Moving to Cologne

Today we look at moving to Cologne in Germany from Helsinki in Finland. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Cologne people speak German. In Helsinki people speak Finnish and Swedish.

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city (after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich), and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants. Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland.
Cologne is known as an important media center. Cologne is a major cultural center of the Rhineland  and has a vibrant arts scene. The Helsinki metropolitan area generates approximately one third of Finland's GDP. GDP per capita is roughly 1.5 times the national average, making Helsinki one of the wealthiest capitals in Europe.

The overall cost of living rank in Cologne is 47 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Helsinki to Cologne will experience a change in cost of living of -5.3%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Cologne is ranked as a minimal hardship location with a hardship index of 10% the same as Helsinki.

Source: http://www.xpatulator.com as at July 2011.