Title: German Culture: Facts, Customs and Traditions | Live Science
Headings: German Culture: Facts, Customs and Traditions
German Culture: Facts, Customs and Traditions
Values
Languages
Religion
German food and drink
The arts
Business culture
Holidays and celebrations
Additional resources

Content: While German exerts its influence on the countries that border it — Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland and Poland — all of these cultures have, in varying degrees, had a hand in shaping today's Germany. The population is 91.5 percent German, with Turkish being the second largest ethnic group at 2.4 percent, according to the World Factbook. The remaining 6.1 percent is made up primarily of those of Greek, Russian, Italian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish descent. About 75.7 percent of the population is urban. Values
Germans place a high priority on structure, privacy and punctuality. The German people embrace the values of thriftiness, hard work and industriousness and there is great emphasis on making sure that "the trains run on time." According to Passport to Trade 2.0, an online business etiquette guide by the University of Salford in Manchester, England, "Germans are most comfortable when they can organize and compartmentalize their world into controllable units. Time, therefore, is managed carefully, and calendars, schedules and agendas must be respected." Germans are stoic people who strive for perfectionism and precision in all aspects of their lives. They do not admit faults, even jokingly, and rarely hand out compliments.