Harburg

Harburg is one of Hamburg's seven districts and lies south of the Elbe. Until 1937 it was a separate town; it became part of Hamburg under the Greater Hamburg Act of that year. The city portal headlines it as "the south of Hamburg" and Hamburg's old rival.

On 31 December 2025, 179,693 people were registered in the district on about 125 km², according to the Statistikamt Nord's neighbourhood profiles. The population is young and international: 18.7% of residents were under 18 (Hamburg: 16.5%) and 29.9% held a non-German citizenship (Hamburg: 21.2%); in the neighbourhood of Harburg itself, the share was 49.8%.

Its neighbourhoods include Harburg, Wilstorf, Heimfeld, Eißendorf, Marmstorf, Sinstorf, Rönneburg, Langenbek, Neuland and Gut Moor, Hausbruch, Neugraben-Fischbek, Moorburg and Altenwerder, and the Altes Land villages of Francop, Neuenfelde and Cranz.

The city portal describes the district as a colourful mix of urban centre, rural settlements, orchards, heathland and container terminals.

• Harburg centre: an urban core with large shopping centres, the neo-Renaissance town hall and S-Bahn connections. The inland harbour (Binnenhafen) has been converted into a mixed quarter since the 1990s, where "modern and historic meet".
• Residential south and west: Eißendorf, Heimfeld, Marmstorf, Hausbruch and Neugraben-Fischbek mix apartment blocks with many terraced and detached houses. Neugraben-Fischbek has a particularly high share of families.
• Nature: the Harburger Berge reach 116 m at the Hasselbrack, which the portal calls Hamburg's highest natural elevation, and the Fischbeker Heide turns purple in late summer.
• Altes Land: Neuenfelde, Francop and Cranz are part of the Altes Land fruit-growing area, with apple, cherry and pear orchards and thatched farmhouses.
• Port: Altenwerder, once a village, is now a container terminal.

• S-Bahn: the S3 and S5 connect Harburg, Harburg Rathaus, Heimfeld, Neuwiedenthal and Neugraben with Wilhelmsburg, the Hauptbahnhof and the city tunnel; the S5 continues west to Buxtehude and Stade.
• Buses serve the residential areas away from the S-Bahn and the Altes Land villages.

The trip from Harburg to the Hauptbahnhof is short by S-Bahn; check current journey times and any construction-related changes in the hvv journey planner.

• Apartment buildings, many older and some post-war, in the neighbourhood of Harburg, where flats are small (57.5 m² on average in 2025).
• Terraced and detached houses in Eißendorf, Marmstorf, Sinstorf and Neugraben-Fischbek; 38.8% of homes in Neugraben-Fischbek were in one- or two-family houses in 2025.
• Village houses and farmhouses in the Altes Land and Moorburg.

Prices are among the lowest in Hamburg: listed prices for owner-occupied flats in January 2026 were about €3,900 per m² in Harburg, about €3,800 in Eißendorf, about €3,600 in Heimfeld and about €3,700 in Neugraben-Fischbek (Hamburg average €6,278). 8.4% of flats in the district were subsidised social housing (Hamburg: 7.6%).

At the end of 2025, 20.3% of households in the district included children (Hamburg: 17.5%), and 26.0% in Neugraben-Fischbek. The district had 93 day-care centres (Kitas, March 2026) and 22 primary schools (2025/26), according to the neighbourhood profiles.

Families have easy access to nature: the Harburger Stadtpark with the Außenmühlenteich lake, the forests of the Harburger Berge and the Fischbeker Heide.