Northern Germany (German: Norddeutschland) is the region in the northern part of Germany, whose exact area is not precisely or consistently defined. It varies depending on whether one has a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural or historic standpoint. The five coastal states (Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony and the two city-states Hamburg and Bremen) are regularly referred to as Northern Germany. Though geographically in the northern half of Germany, Westphalia, Brandenburg, and the northern parts of Saxony-Anhalt are rarely referred to as Northern Germany and instead are almost always associated with Western Germany and the historical East Germany respectively.