Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or executive of a city or town. The name in English was derived from the Dutch burgemeester.
The Burgomaster's Family, possibly painted by Gerard Donck c. 1640
Manneken Pis dressed as a burgomaster from the Seven Noble Houses of Brussels.
Caption of a Bürgermeisteramt from 1505 (burgomaster Erhart Huck of Bozen, South Tyrol)
Arnold von Brauweiler, a German burgomaster, known in German as Bürgermeister
The government of Hamburg is divided into executive, legislative and judicial branches. Hamburg is a city-state and municipality, and thus its governance deals with several details of both state and local community politics. It takes place in two ranks – a citywide and state administration, and a local rank for the boroughs. The head of the city-state's government is the First Mayor and President of the Senate. A ministry is called Behörde (office) and a state minister is a Senator in Hamburg. The legislature is the state parliament, called Hamburgische Bürgerschaft, and the judicial branch is composed of the state supreme court and other courts. The seat of the government is Hamburg Rathaus. The President of the Hamburg Parliament is the highest official person of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. This is a traditional difference to the other German states. The president is not allowed to exert any occupation of the executive.
Room of the Hamburgische Bürgerschaft (Diet)
Room of the Senat
Supreme Court of Hamburg
Peter Tschentscher in 2011