The Saarland is a small federal state of Germany, located in the west of the country and forming part of the German border with France and Luxembourg. Its name is very literal - the state is formed by the territory of the Saar river basin, although not all of it, as the river starts in France and flows into the larger Moselle river in Rhineland-Palatinate.

North Rhine-Westphalia (German Nordrhein-Westfalen) is the most populous state in Germany, with 17.5 million inhabitants, located in the west of the country. It consists of two historically independent parts - Nordrhein, the urbanized area across the river Rhine in the southwest, and Westfalen in the northeast, which is quite diverse as it includes both the heavy industrialized and densely populated Ruhr Valley and the very green Teutoburg Forest.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) is a Land (state) in Germany, located in the northeastern corner of the country between Brandenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and the Baltic Sea, and the neighboring country of Poland. The name is sometimes abbreviated in German to Meck-Pomm (think Mc-Pom), though locals of the state are unlikely to use the name, but you will be understood.

The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg) is Germany's second-largest city and, at the same time, one of Germany's 16 federal states or Bundesländer. Prior to the formation of the modern German state, Hamburg for centuries enjoyed a status as de facto independent city state and regional power and trade hub in the North Sea.