Germany

All car coverage in Germany is made with a Generation 4 camera.

NOTE: There are some Generation 2 and 3 trekkers, and spill coverage with older dates

Germany uses these black and white bollards, with white and light-grey reflectors. The reflector will be orange on bollards next to intersections. They sometimes have plates containing the road number, and potentially other useful information. Many bollards also feature blue attachments on the side.

NOTE: Many European countries have similar bollards, however most will have different coloured reflectors. Luxembourg uses almost identical bollards, but they have 3 bolts instead of 2 on the reflector.

The official language of Germany is German. The German language uses the special letters Ä, Ö, Ü and ß.

NOTE: The other majority German-speaking countries with coverage are Switzerland and Austria. In addition, German is spoken in East Belgium and the Italian province of South Tyrol.

Most wooden poles in Germany will feature a rectangular white sticker.

Germany has a wide variety of different poles and pole tops. The most common pole tops being the horizontal bar with uneven hanging insulators, Triangle pole top, and all kinds of T-Shaped pole tops, which can have varying insulator setups.

Germany also has a wide variety of sign backs. Notably, you can commonly find black or dark grey sign backs, which are rather rare in Europe. Most signs will also feature this sticker, with an upside-down red triangle on a black rectangle.

NOTE: Italy, Romania and Albania also have black sign backs, however landscape should be sufficient to tell them apart.

Like Austria, Germany uses a wide variety of regional bus stops, all of which have the big yellow and green H symbol on them.

Mailboxes in Germany are bright yellow, and feature this black logo.

You will find an excessive amount of bollards on most roads in Germany. Around every 50 metres to be exact.

German town entry signs are yellow with black text and have a metallic frame.

NOTE: These signs can include a lot of useful information too:

• The town and or city name on the top.

• The Municipality in the middle.

• And the county on the bottom.

Germany uses these blue rectangular kilometre markers with slightly rounded edges and a white border.

NOTE: In some rarer cases, they can be white too.

German pedestrian signs have five stripes and the person has a belt.

NOTE: The same design is used in Luxembourg.

These one-way traffic signs, with the word ‘Einbahnstraße’ written on them, are unique to Germany.

NOTE: In Austria, there will be “EINBAHN” written on the sign.

“No Stopping” and “No Waiting” signs in Germany will often have white arrows drawn on them.

Wind turbines are far more common throughout Germany than in any other European country.

Using the surrounding elevation can be crucial to getting good guesses in Germany. Here are some general rules:

• The north and especially northwest is very flat.

• Central Germany is hilly.

• Very southern Germany has big mountains.

Also note that despite having a higher elevation, many parts of southern Germany can still be flat.

Here is a map of German area codes, which you can practise by playing this map.

And here is a map of German postal codes.

Each German state has their own flag design. Many of them are rare to find, though.

Each German state also has their own coat of arms.

These are some of the more useful and common suffixes you can use to regionguess Germany.

While most of Germany uses B-Type guardrails, some regions predominantly use A-Type instead. Learning which regions use them can be useful.

NOTE: There will always be rare exceptions. For a good overview of European guardrails, see this infographic.

Different regions of Germany use a slightly different cycling sign design.

You can use the sign backs of street signs to regionguess Germany.

Here are examples of a folded, and flat sign back.

You can also use the sign back connectors on street signs to regionguess Germany.

NOTE: The double connector on triangular signs are generally wider. T-shaped connectors may look like this.

The German Alps is the most mountainous region in Germany, it is mostly concentrated on the Austrian Border.

Baltic Pines or Pinus sylvestris are generally more concentrated in the northeast of Germany. They can be recognized by their orange-tinged trunk.

NOTE: This map is very approximate.

You can spot trees that are painted white close to the bottom of the trunk in the northeast.

NOTE: You will rarely find them outside the shaded region.

The flat plains southeast of Regensburg can be recognised by the slight ridge often visible to the northeast. The plains themselves are flat, and quite agricultural.

Vineyards are mostly concentrated in the southwest of Germany. However, there are a couple regions further east as well.

You can find hop fields in these regions. They are commonly seen just north of Munich.

These brick houses are generally concentrated in northwestern Germany. 

NOTE: This map is very approximate.

Thatched roofs and rock walls are most common on the North Frisian Islands, as well as mainland Schleswig-Holstein. You can also commonly find them in coastal resort towns in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Houses with black slate walls, resembling fish scales, are commonly found in a large area of central Germany.

These large, utilitarian apartment buildings constructed during the socialist era, that are also known as “Commie blocks” are common in all of former East Germany.

Bollards with darker reflectors than usual are found in these regions.

Some bollards in North Rhine-Westphalia have a green bit at the top. The top can also be another colour.

Some of the green caps will have the text ‘LVR’, along with a small coat of arms. These specific green caps are unique to southern North Rhine-Westphalia.

These round wooden bollards, which have a painted top, are found in Bavaria.

These irregular looking bollards, which do not have a white encasing on the bottom half, are found on K-roads in this region of Lower Saxony. K-Roads in this region will not have any other type of bollard.

