Germany

Germany
Country Notebook. International Marketing

10/21/2012
Kimm Harris
Ignacio Gonzalez

The unification of Germany was a patriotic process took place in the second half of the nineteenth century, which culminated in the creation of the German Empire on January 18, 1871. Germany is a key member of the continents economic, political, and defense organizations and one of the mostimportant countries in Europe with a constantly development. European power struggles immersed Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the Cold War, Germany was divided in two different states in 1949: the western Federal Republic ofGermany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern productivity and wages up to Western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, called the euro.
Germany islocated in central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark. The capital is Berlin. Also It’s the major city of population: 3.438 million. The total area is 357,021 km2.
Germany comprises sixteen states that are collectively referred to as Länder. Each state has its own state constitution and is largely autonomous in regard to itsinternal organization
Topography German is divided in 3 sectors, the North German Lowlands including the North Sea coast, the Wadden Sea, the Frisian Islands and the Baltic Sea coast is practically flat; there are mountainous in the central German Uplands with their extensive forests, rifts and valleys; and finally the Southern Germany that’s very beautiful specifically the Alpine Foreland, it’scomposed with rolling green hills and stunning glacial lakes; the German Alps in Bavaria with their peaks well above 2000 meters.
Germany has a temperate climate with mild winters and cool summers. During the summer it is not really warm. It is generally without sustained periods of cold or heat. During winter months, the temperature occasionally drops below freezing and the days are shorter, only6-8 hours of daylight, while the summer months can be sunny.
We can see a big difference between two periods of time related to the families. The marriage in Germany between 1950 and 1997 was changing abruptly because there were fewer and fewer marriages both in total numbers and per capita. In 1950, there were a total of 750,000 marriages; at the other hand in 1997, there were 423,000 marriages.Also it is estimated that 35 percent of all marriages ended in divorce in the late twentieth century. In light of these facts, there has been much media speculation on the "crisis of the family," as has been the case in other industrial societies of Western Europe and North America as well.
In the new federal states of former East Germany, there are fewer marriages and fewer children; but adisproportionately high number of children are born to unmarried couples.
The responsibility for the German education system lies primarily with the states (as I said before called Länder) while the federal government plays only a minor role.
About primary school there are public schools. Germans don’t have to pay tuition fees. The majority of pupils attend state schools in their neighborhoods.Schools in affluent areas tend to be better than those in deprived areas. If the city is economically good it is most likely that they have primaries school with a better level of education. German secondary education includes five types of school. The Gymnasium is designed to prepare pupils for university education and finishes with the final examination Abitur, after grade 12 or 13. The...