in today's Poland or Russia had become available, or because the projected code had meanwhile been issued to a West German district. One example of a reserved code being reused before reunification was one-letter L which was originally planned for , but was given to the newly formed Hessian city of and the district in 1977, as hopes for reunification faded away. After the rather unexpected reunification (and Lahn city having split up again and thus abolished in 1979), the L was returned to the city of and was issued LDK instead. The letter G was first reserved for the East German city of and later awarded to the city of , although both are smaller than the West German (GE). The area code ZK had been reserved, in the 1950s, for the city of but was rejected as ZK had become the abbreviation of the loathed of the former Communist party SED. In analogy to the three northwestern Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck, but without historical examples of formerly issued prefixes, four northeastern Hanseatic cities, , , and , chose the prefixes HGW, HRO, HST and HWI. There were no suitable two-letter codes available since HG, HR, HS and HW were already taken by West German districts. Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, districts in East Germany were rearranged again, similar to the West two decades before. Thus many of these codes issued before were now outdated, but could still be seen alongside the new code. This rearrangement was continued in a second step after 2000, which created large districts with a remarkable variety of possible area codes registered. Still, only one of these was the current one which would be issued to vehicles registered at the moment. Liberalized registration rules After the reorganization of districts, from the 1970s onward, many area codes expired and new ones were created at that time. However, number plates issued before these rearrangements remain valid, providing the vehicle is still in use and has not been reregistered since. So it was still possible, if rare, to see a classic car with registration codes of administrative units that have not existed for over 30 years. A study conducted in 2010–12 produced the result that 72% of the German population would welcome the possibility to use again these abolished area codes whereas only 13% opposed the idea. What was especially striking was that even young people who