1.
States of Germany
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Germany is a federal republic consisting of sixteen federal states. Since todays Germany was formed from a collection of several states, it has a federal constitution. The remaining 13 states are called Flächenländer, the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 was through the unification of the western states created in the aftermath of World War II. West Berlin, while not part of the Federal Republic, was largely integrated and considered as a de facto state. In 1952, following a referendum, Baden, Württemberg-Baden, in 1957, the Saar Protectorate rejoined the Federal Republic as the Saarland. Federalism is one of the constitutional principles of Germany. After 1945, new states were constituted in all four zones of occupation, in 1949, the states in the three western zones formed the Federal Republic of Germany. This is in contrast to the development in Austria, where the Bund was constituted first. The use of the term Länder dates back to the Weimar Constitution of 1919, before this time, the constituent states of the German Empire were called Staaten. Today, it is common to use the term Bundesland. However, this term is not used officially, neither by the constitution of 1919 nor by the Basic Law of 1949, three Länder call themselves Freistaaten, Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia. He summarizes the arguments for boundary reform in Germany. The German system of dual federalism requires strong Länder that have the administrative and fiscal capacity to implement legislation, too many Länder also make coordination among them and with the federation more complicated. But several proposals have failed so far, territorial reform remains a topic in German politics. Federalism has a tradition in German history. The Holy Roman Empire comprised many petty states numbering more than 300 around 1796, the number of territories was greatly reduced during the Napoleonic Wars. After the Congress of Vienna,39 states formed the German Confederation, the new German Empire included 25 states and the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine. The empire was dominated by Prussia, which controlled 65% of the territory, after the territorial losses of the Treaty of Versailles, the remaining states continued as republics of a new German federation
2.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
3.
Stuttgart
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Stuttgart is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the Stuttgart Cauldron an hour from the Swabian Jura. Stuttgarts urban area has a population of 623,738, making it the sixth largest city in Germany. 2.7 million people live in the administrative region and another 5.3 million people in its metropolitan area. Since the 6th millennium BC, the Stuttgart area has been an important agricultural area and has been host to a number of cultures seeking to utilize the rich soil of the Neckar valley. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 83 AD and built a massive Castrum near Bad Cannstatt, Stuttgarts roots were truly laid in the 10th century with its founding by Liudolf, Duke of Swabia as a stud farm for his warhorses. Overshadowed by nearby Cannstatt, the town grew steadily and was granted a charter in 1320, the fortunes of Stuttgart turned with those of the House of Württemberg, and they made it the capital of their County, Duchy, and Kingdom from the 15th Century to 1918. Stuttgart prospered despite setbacks in the forms of the Thirty Years War and devastating air raids by the Allies on the city, however, by 1952, the city had bounced back and became the major economic, industrial, tourism and publishing center it is today. Stuttgart is also an important transport junction, and possesses the sixth largest airport in Germany. Such companies as Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler AG, Dinkelacker, Stuttgart is unusual in the scheme of German cities. It is spread across a variety of hills, valleys and parks and this is often a source of surprise to visitors who associate the city with its reputation as the Cradle of the Automobile. The citys tourism slogan is Stuttgart offers more, under current plans to improve transport links to the international infrastructure, the city unveiled a new logo and slogan in March 2008 describing itself as Das neue Herz Europas. For business, it describes itself as Where business meets the future, in July 2010, Stuttgart unveiled a new city logo, designed to entice more business people to stay in the city and enjoy breaks in the area. Stuttgart is a city of mostly immigrants, according to Dorling Kindersley Publishings Eyewitness Travel Guide to Germany, In the city of Stuttgart, every third inhabitant is a foreigner. 40% of Stuttgarts residents, and 64% of the population below the age of five are of immigrant background, the reason for this being that the city was founded in 950 AD by Duke Liudolf of Swabia to breed warhorses. Originally, the most important location in the Neckar river valley as the rim of the Stuttgart basin at what is today Bad Cannstatt. As with many military installations, a settlement sprang up nearby, when they did, the town was left in the capable hands of a local brickworks that produced sophisticated architectural ceramics and pottery. When the Romans were driven back past the Rhine and Danube rivers in the 3rd Century by the Alamanni, in 700, Duke Gotfrid mentions a Chan Stada in a document regarding property
4.
Minister-president
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It is an alternative term for prime minister, premier, chief minister or first minister, and very similar to the title of President of the Council. The German word Ministerpräsident means president of the ministers, from 1867 to 1918, the first minister of the government was known as Ministerpräsident, before that Staatskanzler. Today the head of the Austrian Federal Government is called the Bundeskanzler, while the head of a government is called the Landeshauptmann. See, List of Ministers-President of Austria, according to the Belgian constitution, the federal prime minister is appointed by the king, and approved by the federal parliament with a vote of confidence. The federal ministers later swear an oath of allegiance to the king, the ministers-president of the regions and linguistic communities are not appointed by the king, but are directly appointed by their respective parliament. Ministers of the regions and linguistic communities are not required to swear allegiance to the king, state and more closely to the premier of an Australian state or Canadian province. The feminine form Ministerpräsidentin may be used to refer to female office-holders, the constitutional position of a minister-president is comparable to the one of chancellor at the federal level. Ministers-president of the German states are elected by their respective parliaments and appoint ministers in their respective states. Along with several of their ministers, they represent their state in the Bundesrat or abroad. By virtue of their position in the Bundesrat, they can exert influence on national politics within the federal structure. The office of the minister-president is called Staatskanzlei in all non-city-states except Baden-Württemberg, despite this difference in terminology, however, the heads of government of these city-states hold the same power and position as the ministers-president of the other German states. In the Netherlands the prime minister is referred to as minister-president. His responsibilities are defined in the constitution of 1848, the title of minister-president has been in official use since 1945. In Norway, Vidkun Quisling, head of the collaborationist government from 1942 to 1945 during the German occupation in World War II, held the title of Minister-President. In Spain, the head of government is known as presidente del gobierno or President of the Government but in English, he is more commonly referred to as the prime minister
5.
