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2. PopulationWith approximately 80.8 million inhabitants,Germany is the mostpopulous member state of the EuropeanUnion. Moreover, its populationis characterised by a certaincultural diversity due to the factthat almost 20 % of the inhabitantsare people with an immigrationbackground. The largest of theseforeign nation groups are the Turkishfollowed by the Polish and theRussians.However, Christianity represents the most prevailing religion in Germany with 62.8 millionadherents. The second largest religion after that is Islam with an estimated 4.3 millionsadherents, followed by Buddhism (300.000 adherents) and Judaism (100.000 adherents).Although German is the official language in Germany, English is spoken by a wide rangeof people.3. PoliticsGermany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. The currentFederal Chancellor is Angela Merkel. She therefore heads the executive branch of government.Joachim Gauck whose responsibilities are mainly of a more representative matteris currently the President of Germany.The German legislative power is divided between the Bundestag and Bundesrat. Whilethe Bundestag is directly elected by the German citizens the Bundesrat represents the 16different federal states of Germany. The Bundestag, that is more powerful in practice, iselected for a four year term and consists of 631 members. 299 of those members areelected in single-seat constituencies according to first-past-the-post. The other members5