Population Redistribution (1871 and 1910) Up to 1871, Germany had been primarily agricultural. By the 1890s, however, the rise of cities and industrial production had begun to reshape German ways of life. The population grew by more than a third between 1871 and 1911, and more Germans lived in urban areas, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population. Berlin, by far the country's largest city and a major industrial center, experienced a 150.7% growth in population between 1871 and 1910, indicative of changing population patterns. Hamburg’s annual growth rate for this period exceeded that of all other German cities. Many smaller cities – especially in industrial areas such as the Ruhr region (Westphalia), the upper Rhine Valley, the Neckar Valley, and Saxony – tripled or quadrupled in size during this time.
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page 1 of 1 Population of States and Provinces in 1871 and 1910 (shown in thousands) States/Provinces 1871 1910 Growth in % Average Annual Rate of Growth in % East Prussia 1,823 2,064 13.2 3.2 West Prussia 1,315 1,703 29.5 6.7 City of Berlin 826 2,071 150.7 23.8 Brandenburg 2,037 4,093 100.9 18.1 Pomerania 1,432 1,717 19.9 4.7 Posen 1,584 2,100 32.6 7.2 Silesia 3,707 5,226 41.0 8.8 Saxony 2,103 3,089 46.9 9.9 Schleswig-Holstein 1,045 1,621 55.1 11.3 Hanover 1,961 2,942 50.0 10.5 Westphalia 1,775 4,125 132.4 21.9 Hesse-Nassau 1,400 2,221 58.6 11.9 Rhine Province 3,579 7,121 99.0 17.8 Hohenzollern 66 71 7.6 2.0 Prussia 24,689 40,165 62.7 12.6           Bayern r. d. Rheins 4,237 5,950 40.4 8.7 Pfalz 615 937 52.4 10.9 Coburg (1920) 52 75 44.2 9.4 Bavaria 4,915 6,962 41.6 9.0           Saxony 2,556 4,807 88.1 15.2 Württemberg 1,819 2,438 34.0 7.6 Baden 1,462 2,143 46.6 9.9 Thuringian Lands (without Coburg) 1,016 1,511 48.7 10.2 Hesse 853 1,282 50.3 10.5 Hamburg 339 1,015 199.4 28.4 Mecklenburg-Schwerin 558 640 14.7 3.5 Oldenburg 317 483 52.4 10.9 Braunschweig [Brunswick] 312 494 58.3 11.9 Anhalt 203 331 63.1 12.6 Bremen 122 300 145.9 23.2 Lippe-Detmold 111 151 36.0 7.9 Lübeck 52 117 125.0 20.8 Mecklenburg-Strelitz 97 106 9.3 2.3 Waldeck 56 62 10.7 2.4 Schaumburg-Lippe 32 46 43.8 9.3 Alsace-Lorraine 1,550 1,874 20.9 4.9 German Reich 41,059 64,926 58.1 11.8 Source: Hermann Aubin and Wolfgang Zorn, eds., Handbuch der deutschen Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte [Handbook of German Economic and Social History]. Stuttgart, 1971-76, vol. 2, p. 18.
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