These simple orange posts are most commonly found in Bavaria, and also in the other highlighted states.

Many trees in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have these tiny green markers on them. You can very rarely find them in Lower Saxony.

Bavaria uses these white rectangular road markers, which are divided by black lines into three sections. The left section provides the road you are currently on.

You can find these simple rectangular markers, with rounded edges in Lower Saxony.

These markers with a metallic border around the marker itself are found in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony.

NOTE: The numbers after the comma are usually smaller on the markers in Lower Saxony.

These triangular posts are commonly found in these regions.

You can go more in-depth with them, too.

• Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony use unpainted, rocky looking posts, with white plates stuck on each side.

• Saarland, Thuringia, and Baden-Württemberg use white posts, with the same white plates attached. The posts are usually quite tall, apart from the ones in Baden-Württemberg.

• Baden-Württemberg also uses grey posts.

• North Rhine-Westphalia uses white posts without white plates on the sides. You can also find posts which go all the way to the ground.

• Saarland barely uses these posts at all. However, when they do, it is quite unpredictable.

These basic white plates on bollards can be found in these states.

Bollards standing on these black disks are commonly found in all of eastern Germany.

Rhineland-Palatinate is the only state where the plates on the bollards are orange instead of white.

Similarly, Baden-Württemberg is the only state where the plates on the bollards can be grey instead of white.

These white posts with a red cap are found in all of former East Germany, but most commonly in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

Fully yellow posts are found in the state of Brandenburg.

Yellow posts with a white plate on them are found in Saxony-Anhalt.

NOTE: Sometimes there is only 1 plate, which can make it hard to tell apart from a Brandenburg post.

These round concrete poles are almost unique to Former Eastern Germany.

These trident-like pole tops can be found in Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Baden-Württemberg.

Triangle pole tops similar to the ones in Czechoslovakia are common in Western Germany.

NOTE: There may be some exceptions outside the highlighted areas.

These pole tops where the middle of the horizontal bar is thicker can be found in all of former East Germany.

Pole tops which have a curved horizontal bar can be found in Bavaria, though they are rare.

You can find this rare white and black Generation 4 car in Hamburg and around Frankfurt.

NOTE: You can also find the same car around London and in Ireland.

There are two regional Aldi chains, which have split Germany in two; Aldi Süd in the south, and Aldi Nord in the north.

• Berlin uses white signs with a grey border, and a separate section for numbers under the street name. Also note how the letter ß looks.

• Munich has blue street signs with a white decorative border that does not touch the corners. Also note the unique font.

• Stuttgart uses black signs without a border.

• Düsseldorf has black signs with a white border, similar to Munich. The signs have a metallic frame.

• Dortmund uses blue signs with a white border and a grey frame. The signs also have a separate section for numbers under the street name.

• Essen has blue signs with a very thick metallic frame.

• Dresden has blue signs with a unique font.

• Hanover uses white signs with a wider than usual gap between the sign and metallic frame.

• Nuremberg has blue signs with a unique font. The signs also have a grey frame with a small gap between it and the sign.

• Wuppertal uses white signs with a unique font and a white painted frame with a small gap between it and the sign.

• Mainz has a mix of blue signs, and this unique red variant.

• Frankfurt uses blue street signs with a metallic border around the sign, as well as the separate section for numbers under the street name.

NOTE: More rarely, some smaller towns can use similar signs to those in this graphic.

Sorbian, a Slavic language, is spoken near the Polish and Czech border. You can find it on a variety of signs in these regions.

Every city state uses a unique and recognisable bus stop.

• Berlin uses segmented bus stops, with a yellow signpost.

• Hamburg bus stops have a red signpost, and the route numbers are within hexagons. Note that they can be found outside of Hamburg as well

• Bremen proper uses simple bus stops, which have the bus stop name within a red section. The edges can be rounded.

• Bremerhaven, which is still part of Bremen, uses bus stops with a grey section on the opposite side of the signpost. And the bus stop name is red within a yellow section.

Every city state has recognisable rubbish bins all around the city.

• Berlin uses bright orange bins that have white text on them.

• Hamburg uses bright red bins, with white speech bubbles.

• Bremen has green and grey bins, with orange speech bubbles.

Bremerhaven uses a more generic green design, with a black logo.

Lampposts in Cologne will often feature these bright yellow numbers on a black piece of plastic.

NOTE: Similar looking things can be found elsewhere as well.

This type of half-timbered house with arches at the ground floor is very common in this region of Saxony.

The shrub and sand covered hills are unique to the island of Sylt. And like the rest of the North Frisian Islands, rock walls, brick houses, and thatched roofs are common.

NOTE: Some parts of Sylt look more generic, but still very flat.

Lowcam coverage can be found around Singen and near Switzerland.

You can find a Generation 3 black car in this safari park southeast of Bielefeld.

You can commonly see 4x4s painted with a zebra pattern in the park.

NOTE: This car is unique to this park within all of Europe.

This rare Generation 3 car coverage with an antenna can be found in central Hamburg.