Winfried Kretschmann
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Winfried Kretschmann is a German politician of the Alliance 90/Greens. He has been Minister President of the state of Baden-Württemberg since 12 May 2011, from 1 November 2012 until 31 October 2013 he was President of the Bundesrat and ex officio deputy to the President of Germany. He is the first member of the Greens to serve in these offices, Kretschmann has been a member of the state parliament, the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg, since 1980, in the constituency of Nürtingen. In 2006 he was the frontrunner in the Baden-Württemberg state election for his party and he was also the chairman of his partys parliamentary group. Kretschmann was re-elected in May 2016 as Minister-President while leading a new coalition with the Christian Democrats, on 12 October 2012 he was elected President of the German Bundesrat for the term from 1 November 2012 to 31 October 2013. This was the first time since 1953, and only the time ever. Kretschmann was born at Spaichingen in Baden-Württemberg and his parents were expellees from the mostly Roman Catholic region of Ermland after World War II. He grew up on the rural Swabian Alb, Kretschmann attended a Catholic boarding school in Sigmaringen and passed his Abitur in Riedlingen. Following his military service, he studied to be a teacher of biology and chemistry at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, from 1973 to 1975 Kretschmann was active in the Communist League of West Germany. After three years as a teacher at Sigmaringen, Kretschmann went into politics. He is one of the members of the Baden-Württemberg section of the German Green Party. In 1980, Kretschmann was for the first time elected into the Landtag, the parliament. In 1985 he left Stuttgart to work in Hessen at the ministry of environment, in 1988, Kretschmann returned to Baden-Württemberg, being re-elected into the Landtag in 1988. He lost his seat in 1992, but returned – after four years back as a teacher – in 1996, in 2002, he was again elected chairman of his partys parliamentary group. He ran on a platform called for shutting down nuclear power plants, overhauling a public school system the Greens see as elitist. Also, Kretschmann is widely regarded as having benefited from his partys opposition to Stuttgart 21, kretschmann’s election ended 58 years of uninterrupted rule in Baden-Württemberg by the Christian Democratic Union party. In the 2016 state elections, Kretschmann led the Green Party to a historic 30%, for the first time in any German regional election, the Greens emerged the strongest single party in the state. Kretschmann was confirmed as leader of a government of Greens
6.
Alliance 90/The Greens
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Alliance 90/The Greens, often simply Greens, is a green political party in Germany, formed from the merger of the German Green Party and Alliance 90 in 1993. The focus of the party is on ecological, economic, and its leaders are Simone Peter and Cem Özdemir. In the 2013 federal elections, the party came fourth with 8. 4% of the votes and 63 out of 630 seats in the Bundestag, the Green Party was initially founded in West Germany as Die Grünen in January 1980. It rose out of the energy, environmental, peace, new left. Grüne Liste Umweltschutz were the names of branches in Lower Saxony. These groups were founded in 1977 and took part in several elections, most of them merged with The Greens in 1980. In 1993 it renamed to Alliance 90/The Greens Berlin after the merger with East Berlins Greens, the Hamburg state branch of the Green Party was called Grün-Alternative Liste Hamburg from its foundation in 1982 until 2012. In 1984 it became the official Hamburg branch of The Greens, in the 1970s, environmentalists and peace activists politically organised amongst thousands of action groups. The political party The Greens was founded January 13,1980 in Karlsruhe to give this movement political, opposition to pollution, use of nuclear power, NATO military action, and certain aspects of industrialised society were principal campaign issues. The Greens originated from civil initiatives, new movements of the protests of 1968. It was at this congress, that the Greens lay their ideological foundations, proclaiming the famous Four Pillars of the Green Party, in 1982, the conservative factions of the Greens broke away to form the Ecological Democratic Party. Those who left the party at the time might have felt similarly about some of these issues, but did not identify with the forms of protest that Green party members took part in. After some success at elections, the party won 27 seats with 5. 7% of the vote in the Bundestag. The newly formed party was able to draw on this movement to recruit support. Around this time, Joschka Fischer emerged as the leader of the party. Until 1987, the Greens comprised a faction involved in pedophile activism and this faction campaigned for repealing §176 of the German penal code, dealing with child sexual abuse. This group was controversial within the party itself, and was seen as responsible for the poor election result of 1985. In November 2014 the political scientist Franz Walter presented the report about his research on a press conference
7.
Christian Democratic Union of Germany
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The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Germany. It is the major party of the centre-right in German politics. The CDU forms the CDU/CSU grouping, also known as the Union, the leader of the CDU, Angela Merkel, is the current Chancellor of Germany. The CDU is a member of the Centrist Democrat International, International Democrat Union, immediately following the collapse of the Nazi dictatorship at the end of World War II, the need for a new political order in Germany was paramount. Simultaneous yet unrelated meetings began occurring throughout Germany, each with the intention of planning a Christian-democratic party, the Christlich-Demokratische Union was established in Berlin on 26 June 1945, and in Rheinland and Westfalen in September of the same year. The founding members of the CDU consisted primarily of members of the Centre Party, German Democratic Party, German National Peoples Party. In the Cold War years, after World War II up to the 1960s, a prominent anti-Nazi member was theologian Eugen Gerstenmaier who became Acting Chairman of the Foreign Board. One of the lessons learned from the failure of the Weimar Republic was that disunity among the parties ultimately allowed for the rise of the Nazi Party. It was therefore crucial to create a party of Christian Democrats – a Christian Democratic Union. The result of meetings was the establishment of an inter-confessional party influenced heavily by the political tradition of liberal conservatism. The latter was more nationalist and sought German reunification, even at the expense of concessions to the Soviet Union, the Western powers appreciated the CDUs moderation, its economic flexibility and its value as an oppositional force to the Communists, which appealed to European voters at the time. Also, Adenauer was trusted by the British, the party was split over issues of rearmament within the Western alliance and German unification as a neutral state. Adenauer staunchly defended his position and outmanoeuvred some of his opponents. He also refused to consider the SPD as a party of the coalition until he felt sure that they shared his anti-Communist position, the CDU was the dominant party for the first two decades following the establishment of West Germany in 1949. Konrad Adenauer remained the leader until 1963, at which point the former minister of economics Ludwig Erhard replaced him. As the Free Democratic Party withdrew from the coalition in 1966 due to disagreements over fiscal and economic policy. Consequently, a coalition with the SPD took over government under CDU Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. The CDU continued its role as opposition until 1982, when the FDP’s withdrawal from the coalition with the SPD allowed the CDU to regain power, CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl became the new Chancellor of West Germany and his CDU-FDP coalition was confirmed in the 1983 federal election
8.
Bundesrat of Germany
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The German Bundesrat is a legislative body that represents the sixteen Länder of Germany at the national level. The Bundesrat meets at the former Prussian House of Lords in Berlin and its second seat is located in the former West German capital of Bonn. For its similar function, it is described as an upper house of parliament along the lines of the US Senate. Bundesrath was the name of similar bodies in the North German Confederation and its predecessor in the Weimar Republic was the Reichsrat. The political makeup of the Bundesrat is affected by changes in power in the states of Germany, each state delegation in the Bundesrat is essentially a representation of the state government and reflects the political makeup of the ruling majority or plurality of each state legislature. The German Bundesrat was first founded, together with the North German Confederation and it was continued under the same name and with the same functions by the German Empire, in 1871. Under the Weimar Constitution,1919, it was replaced by the Reichsrat, whilst appointed by state governments just as today, the delegates of the original Bundesrat—as those of the Reichsrat—were usually high-ranking civil servants, not cabinet members. The original Bundesrat was very powerful, every bill needed its consent and it could also, with the Emperors agreement, dissolve the Reichstag. The Reichsrat of the Weimar Republic had considerably less influence, since it could only veto bills—and even then be overruled by the Reichstag, however, overruling the Reichsrat needed a majority of two-thirds in the Reichstag, which consisted of many parties differing in opinion. So, in most cases, bills vetoed by the Reichsrat failed due to the lack of unity among the Reichstags constituent parties. The Bundesrat met in the building as the Reichstag and Bundestag from 1871 until 2000. The composition of the Bundesrat, 1871–1919, was as follows, Bundesrat members are not elected—either by popular vote or by the state parliaments—but are delegated by the respective state government. Normally, a state consists of the Minister President and other cabinet ministers. The state cabinet may appoint as many delegates as the state has votes, in any case, the state has to cast its votes en bloc, i. e. without vote splitting. As state elections are not coordinated across Germany and can occur at any time, the number of votes a state is allocated is based on a form of degressive proportionality according to its population. This way, smaller states have more votes than a proportional to the population would grant. The allocation of votes is regulated by the German constitution, all of a states votes are cast en bloc—either for or against or in abstention of a proposal. Each state is allocated at least three votes, and a maximum of six, states with more than 2 million inhabitants have 4 votes,6 million inhabitants have 5 votes,7 million inhabitants have 6 votes
9.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
10.
