Бавария как пишется на немецком

бавария

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Translation of «Бавария» into German

Bayern, Baiern, FC Bayern Alzenau are the top translations of «Бавария» into German.
Sample translated sentence: Бавария обладает собственной конституцией. ↔ Polynesien hat zudem eine eigene parlamentarische Verfassung.

Бавария



proper
существительное женского рода


grammar

Бавария (футбольный клуб, Мюнхен) [..]

• Bayern

  
  proper
  noun
  neuter
  

  
  Ein Freistaat mit einer Fläche von 70.553 km2 und 12,4 Millionen Einwohnern, das südlichste Bundesland des heutigen Deutschlands. Die Hauptstadt ist München.

  Полный список городов в Бавария в которых Вы можете заказывать хостелы и другие типы дешевого проживания с Hostelsclub.

  Dies ist die Liste der Städte in Bayern , in denen ihr Hostels und andere Unterkünfte über Hostelsclub buchen könnt..

• FC Bayern Alzenau

  
  Бавария (футбольный клуб, Альценау)

• • FC Bayern München
  • Freistaat Bayern

• 

• 

• bayern

  Полный список городов в Бавария в которых Вы можете заказывать хостелы и другие типы дешевого проживания с Hostelsclub.

  Dies ist die Liste der Städte in Bayern , in denen ihr Hostels und andere Unterkünfte über Hostelsclub buchen könnt..

Что теперь делать, после того как герцог Стефан захватил в Верхней Баварии власть и влияние!

Was war, nachdem Herzog Stephan Macht und Einfluß in Oberbayern an sich gerissen, zu tun?

Сторонники ХСС вне Баварии оказали меньшую поддержку, чем ожидалось.

Die Freundeskreise der CSU außerhalb Bayerns beteiligten sich ebenfalls in deutlich geringerem Umfang als erwartet.

После прихода к власти нацистов Краусер с 1 мая по 31 декабря 1933 года был представителем в Баварии командования созданной из членов СА Вспомогательной защитной полиции.

Nach der „Machtergreifung“ der Nationalsozialisten amtierte Kraußer vom 1. Mai bis zum 31. Dezember 1933 als Vertreter des Kommandeurs der Sicherheitshilfspolizei in Bayern, die auch aus SA-Mitgliedern gebildet wurde.

Эта цель была также закреплена в Московской декларации трёх держав антигитлеровской коалиции, подписанной 30 октября 1943 года, на которой последовательно настаивал именно Советский Союз, противостоя планам Черчилля и Рузвельта превратить Австрию в государственное образование в составе Южной Германии вместе с Баварией и Баден-Вюртембергом.

Dieses Kriegsziel wurde in der Moskauer Deklaration der drei Hauptmächte der Anti-Hitler-Koalition vom 30. Oktober 1943 verankert, wobei es die Sowjetunion war, die es fortan am konsequentesten vertrat und nach wie vor bestehenden Plänen Churchills und Roosevelts, Österreich in einen süddeutschen Teilstaat zusammen mit Bayern und Baden-Württemberg (bzw. in eine Konföderation dieser Gebiete mit Ungarn) einzugliedern, eine Absage erteilte.

Бавария обладает собственной конституцией.

Polynesien hat zudem eine eigene parlamentarische Verfassung.

Кленк не был глуп, Кленк любил свою Баварию.

Klenk war nicht dumm, Klenk liebte sein Land Bayern.

Почти два года Сюльпис занимал должность главного хранителя Баварии, а затем с 1836 года отправился путешествовать.

Boisserée hatte für fast zwei Jahre das Amt des bayerischen Generalkonservators inne, bevor er sich 1836 auf Reisen begab.

В Баварии уже с давних пор так приводили доводы, жестко и окончательно, как при продаже скота.

In Bayern wurde seit Urzeiten schon so argumentiert, hart und viehhändlerisch endgültig.

Примером статистической территории является Баварский квартал в районе Шёнеберг, где большинство улиц получили свои названия по городам Баварии.

Ein solches Statistisches Gebiet ist zum Beispiel das Bayerische Viertel in Schöneberg, in dem die Straßen vor allem nach Städten in Bayern benannt sind.

