Bremen is the centre of the Northwest Metropolitan Region, which also includes the cities of Oldenburg and Bremerhaven, and has a population of around 2.8 million people.

[4] The city is home to many multinationals and manufacturing companies headquartered in Bremen include Hachez chocolate and Vector Foiltec.

To enlarge and confirm its independence, the city had, until the Reformation, to contend with the temporal power of the Church, and after the Thirty Years' War with Sweden, the masters of the surrounding Duchy of Bremen-Verden.

George 1 Louis, the Elector of Hannover (and from 1714, King of Great Britain and Ireland) who in 1715 acquired Bremen-Verden, recognized Bremen as a free city in 1720.

With its new sea anchorage and wharves at Bremerhaven, it was the principal port of embarkation for German and central European emigrants to the Americas, and an entrepôt for Germany's late developing colonial trade.

In the twentieth century, Bremen, a broadly liberal and social-democratic city, lost its autonomy under the Hitler regime.

The inner city lies on a Weser dune, which reaches a natural height of 10.5 metres (34 feet, 6 inches) above sea level at Bremen Cathedral; its highest point, though, is 14.4 metres (47 feet, 3 inches) above sea level and lies to the east at the Polizeihaus, Am Wall 196.

The highest natural feature in the city of Bremen is 32.5 metres (107 feet) above sea level and lies in Friedehorst Park in the northwestern borough of Burglesum.

[11] Being at some distance from the main North Sea, Bremen still has a somewhat wider temperature range than Bremerhaven that is located on the mouth of Weser.

[14] Nevertheless, especially the winters remain extremely gloomy by international standards with December averaging hardly more than one hour of sunshine (out of 7 astronomically possible) per day, a feature that Bremen shares with most of Germany and its neighbouring countries, though.

Typical of its maritime location, autumn tends to remain mild well into October, while spring arrives later than in the southwestern parts of the country.

A new wave immigration occurred after the turn of new century, following the entry of Poland, Bulgaria and other former East Bloc countries into the European Union, and after 2015 with the settlement of refugees from Syria and other war-torn regions.

[21] Number of minorities in Bremen by nationality as of 31 December 2022:[22] The recent influx has somewhat moderated the tendency toward an accelerated ageing of the population.

[23] The Stadtbürgerschaft (municipal assembly) is currently made up of 72 of the 87 legislators of the state legislature, the Bremische Bürgerschaft who reside in the city of Bremen.

However, in the 1980s mechanization of the port and closure of the city's leading shipbuilder induced an employment crisis and shook the confidence of the party's traditional voter base.

[35] According to data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, Bremen had a GDP per capita of $53,379 in 2013, higher than the average for Germany as a whole.

The pre-final assembly of the fuselage section (excluding the cockpit) of the A400M military transport aircraft takes place before delivery on to Spain.

As part of the Centre of Excellence – Wing/Pylon, Bremen is responsible for the design and manufacture of high-lift systems for the wings of Airbus aircraft.

The entire process chain for the high-lift elements is established here, including the project office, technology engineering, flight physics, system engineering, structure development, verification tests, structural assembly, wing equipping and ultimate delivery to the final assembly line.

Bremen is not the place where the largest wine cellar in the world is located although it was once said to hold over 1 million bottles, but during WWII was raided by occupying forces.

[41] This network unified existing regional transport in Bremen as well as surrounding cities, including Bremerhaven, Delmenhorst, Twistringen, Nordenham, Oldenburg, and Verden an der Aller.

[45] The Bremerhaven-based Alfred-Wegener-Institute of the Helmholtz Association closely cooperates with the aforementioned institutes, especially within the MARUM[46] a center for marine environmental sciences, affiliated to the University of Bremen.

Furthermore, The Fraunhofer Society is present in Bremen with centers for applied material research (IFAM[47]) and medical image computing (MEVIS[48]).