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It consists of 16 countries. At the same time the commission developed criteria for classifying the terms of Article 29 Paragraph 1. Article 18 of the constitution enabled a new delimitation of the German territory but set high hurdles: "Three fifth of the votes handed in, and at least the majority of the population are necessary to decide on the alteration of territory". The Landkreise have primary administrative functions in specific areas, such as highways, hospitals, and public utilities. Germany is a constitutional federal democracy. Article 118 stated "The division of the territory comprising Baden, Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern into Länder may be revised, without regard to the provisions of Article 29, by agreement between the Länder concerned. Germany is a federal parliamentary republic with a head of government - the chancellor - and a head of state - the president - whose primary responsibilities are representative. The amended article now defines the participation of the Federal Council and the 16 German states in matters concerning the European Union. Federalism has a long tradition in German history. Though international relations including international treaties are primarily the responsibility of the federal level, the constituent states have certain limited powers in this area: in matters that affect them directly, the states defend their interests at the federal level through the Bundesrat ('Federal Council', the de facto upper house of the German Federal Parliament) and in areas where they have the legislative authority they have limited powers to conclude international treaties "with the consent of the federal government".[3]. If you do not meet one of these exceptions but believe your circumstances merit entry to Germany, or if you need clarification, you should contact the German Embassy in Washington D.C. regarding entry permission. The number of inhabitants of German municipalities differs greatly, the most populous municipality being Berlin with nearly 3.8 million inhabitants, while the least populous municipalities (for instance, Gröde in Nordfriesland) have less than 10 inhabitants. It is the states which formed the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. The number of territories was greatly reduced during the Napoleonic Wars (1796–1814). As a consequence, eight petitions for referendums were launched, six of which were successful: The last petition was originally rejected by the Federal Minister of the Interior in reference to the referendum of 1951. In the three free states of Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia, the government is the "state government" (Staatsregierung); and in the other ten states, the "Land government" (Landesregierung). The German use of the term Länder (‘lands’) dates back to the Weimar Constitution of 1919. Prussia and the other states in Northern and Central Germany united as a federal state, the North German Federation, on 1 July 1867. From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=States_of_Germany&oldid=7212578, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. The 16 states that make up the Federal Republic of Germany are:. Local associations of a special kind are an amalgamation of one or more Landkreise with one or more Kreisfreie Städte to form a replacement of the aforementioned administrative entities at the district level. Federalism is one of the entrenched constitutional principles of Germany. The complaint was dismissed in July 1961 on the grounds that Article 29 had made the new delimitation of the federal territory an exclusively federal matter. 3 of these are city-states: Saarland became part of Germany effective 1 January 1957. In the north, either a single new state consisting of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen and Lower Saxony should be created (solution A) or two new states, one in the northeast consisting of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and the northern part of Lower Saxony (from Cuxhaven to Lüchow-Dannenberg) and one in the northwest consisting of Bremen and the rest of Lower Saxony (solution B). Germany's 16 states: Bavaria In winter and summer, visitors from all over the world enjoy the fascinating mountain world, rejoice in living traditions and warm hospitality. An expert commission was established, named after its chairman, the former Secretary of State Professor Werner Ernst. Find out about their capitals, populations and economic sectors. The next change occurred in the aftermath of German reunification in 1990, in which the area of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) became part of the Federal Republic. Cities and towns are municipalities as well, also having city rights or town rights (Stadtrechte). Henceforth, the 10 "old states" plus 5 "new states" plus the new state Berlin add up to current 16 states of Germany. In 1957, the Saar Protectorate joined the Federal Republic as the state of Saarland. However, it has no legal significance. Before this time, the states of the German Empire were called Staaten (states). Such an organization requires the issuing of special laws by the governing state, since they are not covered by the normal administrative structure of the respective states. Our editable vector map base of Germany is suitable for all royalty free commercial uses. West Berlin was under the sovereignty of the Western Allies and neither a Western German state nor part of one. The states with hyphenated names, such as Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt, owed their existence to the occupation powers and were created out of mergers of former Prussian provinces and smaller states. The creation of the Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany") in 1949 was through the unification of the three western zones which were previously under American, British, and French administration in the aftermath of World War II. The Holy Roman Empire comprised many petty states, numbering more than 300 around 1796. Only 7 of the 16 new states existed before: Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Baden and Saarland in the west, Saxony and Thuringia in Eastern Germany. However, this term is not used officially, neither by the constitution of 1919 nor by the Basic Law (Constitution) of 1949. Public interest was limited or nonexistent. The debate on a new delimitation of the German territory started in 1919 as part of discussions about the new constitution. 23 for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is merely a historic synonym for "republic" and was a description used by most German states after the abolishment of monarchy after World War I. The Federal States of Germany at a glance. There are (as of 6 March 2009[update]) 12,141 municipalities, which are the smallest administrative units in Germany. The constitution of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at §75 states the right of Mecklenburg and Vorpommern to form Landschaftsverbände, although these two constituent parts of the state are not represented in the current administrative division. However, it was in many ways de facto integrated with West Germany under a special status. Municipalities (Gemeinden): Every rural district and every Amt is subdivided into municipalities, while every urban district is a municipality in its own right. The rejection of the plan by the Saarlanders was interpreted as support for the Saar to join the Federal Republic of Germany.