Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of former East Germany after Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden. The city lies in the middle of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated northern foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast, and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region.