Munich ( , listen; ) is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. Munich is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg. There are approximately 1.35 million inhabitants within Munich.

The city's motto is "lang: München Mag Dich" ("Munich Likes You"), before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" (Worldcity with Heart). Its native name, lang: München, is derived from the Old German word for Mönche, which means "Monks" in English. This is the reason for the monk on the city's coat of arms. Black and gold - the colours of the Holy Roman Empire - have been the city's official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian.

Munich is not the only location within Bavaria known as "München". Three such locations exist: the one which is known as "Munich"; another which is northeast of the city of Nuremberg, and also Hutthurm, a town north of the city of Passau.

Geography

Munich lies on the elevated plains of Upper Bavaria, about 50 km north of the northern edge of the Alps, at an altitude of about 520 m ASL. The local rivers are the Isar and the Würm. Munich is situated in the Northern Alpine Foreland. The northern part of this sandy plateau includes a highly fertile flint area which is no longer affected by the folding processes found in the Alps, while the southern part is covered by morainic hills. In between there are fields of fluvio-glacial out-wash, like around Munich. Wherever these deposits get thinner, the ground water can permeate the gravel surface and flood the area, leading to marshes as in the north of Munich.

Climate

Munich has a continental climate, strongly modified by the proximity of the Alps. The city's altitude and proximity to the northern edge of the Alps mean that precipitation is rather high. Rain storms often come violently and unexpectedly. The range of temperature between day and night or summer and winter can be extreme. A warm downwind from the Alps (a föhn wind) can change the temperatures completely within a few hours, even in the winter.

Winters last from December to March. Munich experiences rather cold winters, but heavy rainfall is rarely seen in the winter. The coldest month is January with an average temperature of . Snow cover is seen for at least a couple of weeks during winter. Summers in Munich city are fairly warm with average temperature of in the hottest month of July. The summers last from May until September.

Demographics

main: Population Growth of Munich

In July 2007, Munich had 1.34 million inhabitants, 300,129 of those did not hold German citizenship. The city has strong Turkish and Balkan communities. The largest groups of foreign nationals were Turks (43,309), Albanians (30,385), Croats (24,866), Serbs (24,439), Greeks (22,486), Austrians (21,411), and Italians (20,847). 37% of foreign nationals come from the European Union.