Mosques in Germany

Germany is home to close to five and a half million Muslims, around six and a half percent of the population, one of the largest Muslim communities in western Europe. German Islam has been shaped above all by Turkish migration that began with the guest-worker agreements of the 1960s, later joined by communities from the former Yugoslavia, the Arab world, Iran, Afghanistan, and more recently by large groups of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. This page brings together the historical, geographical and practical landmarks to find your way among the German mosques listed on the map.

A community built on postwar migration

Organised Muslim life in Germany took shape after the labour recruitment agreement signed with Turkey in 1961, which brought hundreds of thousands of Turkish workers to the industrial regions of the west. Prayer rooms first opened in factory dormitories and residential districts, then grew into full mosques as families settled. Later waves added Bosnian, Kosovar, Moroccan, Lebanese, Palestinian, Iranian and Afghan communities, and the arrival of nearly a million Syrian and Iraqi refugees after 2015 has reshaped the community in many cities. Today the great majority of German Muslims are German citizens, and a growing share are born in the country.

The main Muslim cities

The Rhine and Ruhr region holds the densest Muslim urban fabric in the country, from Cologne, Duisburg, Essen and Dortmund to Düsseldorf, with a strong Turkish presence and an increasingly diverse Arab community. Berlin comes next, with mosques and prayer rooms across Neukölln, Kreuzberg, Wedding and Moabit, home to Turkish, Arab and Bosnian congregations. Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Hanover, Bremen, Mannheim and Nuremberg all hold their own networks. The DITIB Central Mosque of Cologne, the Şehitlik Mosque in Berlin and the Yavuz Sultan Selim Mosque in Mannheim are among the country's most architecturally significant places of worship.

A community-run mosque network

German mosques are almost entirely funded and run by their own congregations, without state involvement. Several umbrella federations coexist, DITIB linked to the Turkish Diyanet, the Islamrat, the Zentralrat der Muslime and the VIKZ, alongside independent Arab, Bosnian and African communities. That plurality translates into a wide variety of traditions and languages of worship, from the large purpose-built mosques of the Turkish networks to smaller Arabic-speaking prayer rooms and mosques serving Bosnian, Albanian, Afghan or West African communities.

Practical guidance

German mosques follow the five daily prayers, with the largest gatherings on Friday around lunchtime and during Ramadan. A great many mosques welcome non-Muslim visitors outside prayer times, and the annual Tag der offenen Moschee held on 3 October brings hundreds of mosques across the country open to the public. Modest dress is expected: shoulders and legs covered, hair covered for women, shoes removed before entering the prayer hall.

How to use this directory

The interactive map above brings together the German mosques listed from OpenStreetMap data. Each marker locates a place and gives access to its details. Coverage is stronger in the main urban areas of the Rhine-Ruhr, Berlin and the southern cities, and grows over time as the data is refined. City pages will strengthen this section in the months ahead, starting with the largest Muslim urban centres.