State Questions: Hessen

The coat of arms of Hessen shows the red-and-white striped lion on a blue field, the Hessian lion. On the image panel this is answer 1. The other three shields belong to other federal states: look at the heraldic animal, the colours, and the number of fields.

Main-Taunus district is located in Hessen. The three wrong answers are districts or boroughs of other federal states. For the test it is enough to know the one name that belongs to your state.

The state parliament of Hessen is elected for 5 years. Each federal state sets its own electoral term in its own constitution, so the figure differs from state to state. The Bundestag is always elected for four years.

In local elections in Hessen you may vote from the age of 18. The local voting age is set by each state and is either 16 or 18 depending on the state: for Bundestag elections it is uniformly 18 nationwide.

The state flag of Hessen is red-white. Background: red and white are the colours of the Hessian lion from the arms of the Landgraves of Hesse.

The place to go is at the State Center for Political Education. Every federal state maintains such a body: it provides politically neutral information on politics, history, and society, and hands out brochures and books free or very cheaply. The public order office, consumer advice centre, and churches have different remits.

The capital of Hessen is Wiesbaden. That is where the state parliament and state government sit. The other cities listed may lie in the same state, but they are not the seat of government.

Hessen lies in the centre of Germany; it borders six federal states and contains Frankfurt am Main, the country's financial centre. On the map this is answer 3. The quickest way to find the state is to orient yourself by its neighbours and whether it touches the coast.

In Hessen the head of government is called Prime Minister. The same applies in all 13 territorial states. Only the three city-states differ: Berlin has a Governing Mayor, Hamburg a First Mayor, and Bremen a President of the Senate.

Hessen has no Foreign Minister. Under the Basic Law, foreign policy is exclusively a federal matter: no state maintains diplomatic relations of its own. Portfolios such as finance, justice, the interior, education, and the environment, by contrast, exist in every state government.