С 1975 по 1985 года он был заместителем председателя СДПГ в Баварии.

Von 1975 bis 1985 war er Stellvertretender Landesvorsitzender der SPD in Bayern.

После роспуска кабинета в феврале 1849 года протестант Пфордтен занял в апреле 1849 года должность министра иностранных дел Баварии, а в декабре того же года возглавил Совет министров Баварии.

Nach dessen Ende am 24. Februar 1849 wurde der Protestant von der Pfordten im April 1849 Minister des Bayerischen Staatsministeriums des Äußern, im Dezember desselben Jahres übernahm er dort auch den Vorsitz im Ministerrat.

Федеральная земля Бавария.

Bundesland Bayern.

Супруги провели медовый месяц в Уэльсе, Париже и Алжире, однако расстались ещё до того, как вернулась в Баварию.

Das Paar verbrachte die Flitterwochen in Wales, Paris und Algier, trennte sich aber aus privaten Gründen noch während der Hochzeitsreise.

— воскликнул он. — Тогда вы единственный человек, которому неизвестно то, что знают все от Баварии до Румынии

Da wären Sie der einzige, der das nicht wüßte, was von Bayern bis Rumänien jedem Kinde bekannt ist

Том — настоящий баварец и знает Баварию как свои пять пальцев.

Tom ist ein echter Bayer und kennt Bayern wie seine Westentasche.

Он находит нужным, чтобы правительство объявило в Баварии чрезвычайное положение.

Er beantrage, die Regierung möge den Ausnahmezustand über Bayern verhängen.

В окрестностях Шонгау нет так называемых катакомб, хотя в Баварии таковые есть повсеместно.

Sogenannte Schrazellöcher gibt es in der Gegend von Schongau nicht, wohl aber an vielen anderen Orten in Bayern.

Он по существу идентичен территории Верхней Баварии.

Er ist im Wesentlichen identisch mit dem Gebiet Oberbayerns.

Правильное название этой организации — Древние Видящие Иллюминаты Баварии.

Der korrekte Name ihrer Organisation lautet Alte Illuminierte Seher von Bayern.

предлагает соответствующим государствам-членам принять активное участие в региональных конференциях, которые будут проводиться под эгидой региональных комиссий в Бухаресте в ноябре 2002 года и в Баваро, Доминиканская Республика, и Токио в январе 2003 года;

bittet die Mitgliedstaaten, die es betrifft, aktiv an den Regionalkonferenzen mitzuwirken, die unter der Schirmherrschaft der Regionalkommissionen im November 2002 in Bukarest sowie im Januar 2003 in Bávaro (Dominikanische Republik) und in Tokio stattfinden werden;

За день до победы в «Эйнтри Боул» нас выбила из Лиги чемпионов мюнхенская «Бавария», и чувствовал я себя просто паршиво.

Am Tag vor dem Aintree-Rennen hatten wir in der Champions League gegen Bayern München verloren.

В ту пору в Дрезбане, деревушке в западной Баварии, вспыхнула чума.

In Dresbahn, einem Dorf im westlichen Bayern, wütete zu dieser Zeit eine schwere Seuche.

Возможно, он намерен перевезти ребенка в Баварию.

Wahrscheinlich würde er versuchen, das Kind zurück nach Bayern zu verschleppen.

В 1929 году после многочисленных арестов в одном из районов Баварии (Германия) они наняли два поезда. Один отправился из Берлина, другой — из Дрездена.

Nachdem es 1929 in einem Bezirk Bayerns wiederholt zu Verhaftungen gekommen war, setzte man zwei Sonderzüge ein — der eine fuhr in Berlin ab, der andere in Dresden.

И вот там-то наконец я обнаружил имя, которое искал, в списках офицеров Баварии.

Und da endlich fand ich, was ich suchte, in der Rangliste der bayerischen Offiziere.

На основании Вашего запроса эти примеры могут содержать грубую лексику.

На основании Вашего запроса эти примеры могут содержать разговорную лексику.

