#hansestadt stralsund

[german-enthusiast]

EU Kennzeichen / License Plates / Number Plates

in another post I mentioned that my fiance and I like to talk about where the cars around us come from when we're on the Autobahn, and that that's not possible in all european countries

for those outside the EU or outside of Germany I thought it might be very slightly interesting to go into more detail!

European license plates all look the same at first glance:

they're white (in a few countries yellow), have a blue stripe on the left with the EU stars at the top and 1-3 letters in white or yellow for the country at the bottom. The other (big) lettering is usually black. Sometimes there are flags/icons on the right side too.

You'll find that some other european countries have similar designs for their license plates, though not necessarily on purpose. In the UK you'll see both non-EU license plates and EU-license plates (with "GB" as the country code), though the latter is only permitted if the car was fitted with it before 2021.

Before talking more about German license plates, I want to note that there are various exceptions to the standard EU-license plate. Temporary license plates, plates for very old vehicles, for military/police/state vehicles, etc. often have a design that is different from the standard, including letter color, stripes left and right, etc.

Deutsche Kennzeichen

(i'll only talk about standard car license plates, thus ignore old timers, motor bike plates, etc.)

German license plates look like this:

It is always 1-3 letters, another 1-2 letters, 1-4 numbers

In total, it may only be 8 digits long

Electric cars can end in an "E" (optional)

The two letter groups are separated by space for round stickers. On the rear plate are two stickers: the "TÜV-Plakette" on the top (indicates when the next mandatory vehicle check is due), and a sticker for the Stadtkreis or Landkreis that registered the plate on the bottom. The front plate only has the Kreis-sticker.

First letter group

The first letter group always shows the Verwaltungsbezirk (≈ administrative division/district in which the car is registered (because license plates are always registered to a vehicle, not a person, as apparently is the case in other european countries)).

This is what I meant with talking about "where a car is from". The first couple letters tell you where a car is registered (and usually then too, that the owner lives in that area; you're obliged to register your car in your new district if you move, but idk how much that is really enforced)

There are more than 700 districts. Sometimes these are singular large cities (like Berlin, Cologne, ...), often they are larger (especially rural) areas.

Most people have one or two districts with which they associate bad driving. I come from the north-west of Baden-Württemberg. When I see a shitty driver and they have a "PF" or "GER" district code, I always "of fucking course it's a fucking Pforzheimer/Germersheimer"

There's also some silly mnemonics some people employ (like my fiance who points at every SÜW car (district: Südliche Weinstraße) and says "sie üben wieder" ("they're practicing again").

Beyond getting annoyed at vague areas, it's also just a trivia game to pass the time. Occasionally we'll ask one another if we know a certain district code and, if not, google it.

You'll also learn new ones if you're driving and notice an influx of a certain district code on plates (like how I learned that PS is Pirmasens yesterday)

The letters of a code usually correspond to letters in the full name. One exception is plates of Hansestädte. Hansestädte are cities that belonged to a collective of trade cities in the middle ages, primarily port cities or cities along big rivers (e.g. Rhein, Neckar, Elbe). Six of them (200 overall, 70 with active hanseatic politics) have their district code start with an "H":

HB - Hansestadt Bremen

HH - Hansestadt Hamburg

HGW - Hansestadt Greifswald

HL - Hansestadt Lübeck

HST - Hansestadt Stralsund

HRO - Hansestadt Rostock

HWI - Hansestadt Wismar

(Bremen is why Heidelberg, a large city in the north of BaWü is labeled HD instead of HB (which would be natural since it's two words Heidel-Berg))

December 2023 also saw a first in German license plates: a city is close to running out of combinations and thus cars in München (Munich) can now have one of two district codes: M and MUC (new)

Second letter group

The second group of letters can be chosen freely by the person registering a car. There are certain forbidden combinations, most because of nazi-associations (KZ, HJ, SS,), some of them vary from Bundesland to Bundesland. Singular letters are sometimes forbidden because of what they spell with the letters of the first letter group.

Of course a general restriction is that there can't be two identical license plates.

