The Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, often simply referred to as Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main area or Rhine-Main area (German: Frankfurt/Rhein-Main. abbreviated FRM) is the third largest metropolitan region in Germany (after Ruhr and Berlin), with a total population exceeding 5.8 million. The metropolitan region is located in the central western part of Germany, and stretches over parts of three federal states: Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria, as well as the cities of Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Offenbach, Mainz, Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg.

The polycentric region is named after its core city Frankfurt am Main and the two rivers Rhine and Main. The Frankfurt Rhine-Main area is officially designated as a European Metropolitan region by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs and covers an area of roughly 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 sq mi).

Subdivisions

Rhine-Main is a polycentric metropolitan region, but the economic size and political weight of the city of Frankfurt sets it into a very monocentric relation with her commuter belt. Since the early 1970s the Frankfurt am Main metropolitan area (German: Ballungsraum Frankfurt/Rhein-Main) is defined as an area encompassing the cities of Frankfurt and Offenbach and their directly neighboring districts.