Hesse, officially the State of Hesse, is a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. With an area of 21,000 square kilometers and a population of just over six million it ranks seventh and fifth respectively among the sixteen German states. Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany's second-largest metropolitan area (after Rhine-Ruhr), is mainly located in Hesse.

As a cultural region, Hesse also includes the area known as Rhenish Hesse (Rheinhessen) in the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

With Hesse's largest city Frankfurt am Main being home of the European Central Bank (ECB), the German Bundesbank and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Hesse is home to the financial capital of mainland Europe.

The Rhine-Main Region has the second largest industrial density in Germany after the Ruhr area. The main economic fields of importance are the chemical and pharmaceutical industries with Sanofi, Merck, Heraeus, Messer Griesheim and Degussa. In the mechanical and automotive engineering field Opel in Rüsselsheim is worth mentioning. Frankfurt is crucial as a financial center, with both the European Central Bank and the Deutsche Bundesbank's headquarters located there. Numerous smaller banks and Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, KfW Bank, Commerzbank are also headquartered in Frankfurt, with the offices of several international banks also being housed there. Frankfurt is also the location of the most important German stock exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Insurance companies have settled mostly in Wiesbaden. The city's largest private employer is the R+V Versicherung, with about 3,900 employees, other major employers are DBV-Winterthur, the SV SparkassenVersicherung and the Delta Lloyd Group. The leather industry is predominantly settled in Offenbach. The company operating Frankfurt Airport is one of the largest employers in Hesse with nearly 22.000 employees. Companies with an international reputation are located outside the Rhine-Main region in Wetzlar. There is the center of the optical, electrical and precision engineering industries, Leitz, Leica, Minox, Hensoldt (Zeiss), Buderus and Brita with several plants in central Hesse. In east Fulda there is the rubber plant (Fulda Reifen). In northern Hesse, in Baunatal, Volkswagen AG has a large factory that manufactures spare parts. Bombardier has a large plant that manufactures Locomotives in Kassel.

Thuringia, officially the Free State of Thuringia, is a state of Germany. In central Germany, it covers 16,171 square kilometres (6,244 sq mi), being the sixth smallest of the sixteen German States (including City States). It has a population of about 2.15 million inhabitants.

Erfurt is the state capital and largest city. Other cities are Jena, Gera and Weimar. Thuringia is bordered by Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony.

It has been known as "the green heart of Germany" from the late 19th century due to its broad, dense forest. Most of Thuringia is in the Saale drainage basin, a left-bank tributary of the Elbe.

Thuringia is home to the Rennsteig, Germany's best-known hiking trail. Its winter resort of Oberhof makes it a well-equipped winter sports destination - half of Germany's 136 Winter Olympic gold medals of 2014 were by Thuringian athletes. Thuringia was favoured or was the birthplace of three key intellectuals and leaders in the arts: Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller.

The state has the University of Jena, the Ilmenau University of Technology, the University of Erfurt, and the Bauhaus University of Weimar.

Thuringia had an earlier existence as the Frankish Duchy of Thuringia, established around 631 AD by King Dagobert I. The state was established in 1920 as a state of the Weimar Republic from a merger of the Ernestine duchies, save for Saxe-Coburg. After World War II, Thuringia came under the Soviet occupation zone in Allied-occupied Germany, and its borders were reformed, to become contiguous. Thuringia became part of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, but was dissolved in 1952 during administrative reforms – to be divided into the Districts of Erfurt, Suhl and Gera. Thuringia was re-established in 1990 following German reunification, slightly re-drawn, and became one of the new states of the Federal Republic of Germany.