Beyond these restrictions, the second letter group is of course often used to make words (if the district code allows), though often with incorrect spelling. In Karlsruhe (district code: KA), common license plate words are KA LT (cold), KAOS (das Chaos - the chaos), KA OT (der Chaot - the chaotic person), KA TZE/KA ZE (die Katze - the cat), KA LB (das Kalb - the calf (animal)) ...

If making a word is not possible or desired, many people instead go for initials (of themselves, them and their partner, their children, etc)

Number group

The numbers are also free to choose, though there are also forbidden number combinations (14, 88, ...). Additionally, the limit of 8 digits must be observed.

People often chose personally significant dates for better memorabilty.

Relevance

Is any of this important or necessary to know for tourists? Absolutely not.

But maybe other Germans want to share where the shitty drivers in their area come from (if that's not too personal, there is of course some information to be derived from this) OR what fun words they've seen or know of!

Personal favorites sind DEL LE (District: Delmenhorst; "dent") und PIR:AT (Pirna; "pirate")

[wladimirkaminer]

Die Sommerabende werden länger, ich fülle sie mit neuen Geschichten bei den Auftritten nächste Woche. Ich bin im Norden unterwegs:

Am 26.06. In der Hansestadt Stralsund in der Kulturkirche St.Jakobi

Am 27.06. In Bad Doberan im Kamp Theater

Am 28.06 In Waren/Müritz im Bürgersaal und

Am 29.06. im Centralkomitee in Hamburg

Alle sind willkommen

[interessanthoch3]

Morbus Sundensis: Wie Stralsund den Typhus besiegte

Stralsund gilt im 19. Jahrhundert als "Typhusnest erster Klasse". Gründe sind mangelnde Hygiene und verunreinigtes Trinkwasser.

[a-german-town-every-week]

Stralsund

Stralsund ist eine Stadt in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern mit etwa sechzigtausend Leuten. Offiziell heißt es Hansestadt Stralsund. Die Stadt liegt gegenüber Rügen, der größten Insel Deutschlands, und die Rügenbrücke, die größte Brücke Deutschlands, verbindet Stralsund und Rügen. Die Stadt wurde schwer zerstört bei einem Bombenangriff im Zweiten Weltkrieg, und nach dem Krieg war Stralsund Teil der sowjetischen Besatsungszone und später der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Nach der Wende wurde die Stadt wiederhergestellt. Die Altstadt hat noch wertvollen Zeugnissen der Backsteingotik und gehört jetzt zum UNESCO-Weltkulturerbe. Stralsund hat mehrere Bahnhöfe, und die Stadt ist mit IC-Zügen nach München, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg und mehr verbunden. Tourismus ist wichtig für die Stadt und es gibt viele Restaurants und Hotels. Manche interessante Sehenswürdigkeiten in Stralsund sind der Alte Markt, das Kniepertor und das Kütertor, die St.-Marien-Kirche, und das Katharinenkloster, mit dem Meeresmuseum und dem Stralsund Museum. Die Politikerin und ehemalige Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel besetze von 1990 bis 2021 den örtlichen Bundestagswahlkreis Vorpommern-Rügen - Vorpommern Greifswald I.

[klaucki]

Abend in Stralsund

Dieser Sketch entstand während eines Aufenthaltes in der schönen Stadt Stralsund. Das Papier fand ich auf der Straße im Hafen der alten Hansestadt. Gearbeitet habe ich mit Fineliner und Aquarellfarben.

[korrektheiten]

Protest gegen KlimakleberStralsunder Trucker bekommt Führerschein nicht zurück

Die JF schreibt: »Bei einer Straßenblockade der „Letzten Generation“ verlor er die Nerven. Ein LKW-Fahrer in Stralsund soll einen Klimakleber mit seinem Wagen geschoben haben. Das Amtsgericht der Hansestadt hat nun entschieden, daß er seinen Führerschein vorerst nicht wieder bekommt. Dieser Beitrag Protest gegen KlimakleberStralsunder Trucker bekommt Führerschein nicht zurück wurde veröffentlich auf JUNGE FREIHEIT. http://dlvr.it/SsQMZf «

[vortilogue]