Central European Summer Time
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It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
11.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
12.
First-level NUTS of the European Union
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The Classification of Territorial Units for Statistics, is a geocode standard for referencing the administrative divisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard was developed by the European Union, there are three levels of NUTS defined, with two levels of local administrative units below. Not all countries have every level of division, depending on their size, one of the most extreme cases is Luxembourg, which has only LAUs, the three NUTS divisions each correspond to the entire country itself. Below are the first level NUTS regions of the European Union
13.
Standard German
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Standard German is the standardized variety of the German language used in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas. It is a pluricentric Dachsprache with three codified specific regional variants, German Standard German, Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German, adherence is obligatory not for everyday use but for government institutions including schools. Adherence to those standards by private individuals and companies, including the print and audio-visual media, is voluntary, until about 1800, Standard German was almost entirely a written language. In this time, people in Northern Germany, who mainly spoke Low Saxon languages very different from Standard German, learned it as a foreign language. Currently, local dialects are used mainly in informal situations or at home and also in dialect literature, in German linguistics, only the traditional regional varieties of German are called dialects, not the different varieties of standard German. The latter are known as Umgangssprachen and in the territory of Germany began to replace the traditional dialects beginning in the nineteenth century and they constitute a mixture of old dialectal elements with Standard German. In German, Standard German is often called Hochdeutsch, a misleading term since it collides with the linguistic term High German. To avoid this confusion, some refer to Standard German as Standarddeutsch, deutsche Standardsprache, or if the context of the German language is clear, simply Standardsprache. Traditionally, though, the language spoken in the mountainous areas of southern Germany is referred to as Oberdeutsch. The most accepted distinction is between different national varieties of standard German, Austrian Standard German, Germany Standard German and Swiss Standard German, additionally, there are linguists who posit that there are different varieties of standard German within Germany. Linguistic research of the different varieties of standard German began for the most part only in the 1990s, especially in Austria, the German federal state of Bavaria has promoted language diversity in the past in an effort to preserve its distinct culture. The different varieties of standard German differ only in a few features, especially in vocabulary and pronunciation, the variation of the standard German varieties must not be confused with the variation of the local German dialects. Even though the standard German varieties are to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, in most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties according to situation. Since the former have not undergone the High German consonant shift, under a socio-linguistic approach to the problem, even if Low German dialects are Abstandsprachen, they are dialects of German, because they lack Ausbau. However, Low German did influence the standard-based vernaculars spoken today in Northern Germany by language transfer, High German heavily influenced by Low German has been known as Missingsch, but most contemporary Northern Germans exhibit only an intermediate Low German substratum in their speech. Therefore, this situation has been called a medial diglossia, although Luxembourgish is no longer considered a German dialect today but a language, the situation can be compared to that of Switzerland. Standard German is also taught in schools in Luxembourg and close to 90% of the population can speak it and this accent is documented in reference works such as Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch by Eva-Maria Krech et al. Duden 6 Das Aussprachewörterbuch by Max Mangold and the materials at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Deutschlandfunk
14.
Alemannic German
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Alemannic is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. The name derives from the ancient Germanic alliance of tribes known as the Alemanni. S, ISO 639-3 distinguishes four languages, gsw, swg, wae and gct. At this level, the distinction between a language and a dialect frequently is considered a cultural and political question, in part because linguists have failed to agree on a clear standard, the following variants comprise Alemannic, Swabian. Unlike most other Alemannic dialects, it does not retain the Middle High German monophthongs û, î, for this reason, Swabian is sometimes used in opposition to Alemannic. Retain German initial /k/ as rather than fricativising to as in High Alemannic, subvariants, Lake Constance Alemannic Upper-Rhine Alemannic in Southwestern Baden and its variant Alsatian Alemán Coloniero Basel German High Alemannic. Complete the High German consonant shift by fricativising initial /k/ to, subvariants, Bernese German Zürich German Vorarlbergisch Liechtensteinisch Highest Alemannic does not have the hiatus diphthongisation of other dialects of German. For example, instead of, instead of, subvariants, Walliser German Walser German Note that the Alemannic dialects of Switzerland are often called Swiss German or Schwiizertüütsch. The oldest known texts in Alemannic are brief Elder Futhark inscriptions dating to the sixth century, in the Old High German period, the first coherent texts are recorded in the St. Gall and Reichenau Island, a considerable part of the Old High German corpus has Alemannic traits. Alemannic Middle High German is less prominent, in spite of the Codex Manesse compiled by Johannes Hadlaub of Zürich, the rise of the Old Swiss Confederacy from the fourteenth century leads to the creation of Alemannic Swiss chronicles. Huldrych Zwinglis bible translation of the 1520s was in an Alemannic variant of Early Modern High German, the 1665 revision of the Froschauer Bible removed the Alemannic elements, approaching the language used by Luther. Johann Peter Hebel published his Allemannische Gedichte in 1803, Swiss authors often consciously employ Helvetisms within Standard German, notably Jeremias Gotthelf in his novels set in the Emmental, and more recently Tim Krohn in his Quatemberkinder. The diminutive is used frequently in all Alemannic dialects, northern and eastern dialects use the suffix -le, southern dialects use the suffix -li. Depending on dialect, thus, little house could be Heisle, Hüüsle, a significant difference between the high and low variants is the pronunciation of ch after the front vowels and consonants. In Standard German and the variants, this is a palatal, whereas in the higher variants
15.