Перевод «бавария» на немецкий

Предложения

Это Бруклин, приятель, не Бавария.

Das hier ist Brooklyn, Kumpel, nicht Bayern.

Бавария получит принцессу, а Франция будет иметь доступ к новым торговым путям.

Bayern bekommt eine Prinzessin und Frankreich wird Zugang zu neuen Handelswegen haben.

Хартман купил большой участок земель у Пахаля, назвал его «Вилла Бавария«, и основал на нем так называемую «Колонию», которая была уничтожена пожаром в 1980 году.

Hartmann kaufte ein grobes Gut bei Pajal, die Villa Bavaria, die sogenannte Colonia , die 1980 von einem Brand zerstört wurde.

Целью восставших были защита Конституции германской Империи, а также отделение от королевства Бавария.

Ziel der Revolutionäre waren die Verteidigung der Frankfurter Reichsverfassung und die Loslösung vom Königreich Bayern.

Затем его территория присоединяется к Королевству Бавария.

Anschließend gelangte der Ort an das Königreich Bayern.

Впоследствии Тримбах работал в Свободном государстве Бавария на должностях прокурора и судьи, а также в Федеральном министерстве юстиции в Бонне.

Im Anschluss arbeitete Trimbach im Freistaat Bayern als Staatsanwalt und Richter sowie im Bundesministerium der Justiz in Bonn.

В 1813 году праздник не состоялся, так как в это время Бавария была втянута в Наполеоновские войны.

1813 fiel das Fest aus, da Bayern in die napoleonischen Kriege verwickelt war.

И когда Бавария пропустила гол, он просто оттолкнул от себя соперника и получил красную.

Als die Bayern ein Tor kassieren, grätscht er von hinten in die Hacken.

Bayern 2 (нем. Бавария 2) — немецкая общественная радиостанция.

Hörfunksendung (60′, Bayern 2) für Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Некоторые немецкие государства (Бавария, Саксония, Ганновер и епископство Мюнстер) согласились присоединиться к шведско-французскому альянсу.

Einige deutsche Staaten (Bayern, das Kurfürstentum Sachsen, Hannover, Bistum Münster) erklärten sich bereit, dem schwedisch-französischen Bündnis beizutreten.

В 2006 году Бавария стала первой за последние 30 лет федеральной землёй Германии, принявшей бездефицитный бюджет.

Die CSU hat im Haushaltsjahr 2006 für Bayern als erstes Bundesland einen Haushalt ohne Neuverschuldung vorgelegt.

Тем самым на Пфордтена легла ответственность за то, что Бавария фактически торпедировала проект Эрфуртского союза.

Vor diesem Hintergrund war er mitverantwortlich dafür, dass Bayern das Projekt der Erfurter Union faktisch torpedierte.

В отличие от христианско-консервативных партий других земель, которые в 1950 году объединились в Христианско-демократический союз (ХДС), ХСС так и остался самостоятельным и организационно ограниченным только рамками земли Бавария.

Anders als die christlich-konservativen Parteien in den anderen Bundesländern, die sich 1950 zur CDU zusammenschlossen, blieb die CSU selbstständig und organisatorisch auf Bayern beschränkt, analog der Bayerischen Volkspartei in der Weimarer Republik.

По итогам войны за баварское наследство он возглавил в 1777 г. весь род Виттельсбахов, так что под скипетром Карла Теодора впервые за многие столетия объединились их основные территории — Пфальц и Бавария.

1777 wurden auch die bayerischen Wittelsbacher beerbt, so dass unter Karl Theodor die großen wittelsbachischen Länder Pfalz und Bayern zum ersten Mal seit Jahrhunderten wieder vereinigt waren.

После окончания средней школы в 1984 году в Тутцинге (Бавария), он изучал право, политологию, историю и исламистику в университетах Инсбрука, Мадрида и Мюнхена в 1984-1993 годах.

Nach seinem Abitur 1984 in Tutzing (Bayern) studierte er von 1984 bis 1993 Rechtswissenschaft, Politikwissenschaften, Geschichte und Islamistik in Innsbruck, Madrid und München.

