
	c. 100–150 worldwide
Regions with significant populations
Germany	62,482,000
United States	46,047,114 (descent)
Brazil	12,000,000 (descent)
Argentina	3,541,600 (descent)
Canada	3,322,405 (descent)
Chile	500,000 (descent)
France	437,000
Russia	394,138
Netherlands	368,512
Italy	310,900
Austria	204,000
Kazakhstan	181,958
Hungary	178,837
Poland	148,000
Spain	167.771
Sweden	50,863
Mexico	15,000–40,000
Uruguay	40,000
Romania	36,000
Ukraine	33,302
Norway	27,593
Dominican Republic	25,000
Czech Republic	21,216
Portugal	10,030 (2016)
Languages
	German
Religion
	Historically:; 2/3rds Protestant; 1/3rd Roman Catholic; Nowadays:; 1/3rd Protestant; 1/3rd Roman Catholic; 1/3rd Irreligious
Related ethnic groups
	other Germanic peoples

Germans (German: Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the shared mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans.

The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, German society has been characterized by a Catholic-Protestant divide.

Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil (mainly in the South Region of the country), Argentina, Canada, South Africa, the post-Soviet states (mainly in Russia and Kazakhstan), and France, each accounting for at least 1 million. Thus, the total number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.).

Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities which were earlier part of the Holy Roman Empire, (such as Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and other historically-tied countries like Luxembourg), most often subscribe to their own national identities and may or may not also self-identify as ethnically German.

Images for kids

Roman limes and modern boundaries.
Germanic Kingdoms in Europe c. 500 AD
Extent of Holy Roman Empire in 972 (red line) and 1035 (red dots) with Kingdom of Germany marked in blue
18 January 1871: The proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles. Bismarck appears in white. The Grand Duke of Baden stands beside Wilhelm, leading the cheers. Crown Prince Friedrich, later Friedrich III, stands on his father's right.
The German Empire of 1871–1918. By excluding the German-speaking part of the multinational Austrian Empire, this geographic construction represented the Kleindeutsche Lösung ("Lesser German solution")
Nearly 100 million people around the world were of German ancestry in 1930
The current Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel
Johann Gottfried Herder
German diaspora
Walk of Ideas, Berlin, a sculpture honoring Johannes Gutenberg and some of Germany's most influential writers
German philosopher Immanuel Kant
Alexander von Humboldt
Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Diane Krüger, 2008
Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria
Portrait of Martin Luther
The Allianz Arena, one of the world's most modern football stadiums.
Germania, March 1848, exhibited in the St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt am Main
Heim ins Reich
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 led to the reunification of East and West Germany.
Helmut Kohl played a principal role in the German reunification.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era.
Gerhart Hauptmann, a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.
Thomas Mann, a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate.
Günter Grass was a recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Herta Müller was born into a German minority in Romania. She is the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature for her novel Atemschaukel.
A statue of Albertus Magnus, a medieval German philosopher, now declared a Catholic saint.
Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher best known for his book, The World as Will and Representation. He has influenced many other thinkers through his work.
Karl Marx's ideas played a significant role in the establishment of the social sciences and the development of the socialist movement. He published numerous books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Communist Manifesto and Capital. He is also considered one of the greatest economists of all time.
Friedrich Engels was a social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. He is the co-author of The Communist Manifesto.
Max Weber was a sociologist, philosopher, and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as one of the three founding architects of sociology.
A statue commemorating Johannes Gutenberg for his invention of the first movable type; printing press.
The magnificent panorama of the metal interlinking in the bowels of the world's first computer created by Konrad Zuse.
The Geiger counter, invented by Hans Geiger, is a type of particle detector that measures ionizing radiation.
A print of one of the first X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923) of the left hand of his wife Anna Bertha Ludwig. It was presented to Professor Ludwig Zehnder of the Physik Institut, University of Freiburg, on 1 January 1896.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was a physicist, engineer, and glass blower who is best known for inventing the mercury thermometer (1714), and for developing a temperature scale now named after him.
Richard Strauss is considered a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras.
Richard Wagner greatly influenced the development of classical music; his Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.
Scorpions, a rock band formed in 1965, now viewed as one of the best-selling acts in music history.
Nena, a singer and actress, who brought Neue Deutsche Welle to international attention with her song 99 Luftballons.
Modern Talking, a synthpop duo consisting of Thomas Anders and Dieter Bohlen, became one of the most successful German acts in the 1980s.
A sign advertising the Berlin International Film Festival
Leni Riefenstahl was widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker
A poster for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari directed by Robert Wiene
Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus, the former Reichsluftfahrtministerium (now a Federal Ministry of Finance building)
The market place at Dornstetten
Cologne Cathedral
Frauenkirche, Dresden
Bauhaus
The Meister Eckhart portal of the Erfurt Church
Pope Benedict XVI and clergy of the Catholic Church at mass in Freiburg, Germany
Philip Melanchthon
Religion in the Holy Roman Empire on the eve of the Thirty Years' War
Predominant religious group according to 2011 nationwide census. Catholics are dominant in the south and west, the Non-religious (incl. other religions and not specified) dominate in the east and the large cities, Protestants dominate in north, east, and central parts of Germany
Berlin Marathon
Olympiastadion Berlin
Michael Schumacher has claimed 91 race victories and 7 championships in his F1 career.
German national football team in 2011
Dirk Nowitzki (in green), Dallas Mavericks power forward, 2011 NBA Champion and Finals MVP
German females in the German tracht national costumes of the time of Biedermeier
A map of Holy Roman Empire in 1400, reflecting the German society's regional diversity
Boundary sign of Bautzen / Budyšin in German and Upper Sorbian language
Rutenfest in Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, celebrating the folklore story of "The Seven Swabians" by the Brothers Grimm
Actors from Germany in film "Als der Tod ins Leben wuchs" of Sebastian Ed Erhenberg as Volga Germans