Vehicle registration plates of Germany
As they only started using the modern system in 1990 after German reunification, many of the possible shorter combinations had already been used up in western Germany. Thus, big east German cities like Dresden have two letter codes (DD) instead of one (D) which was already in use for Düsseldorf. L is, however, now in use for Leipzig because in West Germany it was used for a regional area of Hesse (Lahn) apparently in order to keep the code available for Leipzig as there were no suitably large cities in W. Germany whose names began with the letter L.