В 2014 году Бавария была вторым по популярности туристическим направлением в Германии, уступая только Мекленбургу-Передней Померании (в расчет идут поездки с минимальной длительностью в 5 дней).

Nach Mecklenburg-Vorpommern war Bayern im Jahre 2014 das zweitbeliebteste innerdeutsche Urlaubsziel (gemessen an Reisen ab fünf Tagen Dauer).

ФК «Бавария» Мюнхен использует концепцию общественной ценности для для более структурированного понимания с точки зрения роли клуба в обществе тех вызовов, которые связаны с становлением клуба, как международного бренда в области развлечений.

Der FC Bayern München nutzt den Public Value-Ansatz, um in strukturierter Weise die Herausforderungen in Bezug auf die gesellschaftliche Rolle des Vereins zu erfassen, die mit dem Wachstum zu einer globalen Entertainmentmarke einhergehen.

Тюрингия граничит с федеральными землями Гессен (270 км), Бавария (381 км), Саксония (265 км), Саксония-Анхальт (296 км) и Нижняя Саксония (112 км).

Thüringen liegt in der Mitte Deutschlands und grenzt an die Länder Hessen (Länge der Grenze 270 km), Bayern (381 km), Sachsen (265 km), Sachsen-Anhalt (296 km) und Niedersachsen (112 km).

Произведения искусства были помещены в хранилища в замках Нойшванштайн, Кимзее, Буксхайм (Бавария), замке Когль в Аттергау и Зайсенег (Австрия), Николсбург (Чехословакия).

Sie wurden in den Schlössern Neuschwanstein, Chiemsee, Buxheim (Bayern), Kogl im Attergau und Seisenegg (Österreich) und Nikolsburg (Tschechoslowakei) deponiert.

Мартовские общества на баварских территориях Пфальца, Франконии и Швабии требовали принятия Конституции, отмены монархии и отделения Пфальца и Франконии от Королевства Бавария.

Die Märzvereine in den bayerischen Gebieten der Pfalz, Frankens und Schwabens forderten nun über die Annahme der Reichsverfassung hinaus auch wieder die Abschaffung der Monarchie und die Loslösung der Pfalz und Frankens vom Königreich Bayern.

Ничего не найдено для этого значения.

Предложения, которые содержат бавария

Результатов: 42. Точных совпадений: 42. Затраченное время: 50 мс

Documents

Корпоративные решения

Спряжение

Синонимы

Корректор

Справка и о нас

Индекс слова: 1-300, 301-600, 601-900

Индекс выражения: 1-400, 401-800, 801-1200

Индекс фразы: 1-400, 401-800, 801-1200

Русско-немецкий словарь

Перевод «бавария» на немецкий язык: «Bayern»

Хартман купил большой участок земель у Пахаля, назвал его «Вилла Бавария«, и основал на нем так называемую «Колонию», которая была уничтожена пожаром в 1980 году.	Hartmann kaufte ein grobes Gut bei Pajal, die «Villa Bavaria«, die sogenannte «Colonia», die 1980 von einem Brand zerstört wurde. источник пожаловаться Corpus name: OpenSubtitles2016. License: not specified. References: http://opus.lingfil.uu.se/OpenSubtitles2016.php, http://stp.lingfil.uu.se/~joerg/published/ranlp-V.pdf
Это Бруклин, приятель, не Бавария.	Das hier ist Brooklyn, Kumpel, nicht Bayern. источник пожаловаться Corpus name: OpenSubtitles2016. License: not specified. References: http://opus.lingfil.uu.se/OpenSubtitles2016.php, http://stp.lingfil.uu.se/~joerg/published/ranlp-V.pdf
Нижняя Бавария	Niederbayern источник пожаловаться Langcrowd.com
Бавария	bayern источник пожаловаться Langcrowd.com
И когда Бавария пропустила гол, он просто оттолкнул от себя соперника и получил красную.	Als die Bayern ein Tor kassieren, grätscht er von hinten in die Hacken. источник пожаловаться Corpus name: OpenSubtitles2016. License: not specified. References: http://opus.lingfil.uu.se/OpenSubtitles2016.php, http://stp.lingfil.uu.se/~joerg/published/ranlp-V.pdf
Верхняя Бавария	Oberbayern источник пожаловаться Langcrowd.com
Бавария	Bavaria источник пожаловаться Langcrowd.com

