Erfurt is the capital and largest city of the Central German state of Thuringia. It is in the wide valley of the River Gera, in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest, and in the middle of a line of the six largest Thuringian cities (Thüringer Städtekette), stretching from Eisenach in the west, via Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar and Jena, to Gera in the east, close to the geographic centre of Germany. Erfurt is south-west of Leipzig, north-east of Frankfurt, south-west of Berlin and north of Munich.