Rhine
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The largest city on the river Rhine is Cologne, Germany, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe, at about 1,230 km, with an average discharge of about 2,900 m3/s. The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days. The many castles and fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire, in the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism. The variant of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian, Occitan and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-. The Gaulish name Rēnos belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- to move, flow, run, the grammatical gender of the Celtic name is masculine, and the name remains masculine in German, Dutch and French. The Old English river name was variously inflected as masculine or feminine, the length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in Rhine-kilometers, a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance to Hoek van Holland. The river length is shortened from the rivers natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century. The total length of the Rhine, to the inclusion of Lake Constance and its course is conventionally divided as follows, The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein near Tamins-Reichenau. Above this point is the catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine. It belongs almost exclusively to the Swiss Canton of Graubünden, ranging from Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino, traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Vorderrhein and the Rhine as a whole. The Hinterrhein rises in the Rheinwald valley below Mount Rheinwaldhorn, the Vorderrhein, or Anterior Rhine, springs from Lai da Tuma, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide. A multiday trekking route is signposted along the young Rhine called Senda Sursilvana, the Hinterrhein/Rein Posteriur, or Posterior Rhine, starts from the Paradies Glacier, near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory, after three main valleys separated by the two gorges, Roflaschlucht and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau. The Vorderrhein arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva, one source is Lai da Tuma with the Rein da Tuma, which is usually indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it. Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Reno di Medel, the Rein da Maighels, and the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the Canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, all streams in the source area are partially, sometimes completely, captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants. In its lower course the Vorderrhein flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta through the Flims Rockslide, the whole stretch of the Vorderrhein to the Rhine confluence near Reichenau-Tamins is accompanied by a long-distance hiking trail called Senda Sursilvana
16.
Swabian German
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Swabian is one of the Alemannic dialects of High German. It is spoken in Swabia, which much of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, including its capital. It is also spoken in the area known as the Swabian Alb. Swabian is also spoken by the Danube Swabian population of Hungary. Swabian is difficult to understand for speakers of Standard German, not just because of its pronunciation, for example, strawberry jam in Standard German is Erdbeermarmelade while in Swabian it is Bräschdlingsgsälz. The expression is used in a way to describe a small unit of measure and is deemed appropriate to use in front of small children. German broadcaster SWRs childrens website, Kindernetz, explained the meaning of Muggeseggele in their Swabian dictionary in the Swabian-based TV series Ein Fall für B. A. R. Z, the ending -ad is used for verbs in the first person plural. With the addition of this -le, the article of the noun automatically becomes das in the German language, the Swabian -le is the same as standard German -lein or -chen, but is used, arguably, more often in Swabian. A small house is a Häuschen in Standard German, a Heisle in Swabian, zug becomes Zigle Haus becomes Heisle Kerl becomes Kerle Mädchen becomes Mädle Baum becomes Baimle In some regions -la for plural is used. Many surnames in Swabia are also made to end in -le, articles are often pronounced as dr, d and s. The ch is sometimes omitted or replaced, similarly, a subtle but very prominent cue carrying over is the fact that the letter s is always pronounced voiceless - there is no voiced s in Swabian. While this should be obvious to northern Germans, Swabian speakers are most often very unaware about this even while tending to speak perfect standard German in all other aspects. Swabian is categorized as an Alemannic dialect, which in turn is one of the two types of Upper German dialects, the ISO 639-3 language code for Swabian is swg. The Swabian dialect is composed of numerous sub-dialects, each of which has its own variations and these sub-dialects can be categorized by the difference in the formation of the past participle of sein into gwäa and gsei. The Gsei group is nearer to other Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German and it can be divided into South-East Swabian, West Swabian and Central Swabian. The Baden-Württemberg Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign with the slogan Wir können alles. Except Standard German to boost Swabian pride for their dialect and industrial achievements, however, it failed to impress Northern Germans and neighboring Baden. Dominik Kuhn became famous in Germany with schwäbisch fandub videos, dubbing among others Barack Obama with German dialect vocals, sebastian Sailer August Lämmle Josef Eberle Thaddäus Troll Hellmut G. Haasis Peter Schlack Muss i denn Streck, Tobias
17.
Baden
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Baden is a historical German territory. Together with Württemberg and the former Prussian province of Hohenzollern, two other territories, it currently forms the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. Finally, the state of Baden-Württemberg was formed a few years later, history of Baden List of states in the Holy Roman Empire Baden-Württemberg Province of Hohenzollern Württemberg Baden in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
18.
Province of Hohenzollern
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The Province of Hohenzollern or the Hohenzollern Lands was a de facto province of the Kingdom of Prussia. Both used the same coat of arms as the one used by the Prussian royal family. Hohenzollern consisted of a district, the Regierungsbezirk Sigmaringen, the capital was Sigmaringen. The last census recorded 74,151 inhabitants in 1939, while Hohenzollern enjoyed all the rights of a full-fledged province of Prussia, including representation in the Prussian parliament, its military matters were governed by the Rhine Province. The Regierungsbezirk Sigmaringen was further subdivided into seven Oberamtsbezirke, although four of these remained by 1925. In 1946, the French military administration made it a part of the state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern, Hohenzollern has been part of the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg since 1952
19.
Swabia
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Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. This territory would include all of the Alemannic German area, but the concept of Swabia is more restricted. Swabians are the natives of Swabia and speakers of Swabian German and their number was estimated at close to 0.8 million by SIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in the regions of Tübingen, Stuttgart and Bavarian Swabia. Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabias borders are not clearly defined, like all of Southern Germany, Swabia was part of the La Tène culture, and as such has a Celtic substrate. In the Roman era, it was part of the Raetia province, in the third century, it was gradually settled by the Elbe Germanic Suebi and other components that came to make up the Alemanni. The Alemanni were ruled by independent kings throughout the fourth and fifth centuries, Swabia became a duchy under the Frankish Empire in 496, following the Battle of Tolbiac. Swabia was one of the stem duchies of East Francia. Due to the foundation of the important abbeys of St. Gallen and Reichenau, in the following years the original duchy gradually broke up into many smaller units. Rudolf I of Habsburg, elected in 1273 as emperor, tried to restore the duchy, but met the opposition of the higher nobility who aimed to limit the power of the emperor. The rural regions were merged into the Reichslandvogtei of Swabia, which was given as Imperial Pawn to Duke Leopold III of Austria in 1379 and again to Sigismund and he took the title of a Prince of Swabia and integrated the Landvogtei of Swabia in the realm of Further Austria. Charlemagnes family is known to have hailed from Swabia, the major dynasties that arose out of the region were the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns, who rose to prominence in Northern Germany. Also stemming from Swabia are the dynasties of the dukes of Württemberg. The Welf family went on to rule in Bavaria and Hanover, smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however, for example, branches of the Montforts and Hohenems lived until modern times, and the Fürstenberg survive still. The territory of Swabia as understood today emerges in the modern period. It corresponds to the Swabian Circle established in 1512, the Old Swiss Confederacy was de facto independent from Swabia from 1499 as a result of the Swabian War, while the Margraviate of Baden had been detached from Swabia since the twelfth century. Fearing the power of the princes, the cities and smaller secular rulers of Swabia joined to form the Swabian League in the fifteenth century. The region was divided by the Reformation. In the wake of the reorganization of the empire of 1803 by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss
20.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
21.