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Free State of Bavaria Freistaat Bayern (German) Freistoot Bayern (Bavarian)
State
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Bayernhymne (German) «Hymn of Bavaria»
Coordinates: 49°04′43″N 11°23′08″E / 49.07861°N 11.38556°ECoordinates: 49°04′43″N 11°23′08″E / 49.07861°N 11.38556°E
Capital	Munich
Government
• Body	Landtag of Bavaria
• Minister-President	Markus Söder (CSU)
• Governing parties	CSU / FW
• Bundesrat votes	6 (of 69)
• Bundestag seats	117 (of 736)
Area
• Total	70,550.19 km2 (27,239.58 sq mi)
Population  (2019-12-31)
• Total	13,124,737
• Density	186/km2 (480/sq mi)
Demonym	Bavarian
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
ISO 3166 code	DE-BY
GRP (nominal)	€633 billion (2019)[2]
GRP per capita	€48,000 (2019)
NUTS Region	DE2
HDI (2018)	0.956[3] very high · 5th of 16
Website	www.bayern.de

Bavaria ( bə-VAIR-ee-ə; German: Bayern [ˈbaɪɐn] (listen)), officially the Free State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈbaɪɐn] (listen); Bavarian: Freistoot Bayern), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of 70,550.19 km² (27,239.58 sq mi), Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany. With over 13 million inhabitants, it is the second largest German state in terms of population only to North Rhine-Westphalia, but due to its large size its population density is below the German average. Bavaria’s main cities are Munich (its capital and largest city and also the third largest city in Germany),^[4] Nuremberg, and Augsburg.

The history of Bavaria includes its earliest settlement by Iron Age Celtic tribes, followed by the conquests of the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC, when the territory was incorporated into the provinces of Raetia and Noricum. It became the Duchy of Bavaria (a stem duchy) in the 6th century AD following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It was later incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire, became an independent kingdom after 1806, joined the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871 while retaining its title of kingdom, and finally became a state of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.^[5]

Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the state’s Catholic heritage and conservative traditions.^[6] Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes a language, cuisine, architecture, festivals and elements of Alpine symbolism.^[7] The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, giving it a status as a wealthy German region.^[8]

Contemporary Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia and Swabia.

History[edit]

Antiquity[edit]

The Bavarians emerged in a region north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts, which had been part of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum.

The Bavarians spoke a Germanic dialect which developed into Old High German during the early Middle Ages, however, unlike other Germanic groups, they probably did not migrate from elsewhere when Western Roman influence collapsed.

Rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by the 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, Heruli. The name «Bavarian» («Baiuvarii») means «Men of Baia» which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520.

A 17th century Jewish chronicler, David Gans, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BC.^[9]

Middle Ages[edit]

From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria, ending with Tassilo III who was deposed by Charlemagne.^[10]

Three early dukes are named in Frankish sources: Garibald I may have been appointed to the office by the Merovingian kings and married the Lombard princess Walderada when the church forbade her to King Chlothar I in 555. 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.

Garibald’s successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the eastern frontier against the expansion of Slavs and Avars around 600. Tassilo’s son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616.^[11]

After Garibald II, little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onward, he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and strengthen Christianity in his duchy. (It is unclear what Bavarian religious life consisted of before this time.)

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 Theodo’s death the duchy was divided among his sons, but reunited under his grandson Hugbert.

At Hugbert’s death (735) the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighboring Alemannia (modern southwest Germany and northern Switzerland). Odilo issued a law code for Bavaria, completed the process of church organization in partnership with St. Boniface (739), and tried to intervene in Frankish succession disputes by fighting for the claims of the Carolingian Grifo. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748.^[12][13]

Saint Boniface completed the people’s conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century.
Tassilo III (b. 741 – d. after 796) succeeded his father at the age of eight after an unsuccessful attempt by Grifo to rule Bavaria. He initially ruled under Frankish oversight but began to function independently from 763 onward. He was particularly noted for founding new monasteries and for expanding eastwards, fighting Slavs in the eastern Alps and along the Danube and colonizing these lands.

