page_title: Hesse
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Hesse / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Topographische Karte von Hessen
context_page_description: Hesse or Hessia, officially the State of Hesse, is a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest metropolitan area is Frankfurt am Main.
  With an area of 21,000 square kilometers and a population of just over six million it ranks seventh and fifth respectively among the sixteen German states.
  As a cultural region, Hesse also includes the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
context_section_description: Situated in west-central Germany, The state of Hesse borders the German states of (starting in the north and proceeding clockwise) Lower Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and North Rhine-Westphalia.
  Most of the population of Hesse lives in the southern part, in the Rhine Main Area. The principal cities of the area include Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Hanau, Gießen, Wetzlar, and Limburg. Other major towns in Hesse are Fulda in the east, and Kassel and Marburg an der Lahn in the north. The densely populated Rhine-Main region is much better developed than the rural areas in the middle and northern parts of Hesse.
  The most important rivers in Hesse are the Fulda and Eder Rivers in the north, the Lahn in the central part of Hesse, and the Main and Rhine in the south. The countryside is hilly and the numerous mountain ranges include the Rhön, the Westerwald, the Taunus, the Vogelsberg, the Knüll and the Spessart.
  The Rhine borders Hesse on the southwest without running through the state, only one oxbow lake —– the so-called Alt-Rhein —– runs through Hesse. The mountain range between the Main and the Neckar Rivers is called the Odenwald. The plain between the rivers Main, Rhine, and Neckar, and the Odenwald Mountains is called the Ried.
  Hesse is the greenest state in Germany, as forest covers 42% of the state.
caption: The most important rivers, mountains, and cities of Hesse
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