Limes
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A limes was a border defence or delimiting system of Ancient Rome. It marked the boundaries and provinces of the Roman Empire, the word limes was utilized by Latin writers to denote a marked or fortified frontier. This was the definition and usage of the term. It is now common to accept that limes was not a term used by the Romans for the imperial frontier. This is a modern, anachronistic interpretation, the term became common after the 3rd century AD, when it denoted a military district under the command of a dux limitis. The limites represented the line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century AD. It stretched over 5,000 km from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, the remains of the limites today consist of vestiges of walls, ditches, forts, fortresses and civilian settlements. Certain elements of the line have been excavated, some reconstructed, the two sections of the limes in Germany cover a length of 550 km from the north-west of the country to the Danube in the south-east. The 118 km long Hadrians Wall was built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian c, AD122 at the northernmost limits of the Roman province of Britannia. It is an example of the organization of a military zone and illustrates the defensive techniques. The Antonine Wall, a 60 km-long fortification in Scotland, was started by Emperor Antoninus Pius in AD142 as a defense against the Barbarians of the north and it constitutes the northwestern-most portion of the Roman Limes. Limes Norici, the frontier of the Roman province Noricum, from the River Inn along the Danube to Cannabiaca in Austria, Limes Pannonicus, the frontier of the Roman province Pannonia, along the Danube from Klosterneuburg Austria to Taurunum in Serbia. A mediaeval limes is the Limes Saxoniae in Holstein, the stem of limes, limit-, which can be seen in the genitive case, limitis, marks it as the ancestor of an entire group of important words in many languages, for example, English limit. Modern languages have multiplied its abstract formulations, for example, from limit comes the abbreviation lim, used in mathematics to designate the limit of a sequence or a function, see limit. In metaphysics, material objects are limited by matter and therefore are delimited from each other, in ethics, men must know their limitations and are wise if they do. An etymology was given in detail by Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. According to him, it comes from Indo-European el-, elei-, lei-, to bow, to bend, the Latin meaning was discussed in detail by W. Gebert. The sense is that a limit bends across one in some way, the limes was a cross-path or a cross-wall, which the Romans meant to throw across the path of invaders to hinder them
22.
Alemanni
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The Alemanni were a confederation of Germanic tribes on the upper Rhine river. In 496, the Alemanni were conquered by Frankish leader Clovis, mentioned as still pagan allies of the Christian Franks, the Alemanni were gradually Christianized during the 7th century. The Pactus Alamannorum is a record of their customary law during this period, until the 8th century, Frankish suzerainty over Alemannia was mostly nominal. But after an uprising by Theudebald, Duke of Alamannia, Carloman executed the Alamannic nobility, during the later and weaker years of the Carolingian Empire the Alemannic counts became almost independent, and a struggle for supremacy took place between them and the Bishopric of Constance. According to Asinius Quadratus their name means all men and it indicates that they were a conglomeration drawn from various Germanic tribes. Other sources say the name derives from alahmannen which means men of sanctuary and not all men. The Romans and the Greeks called them as such mentioned and this etymology has remained the standard derivation of the term. Walafrid Strabo, a monk of the Abbey of St, the name of Germany and the German language in several languages is derived from the name of this early Germanic tribal alliance. For details, see Names of Germany, the Alemanni were first mentioned by Cassius Dio describing the campaign of Caracalla in 213. At that time they dwelt in the basin of the Main. Cassius Dio portrays the Alemanni as victims of this treacherous emperor and they had asked for his help, says Dio, but instead he colonized their country, changed their place names and executed their warriors under a pretext of coming to their aid. When he became ill, the Alemanni claimed to have put a hex on him, Caracalla, it was claimed, tried to counter this influence by invoking his ancestral spirits. In retribution Caracalla then led the Legio II Traiana Fortis against the Alemanni, the legion was as a result honored with the name Germanica. Not on good terms with Caracalla, Geta had been invited to a reconciliation, at which time he was ambushed by centurions in Caracallas army. True or not, Caracalla, pursued by devils of his own, Caracalla left for the frontier, where for the rest of his short reign he was known for his unpredictable and arbitrary operations launched by surprise after a pretext of peace negotiations. If he had any reasons of state for such actions they remained unknown to his contemporaries, whether or not the Alemanni had been previously neutral, they were certainly further influenced by Caracalla to become thereafter notoriously implacable enemies of Rome. This mutually antagonistic relationship is perhaps the reason why the Roman writers persisted in calling the Alemanni barbari, most of the Alemanni were probably at the time in fact resident in or close to the borders of Germania Superior. At that time the frontier was being fortified for the first time
23.
Danube
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The Danube is Europes second-longest river, after the Volga River, and also the longest river in the European Union region. It is located in Central and Eastern Europe, the Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, and today flows through 10 countries, more than any other river in the world. Its drainage basin extends into nine more countries, the Latin name Dānuvius is one of a number of Old European river names derived from a Proto-Indo-European *dānu. Other river names from the root include the Dunajec, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, dānu means fluid, drop, in Avestan, in the Rigveda, Dānu once appears as the mother of Vrtra. Known to the ancient Greeks as the Istros a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian name meaning strong, in Latin, the Danube was variously known as Danubius, Danuvius or as Ister. The Dacian/Thracian name was Donaris for the upper Danube and Istros for the lower Danube, the Thraco-Phrygian name was Matoas, the bringer of luck. The Latin name is masculine, as are all its Slavic names, the German Donau is feminine, as it has been re-interpreted as containing the suffix -ouwe wetland. Classified as a waterway, it originates in the town of Donaueschingen, in the Black Forest of Germany, at the confluence of the rivers Brigach. The Danube then flows southeast for about 2,800 km, passing through four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea via the Danube Delta in Romania and its drainage basin extends into nine more. The highest point of the basin is the summit of Piz Bernina at the Italy–Switzerland border. The land drained by the Danube extends into other countries. Many Danubian tributaries are important rivers in their own right, navigable by barges, from its source to its outlet into the Black Sea, its main tributaries are, The Danube flows through many cities, including four national capitals, more than any other river in the world. Danube remains a mountain river until Passau, with average bottom gradient 0. 0012%. Middle Section, From Devín Gate to Iron Gate, at the border of Serbia and Romania, the riverbed widens and the average bottom gradient becomes only 0. 00006%. Lower Section, From Iron Gate to Sulina, with average gradient as little as 0. 00003%, about 60 of its tributaries are also navigable. In 1994 the Danube was declared one of ten Pan-European transport corridors, routes in Central, the amount of goods transported on the Danube increased to about 100 million tons in 1987. In 1999, transport on the river was difficult by the NATO bombing of three bridges in Serbia during the Kosovo War
24.
Franks
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Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of Western Europe. The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Dutch, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, respectively, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts, and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is also another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning. Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy
25.
