Average Age: Hamburg Germany's Youngest State – Saxony-Anhalt the Oldest

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Average Age: Hamburg Germany's Youngest State – Saxony-Anhalt the Oldest.

If you live in Hamburg, you're on average significantly younger than someone from Saxony-Anhalt. The city-states Hamburg, Berlin, and Bremen form the youngest federal states according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) – at the other end of the scale are the eastern German territorial states. Just how large the age gap between regions has now become is shown by the latest average-age figures.

For many, the result will sound hardly surprising: young people have been flocking to the major cities for years, while structurally weak regions struggle with outmigration and aging populations. What the new figures make tangible, however, is the scale – and the fact that the gap between city and countryside continues to widen.

Where does Germany's youngest population live?

Hamburg secures first place in the state ranking: here, the population is the youngest in a national comparison. Berlin and Bremen follow – two more city-states where comparatively young people live. That is due on one hand to in-migration, and on the other to the age structure of students and career starters who flock to these cities.

Where is the population on average the oldest?

The counterpart is found in eastern Germany: in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Thuringia, the population is the oldest. Saxony-Anhalt marks the top of that ranking. The three states share a similar trajectory: after reunification, many regions lost young people to outmigration, the number of children fell, and the number of older residents grew.

The picture looks different for other eastern German territorial states, as the comparison with the West shows: even within the East, the age structure varies widely by region – but the ranking of the three oldest states is clear.

How has the average age in Germany developed?

Across all federal states, the average age in Germany has been rising for years. Larger birth cohorts are moving into older age groups, while the number of children per woman in most regions remains below replacement level. Demographic change is no longer a forecast – it has long been visible in the statistics.

But the regional differences persist – and they are growing: where many young people arrive, the average age drops; where they don't, it rises. Precisely this dynamic explains why Hamburg and Saxony-Anhalt currently lie so far apart.