Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or known by its anglicized name: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (Low German: Mäkelborg-Vörpommern) is one of the 16 States of Germany. The capital is Schwerin.

As of 2016, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had about 1,612,000 people.

It made part of former East Germany.

It is the most northeastern state of Germany. It borders the Baltic Sea in the north, Poland in the east, Brandenburg in the south, Lower Saxony in the southwest and Schleswig-Holstein in the west.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is low-lying and has many rivers, canals and lakes. The Stettin Lagoon lies partly in this state and partly in Poland.

The state hosts the biggest German island called Rügen, and the second biggest German lake called Müritz.

 Politics 
Seats in the state parliament (Landtag) since 2016:
 SPD: 26
 AfD: 18
 CDU: 16
 Linke: 11

Total: 71 seats

 Cities 
The largest cities/towns in the state are:
 Rostock
 Greifswald
 Stralsund
 Schwerin
 Neubrandenburg
 Güstrow

Besides Rostock all have a population of less than 200,000. Schwerin, the state capital, is the smallest state capital in Germany. Usually Schwerin would not be called a city. In Germany a city has over 100,000 people.

 Districts 

 Former districts 
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was going to change the borders of all of its urban districts (towns) and rural districts (kreise or "counties").  The state supreme court stopped the changes.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was divided into twelve rural districts (Landkreise):

 Bad Doberan
 Demmin
 Güstrow
 Ludwigslust
 Mecklenburg-Strelitz
 Müritz<li> Nordvorpommern
<li> Nordwestmecklenburg
<li> Ostvorpommern
<li> Parchim
<li> Rügen
<li> Uecker-Randow

Also there were six independent urban districts:

 Greifswald (HGW)
 Neubrandenburg (NB)
 Rostock (HRO)
 Schwerin (SN)
 Stralsund (HST)
 Wismar (HWI)

 Current districts 
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has been divided into six rural districts (Landkreise) and two independent urban districts (kreisfreie Städte) since 4 September 2011:

Rural districts:
 Ludwigslust-Parchim
 Mecklenburgische Seenplatte
 Nordwestmecklenburg
 Rostock
 Vorpommern-Greifswald
 Vorpommern-Rügen

Urban districts:
 Rostock 
 Schwerin

References