Clovis I
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He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. Clovis was the son of Childeric I, a Merovingian king of the Salian Franks, and Basina, in 481, at the age of fifteen, Clovis succeeded his father. Clovis is important in the historiography of France as the first king of what would become France and his name is Germanic, composed of the elements hlod and wig, and is the origin of the later French given name Louis, borne by 18 kings of France. Dutch, the most closely related language to Frankish, reborrowed the name as Lodewijk from German in the 12th century. Clovis was baptized on Christmas Day in 508, numerous small Frankish kingdoms existed during the 5th century. After the collapse of Roman power in the last days of 406 the Salian Franks had expanded to the south of the military highway Boulogne-Cologne. The powerbase of Clovis father was the area around Tournai, in the current province of Hainault, upon the death of his father, Merovech in 457 Childeric I, Clovis father, became king of the subgroup of the Salian Franks based around Tournai. In 463 he fought in conjunction with Aegidius, the magister militum of northern Gaul, Childeric died in 481 and was buried in Tournai, Clovis succeeded him as king, aged just 15. Under Clovis, the Salian Franks came to dominate their neighbours, historians believe that Childeric and Clovis were both commanders of the Roman military in the Province of Belgica Secunda and were subordinate to the magister militum. Clovis then had the Frankish king Chararic imprisoned and executed, a few years later, he killed Ragnachar, the Frankish king of Cambrai, along with his brothers. Another victory followed in 491 over a group of Thuringians to the east. By this time Clovis had conquered all the Frankish kingdoms to the west of the River Maas and he secured an alliance with the Ostrogoths through the marriage of his sister Audofleda to their king, Theodoric the Great. With the help of the Ripuarian Franks he narrowly defeated the Alamanni in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496 and he made Paris his capital and established an abbey dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul on the south bank of the Seine. In 500 Clovis fought a battle with the Burgundian kingdom at Dijon but was unable to subdue them, the battle added most of Aquitaine to Clovis kingdom and resulted in the death of the Visigothic king Alaric II. According to Gregory of Tours, following the Battle of Vouillé, since Clovis name does not appear in the consular lists, it is likely he was granted a suffect consulship. Clovis became the first king of all Franks in 508, after he had conquered Cologne and this contrasted with Catholicism, whose followers believe that God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three persons of one being. By the time of the ascension of Clovis, Gothic Arians dominated Christian Gaul and this included his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian princess who was a Catholic in spite of the Arianism that surrounded her at court. Clotilde evangelized Clovis to convert to Catholicism, which he initially resisted, Clotilde had wanted her son to be baptized, but Clovis refused to allow it, so Clotilde had the child baptized without Cloviss knowledge
26.
Reformation
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The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits. In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague. Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds. It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable
27.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
28.
Alliance
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Members of an alliance are called allies. Alliances form in many settings, including political alliances, military alliances, when the term is used in the context of war or armed struggle, such associations may also be called allied powers, especially when discussing World War I or World War II. A formal military alliance is not required for being perceived as an ally—co-belligerence, according to this usage, allies become so not when concluding an alliance treaty but when struck by war. When spelled with a capital A, Allies usually denotes the countries who fought together against the Central Powers in World War I, the term has also been used by the United States Army to describe the countries that gave assistance to the South Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. Bush administration, the coalition of the willing, some, such as the Russian Empire, withdrew from the war before the armistice due to revolution or defeat. Scholars are divided as to the impact of alliances, several studies find that defensive alliances deter conflict. One study questions these findings, showing that alliance commitments deterred conflict in the era but has no statistically meaningful impact on war in the postnuclear era. Another study finds that while alliance commitments deter conflict between sides with a recent history of conflict, alliances tend to provoke conflicts between states such a history. A2003 study found that allies fulfill their alliance commitments approximately 75% of the time, according to a 2017 poll by WIN/GIA, the United States was the most preferred ally internationally. Russia and China, who preferred one another, both trailed the US globally, four countries, Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia and Turkey, preferred Russia, despite being members of NATO. In Pakistan, 72% of respondents preferred ties to China, the largest margin of any country surveyed, while 46% of Bangladesh preferred India. A total of 22 countries indicated a preference for the United Kingdom at a rate of 10% or more, five counties preferred France at a rate of 10% or more, led by Belgium at a rate of 25%. Kosovo reported the most unified opinion, preferring the US at a rate of 92%, in total,21 countries expressed a preference for the US at a rate of 50% or more
29.
South Baden
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South Baden, formed in December 1945 from the southern half of the former Republic of Baden, was a subdivision of the French occupation zone of post-World War II Germany. The state was renamed to Baden and became a founding state of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. In 1952, Baden became part of the modern German state of Baden-Württemberg, at the Yalta Conference in 1945, France was allocated an occupation zone for the administration of post-war Germany. The south-west of Germany - previously consisting of Baden, Württemberg, the border between the two zones was set so that the Autobahn connecting Karlsruhe and Munich was completely contained within the American zone, Bavaria was also placed under American administration. In the French zone, Hohenzollern and the half of Württemberg were merged to form Württemberg-Hohenzollern. The southern half of Baden was established as South Baden on 1 December 1945, freiburg was designated as the capital of South Baden, the former capital of Baden was in the American zone. To reinforce this claim, the constitution adopted the pre-World War II Baden flag. The constitution also made it clear that the name of the state was Baden instead of South Baden. In 1949, the Baden parliament voted in favour of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, for the first year of its existence, South Baden was directly governed by the French military administration. In April 1947, the BCSV became associated with the federal Christian Democratic Union, on 24 July 1947 the first and only state elections were held in Baden, with Wohlebs CDU winning an absolute majority of 55. 9%. The SPB - the Baden branch of the SPD - came second with 22. 4%, since the French military administration still held many key executive powers in Baden, a single-party government was not possible despite the CDUs absolute majority. Attempts to form an all-party government failed, owing to disagreements regarding the inclusion of the Communist party, eventually, a grand coalition between the CDU and SPB was formed, with Wohleb as minister-president. With the end of rule in West Germany, the three western powers requested that state leaders should re-examine and finalise the borders that had been established during occupation. In the south west, it was undecided whether Baden and Württemberg should be re-established as separate states or merged to form a new state, in Baden, Wohleb was a strong opponent of a merger. In 1950, a referendum regarding the merger of the three states was carried out. Within the pre-1945 borders of Baden, the merger was rejected and this vote in Baden was outweighed by the more populous Württemberg, where the merger was accepted. Following this referendum, the three south-west states were merged to form the modern German state of Baden-Württemberg on 25 April 1952, various legal contests were mounted against the referendum and the resulting merger. The newly founded Federal Constitutional Court of Germany rejected a nullification of the referendum in 1951, in 1956, the court concluded that the referendum in Baden was not accepted by the majority and should be repeated
30.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
31.