[13]. Bavaria. The Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) consists of 13 area states (Flächenländer) and 3 city-states (Stadtstaaten), Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. In the Paris Agreements of 23 October 1954, France offered to establish an independent "Saarland", under the auspices of the Western European Union (WEU), but on 23 October 1955 in the Saar Statute referendum the Saar electorate rejected this plan by 67.7% to 32.3% (out of a 96.5% turnout: 423,434 against, 201,975 for) despite the public support of Federal German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for the plan. The boundaries of Germany’s 16 federal states / Bundesländer are included in interlocking layers on the editable Illustrator and SVG files, which means you can colour each state differently if wanted, and hide or show the regions as needed. Germany’s 16 federal states may have a common goal – to cut emissions and fight climate change – but there are many different opinions about how to achieve it and how exactly the Energiewende should progress. In fact, until 1933 there were only four changes in the configuration of the German states: The 7 Thuringian states were merged in 1920, whereby Coburg opted for Bavaria, Pyrmont joined Prussia in 1922, and Waldeck did so in 1929. As of January 1, 2005, there were 246 such areas, with a total area of 4167.66 km2 or 1.2 percent of the total area of Germany. The two Palatine petitions (for a reintegration into Bavaria and integration into Baden-Württemberg) failed with 7.6% and 9.3%. Initially, the states of the Federal Republic were Baden (until 1952), Bavaria (in German: Bayern), Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse (Hessen), Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz), Schleswig-Holstein, Württemberg-Baden (until 1952), and Württemberg-Hohenzollern (until 1952). The majority of the funding for municipalities is provided by higher levels of government rather than from taxes raised and collected directly by themselves. In Rhineland-Palatinate, these districts were abolished on January 1, 2000, in Saxony-Anhalt on January 1, 2004, and in Lower Saxony on January 1, 2005. In the center and southwest, one alternative was that Rhineland-Palatinate (with the exception of the Germersheim district but including the Rhine-Neckar region) should be merged with Hesse and the Saarland (solution C), the district of Germersheim would then become part of Baden-Württemberg. Official sites of the federal states, tourism information for germany and the major cities. Hugo Preuss, the father of the Weimar Constitution, drafted a plan to divide the German Reich into 14 roughly equal-sized states. Most of them were created after the Second World War, although their historical roots can be traced back to the early Middle Ages in some cases. Local authorities foster cultural activities by supporting local artists, building arts centres, and by holding fairs. Well Berlin is the capital of Germany. Germany is a federal republic. By calling the document the Grundgesetz, rather than Verfassung (constitution), the authors expressed the intention that it would be replaced by a true constitution once Germany was reunited as one state. https://www.germany.travel/en/inspiring-germany/federal-states.html Since the deadline passed on 5 May 1958 without anything happening, the Hesse state government filed a constitutional complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court in October 1958. The referendum in Baden was held on 7 June 1970. Typically, a district-free city or town and its urban hinterland are grouped into such an association, or Kommunalverband besonderer Art. Its provisions are reflected in Article 29. Amendments to the Grundgesetz generally require a two-thirds majority of both chambers of the parliament; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law are valid in perpetuity. The "constitution" for the municipalities is created by the states and is uniform throughout a state (except for Bremen, which allows Bremerhaven to have its own constitution). Before January 1, 2000, Bavaria had a bicameral parliament, with a popularly elected Landtag, and a Senate made up of representatives of the state's major social and economic groups. The Senate was abolished following a referendum in 1998. Two of the states you see on the map are what might be known as city-states. If at least one tenth of those entitled to vote in Bundestag elections were in favour of a revision, the federal government had to include the proposal into its legislation. Each consists of an elected council and an executive, which is chosen either by the council or by the people, depending on the state, the duties of which are comparable to those of a county executive in the United States, supervising local government administration. The code for Brandenburg has been altered from DE-BR to DE-BB. How many do you know already? Ämter ("offices" or "bureaus"): In some states there is an administrative unit between the districts and the municipalities, called Ämter (singular Amt), Amtsgemeinden, Gemeindeverwaltungsverbände, Landgemeinden, Verbandsgemeinden, Verwaltungsgemeinschaften, or Kirchspiellandgemeinden. Article 29 was again modified and provided an option for the states to "revise the division of their existing territory or parts of their territory by agreement without regard to the provisions of paragraphs (2) through (7)". The Districts of Germany (Kreise) are administrative districts, and every state except the city-states of Berlin and Hamburg and the state of Bremen consists of "rural districts" (Landkreise), District-free Towns/Cities (Kreisfreie Städte, in Baden-Württemberg also called "urban districts", or Stadtkreise), cities that are districts in their own right, or local associations of a special kind (Kommunalverbände besonderer Art), see below. The City of Bremen consists of two urban districts: Bremen and Bremerhaven, which are not contiguous. Some states call themselves a "free state" (Freistaat). Germany is recognized for its great contributions in having large portions of specialized small and medium enterprises. The Federal Republic of Germany, as a federal state, consists of sixteen partly sovereign federated states (German: Land (state), plural Länder (states); commonly informally Bundesland / federated state, plural Bundesländer / federated states). Berlin. The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1949 constitutional document known as the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). Germany is traditionally a country organized as a federal state. The equivalent of the minister-president is the Senatspräsident (president of the senate) in Bremen, the Erster Bürgermeister (first mayor) in Hamburg, and the Regierender Bürgermeister (governing mayor) in Berlin. In 2000, the number of unincorporated areas was 295, with a total area of 4,890.33 square kilometres (1,888.17 sq mi). The number of territories was greatly reduced during the Napoleonic Wars (1796–1814). The referendums in Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate were held on 19 January 1975 (the percentages given are the percentages of those eligible who voted in favour): The votes in Lower Saxony were successful as both proposals were supported by more than 25% of eligible voters. As of 2011, there are 295 Landkreise and 107 Kreisfreie Städte, making 402 districts altogether. All other states were amalgamations of formerly much smaller states and Prussian provinces. German States — Prove Of Changes In Germany. Get all information about the 16 states in Germany. In his investiture address, given on 28 October 1969 in Bonn, Chancellor Willy Brandt proposed that the government would consider Article 29 of the Basic Law as a binding order. 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