After 781, however, his cousin Charlemagne began to pressure Tassilo to submit and finally deposed him in 788. The deposition was not entirely legitimate.

Dissenters attempted a coup against Charlemagne at Tassilo’s old capital of Regensburg in 792, led by his own son Pépin the Hunchback. The king had to drag Tassilo out of imprisonment to formally renounce his rights and titles at the Assembly of Frankfurt in 794. This is the last appearance of Tassilo in the sources, and he probably died a monk. As all of his family were also forced into monasteries, this was the end of the Agilolfing dynasty.

For the next 400 years numerous families held the duchy, rarely for more than three generations. With the revolt of duke Henry the Quarrelsome in 976, Bavaria lost large territories in the south and south east.

The territory of Ostarrichi was elevated to a duchy in its own right and given to the Babenberger family. This event marks the founding of Austria. Later the counts of Tyrol next to other princes began to act more independently from the dukes of Bavaria, and the new Duchy of Merania was created from lordships once under the jurisdiction of the Duchy of Bavaria.

The last, and one of the most important, of the dukes of Bavaria was Henry the Lion of the house of Welf, founder of Munich, and de facto the second most powerful man in the empire as the ruler of two duchies. When in 1180, Henry the Lion was deposed as Duke of Saxony and Bavaria by his cousin, Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (a.k.a. «Barbarossa» for his red beard), Bavaria was awarded as fief to the Wittelsbach family, counts palatinate of Schyren («Scheyern» in modern German). They ruled for 738 years, from 1180 to 1918. In 1180 however also Styria was separated from Bavaria. The Electorate of the Palatinate by Rhine (Kurpfalz in German) was also acquired by the House of Wittelsbach in 1214, which they would subsequently hold for six centuries.^[14]

The first of several divisions of the duchy of Bavaria occurred in 1255. With the extinction of the Hohenstaufen in 1268, Swabian territories were acquired by the Wittelsbach dukes. Emperor Louis the Bavarian acquired Brandenburg, Tyrol, Holland and Hainaut for his House but released the Upper Palatinate for the Palatinate branch of the Wittelsbach in 1329. That time also Salzburg finally became independent from the Duchy of Bavaria.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, upper and lower Bavaria were repeatedly subdivided. Four Duchies existed after the division of 1392: Bavaria-Straubing, Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Munich. In 1506 with the Landshut War of Succession, the other parts of Bavaria were reunited, and Munich became the sole capital. The country became a center of the Jesuit-inspired Counter-Reformation.

Electorate of Bavaria[edit]

In 1623 the Bavarian duke replaced his relative of the Palatinate branch, the Electorate of the Palatinate in the early days of the Thirty Years’ War and acquired the powerful prince-electoral dignity in the Holy Roman Empire, determining its Emperor thence forward, as well as special legal status under the empire’s laws.

During the early and mid-18th century the ambitions of the Bavarian prince electors led to several wars with Austria as well as occupations by Austria (War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession with the election of a Wittelsbach emperor instead of a Habsburg).

From 1777 onward, and after the younger Bavarian branch of the family had died out with elector Max III Joseph, Bavaria and the Electorate of the Palatinate were governed once again in personal union, now by the Palatinian lines.

The new state also comprised the Duchies of Jülich and Berg as these on their part were in personal union with the Palatinate.

Kingdom of Bavaria[edit]

When Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire, Bavaria became – by grace of Napoleon – a kingdom in 1806 due, in part, to the Confederation of the Rhine.^[15]

Its area doubled after the Duchy of Jülich was ceded to France, as the Electoral Palatinate was divided between France and the Grand Duchy of Baden. The Duchy of Berg was given to Jerome Bonaparte. Tyrol and Salzburg were temporarily reunited with Bavaria but finally ceded to Austria by the Congress of Vienna.