West Germany
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West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states and this period is referred to as the Bonn Republic by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, US and British forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990, the city of Bonn was its de facto capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone was held by the Soviet Union, as a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs, Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany claimed a mandate for all of Germany. It took the line that the GDR was an illegally constituted puppet state, though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not free and fair. For all practical purposes the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, from the West German perspective the GDR was therefore illegitimate. Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, in addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. It recognised the GDR as a de facto government within a single German nation that in turn was represented de jure by the West German state alone. From 1973 onward, East Germany recognised the existence of two German countries de jure, and the West as both de facto and de jure foreign country, the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for an alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union, when the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin and they formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany
32.
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
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The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is the constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Basic Law was approved on 8 May 1949 in Bonn and its original field of application comprised the states of the Trizone that were initially included in the then West German Federal Republic of Germany, but not West Berlin. As part of the Two Plus Four Agreement of 1990 between the two parts of Germany and all four Allied Powers, a series of amendments were agreed to be implemented. In the subsequent Unification Treaty of 1990, this amended Basic Law was adopted as the constitution for a united Germany, the German word Grundgesetz may be translated as either Basic Law or Fundamental Law. Nevertheless, although the amended Basic Law was finally to be approved in 1990 by the full Allied Powers, the authors of the Basic Law sought to ensure that a potential dictator would never again have the chance to come into power in the country. Although some of the Basic Law is based on the Weimar republic constitution, Fundamental rights are guaranteed in Germany by the Federal Constitution and in some state constitutions. In the Basic Law, most fundamental rights are guaranteed in the first section of the same name and they are subjective public rights with constitutional rank which bind all authorities of the state. Hence, these rights are called the rights identical to fundamental rights, since initially the Basic Law did not apply for all of Germany, its legal provisions were only valid in its field of application. This legal term was used in West German legislation when West German laws did not apply to the entirety of Germany. Article 23 of the Basic Law provided other de jure German states, initially not included in the field of application of the Basic Law, therefore, although the Basic Law was considered provisional, it allowed more parts of Germany to join its field of application. In other parts of Germany it shall be put into force on their accession, the Saar held no separate referendum on its accession. The Communist regime in East Germany fell in 1990, East Germanys declaration of accession included the East German territories into the field of application of the Basic Law. After the changes of the Basic Law, mostly pertaining to the accession in 1990, the negotiations ended with the conclusion that a democratic and federal West German state was to be established. These papers—amongst other points—summoned the Ministerpräsidenten to arrange a constitutional assembly, with the specific request of a federal structure of a future German state the Western Powers followed German constitutional tradition since the foundation of the Reich in 1871. The Ministerpräsidenten were reluctant to fulfill what was expected from them, a few days later they convened a conference of their own on Rittersturz ridge near Koblenz. They decided that any of the Frankfurt requirements should only be implemented in a formally provisional way, so the constitutional assembly was to be called Parlamentarischer Rat and the constitution given the name of Grundgesetz instead of calling it a constitution. The Ministerpräsidenten prevailed and the Western Powers gave in concerning this highly symbolic question, the draft was prepared at the preliminary Herrenchiemsee convention on the Herreninsel in the Chiemsee, a lake in southeastern Bavaria. The delegates at the Convention were appointed by the leaders of the newly formed Länder, on 1 September 1948 the Parlamentarischer Rat began working on the exact wording of the Grundgesetz
33.
Referendum
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A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new law, in some countries it is synonymous with a plebiscite or a vote on a ballot question. Some definitions of plebiscite suggest that it is a type of vote to change the constitution or government of a country, however, some other countries define it differently. For example, Australia defines referendum as a vote to change the constitution, the addition of the verb sum to a gerundive, denotes the idea of necessity or compulsion, that which must be done, rather than that which is fit for doing). This determines the form of the plural in English, which according to English grammar should be referendums, the use of referenda as a plural form in English is thus insupportable according to the rules of both Latin and English grammar alike. The Latin plural gerundive referenda, meaning things to be referred, compare also, Agenda those matters which must be driven forward, from ago, to drive, Memorandum, that matter which must be remembered, from memoro, to call to mind, etc. The name and use of the referendum is thought to have originated in the Swiss canton of Graubünden as early as the 16th century. Today, a referendum can also often be referred to as a plebiscite, for example, Australia defines referendum as a vote to change the constitution, and plebiscite as a vote that does not affect the constitution. In contrast, Ireland has only held one plebiscite, which was the vote to adopt its constitution. Of that which has most definitely already occurred and this is in line with Eamon De Valeras oft stated belief that the people do not have the right to do wrong which in this context means to reject his new Eire constitution. The term referendum covers a variety of different meanings, a referendum can be binding or advisory. In some countries, different names are used for two types of referendum. From a political-philosophical perspective, referendums are an expression of direct democracy, however, in the modern world, most referendums need to be understood within the context of representative democracy. Australia ranked second with dozens of referendums, a referendum usually offers the electorate a choice of accepting or rejecting a proposal, but this is not necessarily the case. In Switzerland, for example, multiple choice referendums are common and this question can be resolved by applying voting systems designed for single winner elections to a multiple-choice referendum. Swiss referendums get around this problem by offering a separate vote on each of the options as well as an additional decision about which of the multiple options should be preferred. In the Swedish case, in both referendums the winning option was chosen by the Single Member Plurality system, in other words, the winning option was deemed to be that supported by a plurality, rather than an absolute majority, of voters. In the 1977, Australian referendum, the winner was chosen by the system of preferential instant-runoff voting, the 1992 New Zealand poll, was counted under the two-round system, as were polls in Newfoundland and Guam, for example
34.
Rhineland-Palatinate
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Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 square kilometres and about four million inhabitants, Rhineland-Palatinate is located in western Germany and borders Belgium, Luxembourg and France, and the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Saarland. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate dates from 30 August 1946, as of 201044. 9% of the population of the state adhered to the Roman Catholic Church,30. 6% to the Evangelical Church in Germany. 22. 0% of the population is irreligious or adheres to other religions, muslims made up 2. 5% of the total. The league of ShUM-cities in the later Rhineland-Palatinate comprised the Jewish communities of Mainz, Speyer, the Takkanot Shum, or Enactments of ShUM were a set of decrees formulated and agreed upon over a period of decades by their Jewish community leaders. Rhineland-Palatinate leads all German states with a rate of approximately 50%. Important sectors are the industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry. Distinctive regional industries includes gemstone industry, ceramic and glass industry, small and medium enterprises are considered the backbone of the economy in Rhineland-Palatinate. The principal employer is the chemical and plastics processing industry which is represented by BASF in Ludwigshafen, boehringer, Joh. A. Benckiser, SGE Deutsche Holding, Schott Glassworks concludes the top 5 companies in the state. Rhineland-Palatinate is Germanys leading producer of wine in terms of grape cultivation, of thirteen wine regions producing quality wine in Germany, six are located in Rhineland-Palatinate, with 65% to 70% of the production of wine grapes in Germany having their origin within the state. 13,000 wine producers generate 80% to 90% of the German wine export, traditional grape varieties and a wide range of varieties developed during the last 125 years are characteristic for the region. Classical white varieties are cultivated at 63,683 hectares and these comprise the famous Rieslings 14,446 hectares, Müller-Thurgau, Silvaner and Kerner. The share of red varieties grew constantly during the last decades, dornfelder, a new cultivar, is the leading red grape cultivated on 7,626 hectares, which is more than a third. Blauer Portugieser and Spätburgunder show also appreciable cultivated shares, the state supports the wine industry by providing a comprehensive consultancy and education program in the service supply centers of the land. The Geilweilerhof Institute for Grape Breeding is fully financed by the state, many well known new breeds, such as Morio-Muskat, Bacchus, Optima and Regent have been created in these institutes. The worldwide leader in sparkling wine production, producing 245 million bottles in 2006, is the renowned Schloss Wachenheim Group and this company is headquartered in Trier, with operations in several locations in Rhineland-Palatinate
35.
