German states and capitals: all 16, with memory tips

The 16 states and their capitals

If you live in Germany, learn the German names too. They’re the ones you’ll see on signs, forms and the news.

Map first, names second

Start with a map of Germany that shows the state borders. Find a few distinctive places to help you get your bearings:

• At the very top, between the North Sea and the Baltic: Schleswig-Holstein.
• In the south: Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Bavaria is the largest state by area.
• In the east: Berlin, surrounded on all sides by Brandenburg.
• Bremen is the smallest state by area. It consists of two separate cities, Bremen and Bremerhaven, surrounded by Lower Saxony.

Next, find the neighbouring states. Cover the labels and check which ones you can recognise by their position.

Small portions: one region a day

Split the states into four groups for practice. Try one group a day, or stay with a group longer if you need more time:

1. North: Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
2. West: North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland
3. East: Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia
4. South: Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg

Review the groups you’ve already studied before adding a new one. Cover the capitals in the table and try to name them, then find the states on the map. Return sooner to answers you miss and leave longer gaps for those you remember well. A review of classroom studies found benefits from spreading practice out rather than doing it all at once (Mawson & Kang, Behavioral Sciences, 2025).

Memory tips that actually help

Three city-states. Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen each have a capital with the same name as the state. Bremen has one extra detail to remember: the state also includes Bremerhaven.

The capital isn’t always the biggest city. These pairs are easy to mix up:

• Hesse: not Frankfurt, but Wiesbaden.
• North Rhine-Westphalia: not Cologne, but Düsseldorf.
• Saxony: not Leipzig, but Dresden.
• Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: not Rostock, but Schwerin.

Small hooks:

• Schleswig-Holstein – Kiel: Think of the coast and a ship’s keel (“Kiel” in German).
• Mainz sits where the river Main flows into the Rhine.
• Saarbrücken: the Saarland is already in the name.
• Brandenburg – Potsdam: Brandenburg surrounds Berlin; its capital Potsdam is right next door.
• Wiesbaden: baden means “to bathe”, and Wiesbaden is an old spa town.

The Saxony family. Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony are three different states. Lower Saxony is in the north-west and doesn’t even border Saxony. Point to all three on the map once, on purpose.

Point and say it out loud

Point at a state and try to name it and its capital without looking: “Hesse, Wiesbaden.” Saying answers aloud can help memory; the cited study compared spoken and silently read words within one list (MacLeod et al., 2010). With a partner, take turns pointing and answering, then check the answer together.

Practising with Minki

The Minki library has a free deck for this: Deutschland - Bundesländer. Each card highlights one state on a map of Germany, with the neighbouring states for orientation. You guess which one it is, then reveal its German name and capital. A small dot shows where the capital is, and Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen get a zoomed-in view. Since the answers are in German, it doubles as practice for the names you’ll actually see around you.

Minki keeps track of which states you already know and shows the shaky ones more often. It runs in the browser, with no account, and works offline once the deck is downloaded.

Once you know the German states, try the European countries deck, with 51 countries and their capitals. The answers show the German names of the countries and their capitals.

Start with one region. When you can find its states on the map and name their capitals, add the next.