Angela Merkel: A career in pictures

Angela Merkel steps down as German chancellor on Wednesday after 16 years in power, bringing an end to a political career which has spanned more than three decades.

It is a career documented in pictures at every turn: from visiting fishermen during her earliest campaigns, to talks at the White House, and everything in between.

Here, we have collected just a few from the thousands capturing the woman who has been at the helm of Germany for so many years.

December 2021: A military tattoo gave Germans a chance to say goodbye to their popular long-time chancellor as she prepared to hand over power to a new government

Summer 1989: Mrs Merkel (pictured far right) with Malgorzata Jeziorska and future husband Joachim Sauer at a university summer school for chemistry in Poland

November 1990: By the next year, she was campaigning in the first German federal election to be held since the country was reunified

January 1994: Mrs Merkel was made minister for the environment - which appears to have meant showing off how you recycle wrapping paper

March 1995: Mrs Merkel laughs with fellow minister Horst Seehofer, during a cabinet meeting

March 2000: Mrs Merkel was chosen to lead the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) in 2000

July 2005: Five years later, she was back on the campaign trail (pictured) - which would lead to her election as Germany's first female chancellor

June 2007: Despite it being the 21st Century, politics is still dominated by men, so Mrs Merkel - here with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, US President George W Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister Tony Blair - was often the lone female face

January 2007: Few leaders understood Russia's Vladimir Putin like Angela Merkel. He was also aware that she was reputed to have a fear of dogs but denied trying to intimidate her

April 2009: Mrs Merkel became a symbol of fiscal austerity in the years which followed the financial crash

April 2011: Hillary Clinton, then US secretary of state, and Mrs Merkel in Berlin

June 2015: Mrs Merkel with then-President Barack Obama, after a G7 summit session in southern Germany. "You have been a trusted partner throughout my entire presidency - longer than any world leader," the US leader told her a year later

September 2015: The chancellor's decision to open Germany's borders to refugees in 2015 divided the country. Pictured: Refugees making their way through Hungary

April 2018: It also put her on a collision course with US President Donald Trump

June 2018: Migration was not the only issue on which they would clash. North Korea, Iran and trade were also contentious and led to moments like this at the G7 in Canada

2020/21: As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, Mrs Merkel won praise for her early handling of the outbreak; some said her science background helped

23 September 2021: She was never one to put on a show, but then she was not often bitten in a bird park

All pictures are subject to copyright.