The Hanseaten is a collective term for the hierarchy group consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal First Families of the free imperial cities of Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership of these cities, including the mayors, the senators, joint diplomats and the senior pastors. Hanseaten refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe.
Reliefs of coats of arms of the three Hanseatic (sister) cities
Johann Hinrich Gossler of the Hanseatic Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty, who married Elisabeth Berenberg and became owner of Berenberg Bank
First Mayor Johann Heinrich Burchard
Christian Adolph Overbeck, mayor of the Free Imperial and Hanseatic City of Lübeck, son of Eleonora Maria Jauch (drawing by Johann Friedrich Overbeck)
Hamburg, officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is the second-largest city in Germany, after Berlin, and 8th-largest in the European Union, with a population of over 1.9 million. The Hamburg Metropolitan Region has a population of over 5.1 million and is the ninth-biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union.
Image: Hamburg, Landungsbrücken 2016 3131 7
Image: Elbphilharmonie Eastside View With Sandtorkai Quay Magellan Terraces Sandtorpark 2022 06 04 16 32
Image: Hamburg Speicherstadt
Image: Elbphilharmonie zum Sonnenaufgang (cropped)