Alter Markt Stralsund

📷 Lomo LC-A

🎞️ Kodak Portra 400

@hansestadt_stralsund

[afotoeu]

#Hanseatic Stralsund Town #Germany #Deutschland #dronas #skypixel #djieurope #Mavic3 #djimavic3 #visitgermany #hasselblad #summer2022 #exploredegermany #stralsund #stralsundaltstadt #balticsea #hansestadt (at Stralsund) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfqJ_1fD37s/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[shipwreckguy]

Hansestadt Stralsund aground #hiddensee #germany #dgzrs On July 30, the 13 meter long passenger ship Hansestadt Stralsund ran aground in the Baltic Sea near Hiddensee, Germany.

[rkphotodesign]

Stralsund ❤️

[schreiberhans]

Treppenhaus | Juli 2o2o

[shores-in-flames-blog]

Inside St.-Nicholas’-Church, Stralsund, Germany... (August 2017)

[skullchicken]

But what is a chair?

"You shut up", an aquaintance of mine would say when someone threw the question into the room. Apparently she once got into an endless discussion with some friends about this, only cut short by their mutual exhaustion.

"A chair is something you can sit on. Is a rock a chair, then?" or "If you go into an art museum and there are chairs without seating surfaces, are they still chairs?", the questions would go round and round.

"I think I can answer that", I'd said, but she told me "Nope. Nope - nope, I'm not doing that again." and I've been sitting (hah) on my reply ever since. Until now.

(Am I procrastinating with this on something I should actually be doing? You bet I am!)

1. Categorization and You

This may be "duh"-territory, but humans don't just use one method of classification. By that I mean, they don't just use "Yes tomato/No tomato" on everything, but that their systems of classification have different kinds of logic and rules.

So, first question to find out what a chair is: Which system of categorization are we even using?

2. Necessary and Sufficient Requirements

Now, at first you might be tempted to just describe what a chair is:

"A chair is a... structure with four legs, a seating surface and a backrest..."

What about three-legged chairs? What about chairs with armrests?

"A chair is a usually four-legged structure with a seating surface which may or may not come with armrests."

Now we're getting closer! We have understood that some traits are necessary while others aren't. This type of categorization is often used in science. Does this species have a spine? It's a Vertebrate. Does it have scales? It might be a lizard, but not necessarily.

The system of sufficient and necessary categorization rests on the assumption that things can even be neatly categorized into boxes, into either/or, into yes/no. It is also strictly logical.

For the chair, however, this approach spells your doom. Because you cannot escape the necessity to just keep stacking on traits and exceptions to define what a chair truly is:

"A chair is a structure with usually four legs and a backrest, sometimes with armrests and its that has to be high enough for an adult human of... average height(?) to sit on (except if it's a chair for children), or except if it's not, for example as an art piece or a piece of advertisement..."

... but is this a chair, then?

And then you get into discussion into what a chair is made of and you do not want to do that, trust me.

So this approach, generally, doesn't work for things where you can have opinions. And even if it did, it would result in a definition that's way too wordy and just not elegant. But we are onto something with that "average height for a human to sit on"...

3. Lexicography and Conceptual Analysis

What really helps us out here is that a chair is an artefact, by which I mean, it has been made by humans for humans. Thus, is has a function which defines it.

"A chair is a piece of furniture made for a single person to sit on."

- and then you can get into traits and how they support or do not support this function. Armrests or no armrests? Amount of legs? Style? Material? All that probably depends on where and how that chair is supposed to be used in variations of its original function.

And you can use neighboring categories to compare and contrast: "The chair, in contrast to an armchair, is not primarily designed to be relaxed in. The chair, in contrast to the bench, is meant to be used by one person..."

This type of categorization gets to the point quickly and elegantly, while it can still be expanded on. But then why are there still some paragraphs left over on this post?

... (tell me, Will) is this a chair?

What human is supposed to even get on that? And even then, there would obviously more space on it than for just one person. Obviously, this is not a piece of furniture made for sitting on. Yet, ask any person on the street and they would name it "a chair". What gives?