Hesse
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Hesse or Hessia is a federal state of the Federal Republic of Germany, with just over six million inhabitants. The state capital is Wiesbaden, the largest city is Frankfurt am Main, the English name Hesse originates in the Hessian dialects. The variant Hessia comes from the medieval Latin Hassia, the German term Hessen is used by the European Commission because their policy is to leave regional names untranslated. The term Hesse ultimately derives from a Germanic tribe called the Chatti, an inhabitant of Hesse is called a Hessian. The synthetic element hassium, number 108 on the table, is named after the state of Hesse. As early as the Paleolithic period, the Central Hessian region was inhabited, due to the favorable climate of the location, people lived there about 50,000 years ago during the last glacial period, as burial sites show from this era. Finds of paleolitical tools in southern Hesse in Rüsselsheim suggest Pleistocene hunters about 13,000 years ago, the Züschen tomb is a prehistoric burial monument, located between Lohne and Züschen, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany. Classified as a grave or a Hessian-Westphalian stone cist, it is one of the most important megalithic monuments in Central Europe. Dating to the fourth millennium BC, it belongs to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture. An early Celtic presence in what is now Hesse is indicated by a mid-fifth-century BC La Tène style burial uncovered at Glauberg, the region was later settled by the Germanic Chatti tribe around the first century BC, and the name Hesse is a continuation of that tribal name. The ancient Romans had a camp in Dorlar, and in Waldgirmes directly on the eastern outskirts of Wetzlar was a civil settlement under construction. Presumably, the government for the occupied territories of the right bank of Germania was planned at this location. The governor of Germania, at least temporarily, likely had resided here, the settlement appears to have been abandoned by the Romans after the devastating Battle of the Teutoburg Forest failed in the year 9 AD. The Chatti were also involved in the Revolt of the Batavi in 69 AD, Hessia occupies the northwestern part of the modern German state of Hesse, its borders were not clearly delineated. Its geographic center is Fritzlar, it extends in the southeast to Hersfeld on the Fulda river, in the north to past Kassel and up to the rivers Diemel, to the west, it occupies the valleys of the rivers Eder and Lahn. It measured roughly 90 kilometers north-south, and 80 north-west, the area around Fritzlar shows evidence of significant pagan belief from the first century on. Excavations have produced a horse burial and bronze artifacts, a possible religious cult may have centered on a natural spring in Geismar, called Heilgenbron, the name Geismar itself may be derived from that spring. By 650, the Franks were establishing themselves as overlords, which is suggested by evidence of burials
36.
Bavaria
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Bavaria is a free state and one of 16 federal states of Germany. Located in the German southeast with an area of 70,548 square kilometres and its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and, with 12.9 million inhabitants, it is Germanys second most populous state. Munich, Bavarias capital and largest city, is the third largest city in Germany, the Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century CE, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, when Bavaria became a republic. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War, Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the states Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes such as Oktoberfest. The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Swabia. The Bavarians emerged in a north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, the name Bavarian means Men of Baia which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BCE. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria and their daughter, Theodelinde, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibalds successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the frontier against the expansion of Slavs. Tassilos son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616, after Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and his son, Theudebert, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, and married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodos death the duchy was divided among his sons, at Hugberts death the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighbouring Alemannia. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748, saint Boniface completed the peoples conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria was in ways affected by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
37.
Grand Est
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Grand Est, previously Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine, is a French administrative region in northeastern France. It superseded three former administrative regions—Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne, and Lorraine—on 1 January 2016, as a result of reform which was passed by the French legislature in 2014. Frances Conseil dÉtat approved Grand Est as the new name of the region on 28 September 2016, the administrative capital and largest city is Strasbourg. The formula for the name of the region was established by the territorial reform law and applied to all. The provisional name of the region was retired on 30 September 2016, in Alsace and in Lorraine, the new region has frequently been called ALCA, for Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardennes, on the internet. In a poll conducted in November 2014 by France 3 in Champagne-Ardenne, Grand Est, Grand Est also topped a poll the following month conducted by LEst Republicain, receiving 42% of 3,324 votes. The term has commonly used and has topped the polls mentioned above. Grand Est Europe is a variant of Grand Est that alludes to the region being a gateway to Europe both through trade and since Strasbourg is home to several European institutions, however, the name has been mocked for how it could suggest that the region is in Eastern Europe. Austrasie, which refers to a region spanning parts of present-day northeast France, the Benelux. Quatre frontières, which refers to the border with four countries, has also been discussed. Grand Est covers 57,433 square kilometres of land and is the sixth-largest of the regions of France effective 1 January 2016, Grand Est borders four countries—Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Switzerland—along its northern and eastern sides. It is the only French region to more than two countries. To the west and south, it borders the French regions Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, Île-de-France, Grand Est contains ten departments, Ardennes, Aube, Bas-Rhin, Marne, Haute-Marne, Haut-Rhin, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle, Vosges. The main ranges in the include the Vosges to the east. The region is border on the east by the Rhine which forms most of the border with Germany, other major rivers which flow through the region include, the Meuse, Moselle, Marne, and Saône. Lakes in the include, lac de Gérardmer, lac de Longemer, lac de Retournemer, lac des Corbeaux, Lac de Bouzey, lac de Madine, étang du Stock. ACAL is the merger of three regions, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne, and Lorraine, the merger has been strongly opposed in Alsace. The region has an population of 5,554,645
listen)) is a state in Germany located in the southwest, east of the Upper Rhine that forms the border with France. It is Germany’s third-largest state in terms of size and population, with an area of 35,751 km2 (13,804 sq mi) and 10.8 million inhabitants.[5] The state capital and largest city is Stuttgart.
6.1
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50,645
53,777
56,969
53,777
56,969
-5,050
Turkey
Italy
Romania
Croatia
Poland
Greece
Syria
Kosovo
Hungary
Serbia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Bulgaria
France
Iraq
Portugal
Russia
Austria
Spain
Afghanistan
China
Geographic data related to Baden-Württemberg at OpenStreetMap
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