4. Protoype-categorization

Now before we go on, I gotta give a quick shout-out to my man René Magritte, who coined the problem quite nicely with "The treachery of images" - because you could just say that the above is not truly a chair, but a sculpture of a chair.

...buuut, in everyday-life no-one really thinks that way. You don't take a rubber-sword and think "verily, this is not a sword, but a caoutchouc replica!", you think "heehoohoo sord, gotta bonk".

And that's the key-word here: Everyday categorization!

On a day-to-day basis, we generally use prototype-categorization to get around. In contrast to the neat and logical categorization of necessary and sufficient requirements and the elegant but function-focused conceptual analysis, prototype-theory is fast... and superficial.

Protoypes have a kind of wibbly-wobbly field of traits with a nucleus and a soft border, where the traits closer to the nucleus are considered to be more important, traits closer to the border less so:

The (nucleid) typical traits of a chair are: Backrest, four legs, seating surface, you can sit on it. The chair-iest of chairs have these traits. It is the gold-standard for chairs in your mind. The more you deviate from this look, the more un-chairy your chair becomes. Something like "made of wood" is often part of your mental image, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important. This categorization neither puts nature/status nor function front and center, but appearance.

If it walks, swims, quacks and looks like a duck, it's a duck, even if it's actually a terminator-style replica of a duck.

This is also how you can explain fun concepts like people calling seals "sea doggo" - it's recognizing that seals do superficially resemble dogs (= share many traits we associate with dog-ness, the nucleus of the protoype-category) while being very aware that from a science perspective, dogs and seals are very far apart.

Every type of categorization has its advantages and disadvantages and it is up to you to recognize which one is the right one for the situation. And sometimes it's just fun to spot where the subconscious switch from one to the other produces confusion :)

5. In conlusion

what is a chair? heck if I know.

(Sources under the cut)

Text:

Kleiber, Georges: Prototypensemantik: Eine Einführung, Tübingen, 1993.

Wierzbicka, Anna: Lexicography and conceptual analysis, Ann Arbor, 1985.

Pictures:

glassdiningfurniture.co.uk/montrose-chesterfield-grey-fabric-two-seater-sofa.php

ostsee-zeitung.de/Vorpommern/Stralsund/XXXLutz-in-Stralsund-Wie-die-Hansestadt-vermoebelt-wird

slideshare.net/kimveale/metaphor-processing-tutorial

[pgvolleynewz-blog]

Ladies and gentlemen. I am proud to introduce you to the Stralsund Wildcats of the 2019/20 season. ❤️🖤 Am 14.09.19 beginnt die neue Saison in der 2. Bundesliga Nord. Für das Team des 1.VC Stralsund geht es zum VC Allbau nach Essen. Zum ersten Heimspiel laden die Wildcats am 28.09.2019, wenn dann ab 17 Uhr, die Mannschaft vom BBSC Berlin am Diesterweg zu Gast ist. Neu im Stralsunder Team begrüßen wir Lisa Senger, Sanja Bruns, Tara Jenßen und Svenja Ennings. Wir sehen uns am 28.09. in der Halle am Diesterweg. #stralsund #wildcats #vcstralsund #volleyball #2bundesliga #vbl #hansestadt #neuesaison #newteam #pgvolleynewz #welovevolleyball #mvtutgut #vorpommern #volleyballmv 📸 @farbspielfotografie.de (hier: Diesterweg-Halle) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2JWvJug-zA/?igshid=1ghagcjsub2jo

[penguinssuitup]

Stralsund. Colors. • • • • • #contemporaryarchitecture #summervacation #modernistarchitecture #archi_unlimited #berlinstagram #igersberlin #lunes #pastellover #ig_europe #meckbackaufreisen #hansestadt #gf_architecture #architecture_view #architecturephotography #seaside #balticsea #ostseeliebe #mondays #meckbackaufreisen #countrysidelife #stralsund #ostsee #lunes #unescoworldheritage #killergrams #buildingswow #excellent_structure #arkiromantix #espacioenforma #pastellfarben (at Stralsund) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0O9XKboJgC/?igshid=rcd4aw1jnysb

[traveleurope]

#stralsund #hansestadt #flowers 🍁

@weather-phenomena 🌍