In return Bavaria was allowed to annex the modern-day region of Palatinate to the west of the Rhine and Franconia in 1815. Between 1799 and 1817, the leading minister, Count Montgelas, followed a strict policy of modernisation copying Napoleonic France; he laid the foundations of centralized administrative structures that survived the monarchy and, in part, have retained core validity through the 20st century.

In May 1808, a first constitution was passed by Maximilian I,^[16] being modernized in 1818. This second version established a bicameral Parliament with a House of Lords (Kammer der Reichsräte) and a House of Commons (Kammer der Abgeordneten). That constitution was followed until the collapse of the monarchy at the end of World War I.

After the rise of Prussia to power in the early 18th century, Bavaria preserved its independence by playing off the rivalry of Prussia and Austria. Allied to Austria, it was defeated along with Austria in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War and was not incorporated into the North German Confederation of 1867, but the question of German unity was still alive. When France declared war on Prussia in 1870, all the south German states (Baden, Württemberg, Hessen-Darmstadt and Bavaria) aside from Austria, joined the Prussian forces and ultimately joined the Federation, which was renamed Deutsches Reich (German Empire) in 1871.

Bavaria continued formally as a monarchy, and it had some special rights within the federation (such as an army, railways, postal service and a diplomatic body of its own) but the diplomatic body were later undone by Wilhelm II who declared them illegal and got rid of the diplomatic service.^{[citation needed]}

Part of the German Empire[edit]

When Bavaria became part of the newly formed German Empire, this action was considered controversial by Bavarian nationalists who had wanted to retain independence from the rest of Germany, as had Austria.

As Bavaria had a heavily Catholic majority population, many people resented being ruled by the mostly Protestant northerners of Prussia. As a direct result of the Bavarian-Prussian feud, political parties formed to encourage Bavaria to break away and regain its independence.^[17]

In the early 20th century, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Henrik Ibsen, and other artists were drawn to Bavaria, especially to the Schwabing district of Munich, a center of international artistic activity.

Free State of Bavaria[edit]

Free State has been an adopted designation after the abolition of monarchy in the aftermath of World War I in several German states.

On 12 November 1918, Ludwig III signed a document, the Anif declaration, releasing both civil and military officers from their oaths; the newly formed republican government, or «People’s State» of Socialist premier Kurt Eisner,^[18] interpreted this as an abdication. To date, however, no member of the House of Wittelsbach has ever formally declared renunciation of the throne.^[19]

On the other hand, none has ever since officially called upon their Bavarian or Stuart claims. Family members are active in cultural and social life, including the head of the house, Franz, Duke of Bavaria. They step back from any announcements on public affairs, showing approval or disapproval solely by Franz’s presence or absence.

Eisner was assassinated in February 1919, ultimately leading to a Communist revolt and the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic being proclaimed 6 April 1919. After violent suppression by elements of the German Army and notably the Freikorps, the Bavarian Soviet Republic fell in May 1919. The Bamberg Constitution (Bamberger Verfassung) was enacted on 12 or 14 August 1919 and came into force on 15 September 1919 creating the Free State of Bavaria within the Weimar Republic.

Extremist activity further increased, notably the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch led by the National Socialists, and Munich and Nuremberg became seen as Nazi strongholds during the Weimar Republic and Nazi dictatorship. However, in the crucial German federal election, March 1933, the Nazis received less than 50% of the votes cast in Bavaria.

As a manufacturing centre, Munich was heavily bombed during World War II and was occupied by U.S. troops, becoming a major part of the American Zone of Allied-occupied Germany (1945–47) and then of «Bizonia».

The Rhenish Palatinate was detached from Bavaria in 1946 and made part of the new state Rhineland-Palatinate. During the Cold War, Bavaria was part of West Germany. In 1949, the Free State of Bavaria chose not to sign the Founding Treaty (Gründungsvertrag) for the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany, opposing the division of Germany into two countries after World War II.

The Bavarian Parliament did not sign the Basic Law of Germany, mainly because it was seen as not granting sufficient powers to the individual Länder (states), but at the same time decided that it would still come into force in Bavaria if two-thirds of the other Länder ratified it.
All of the other Länder ratified it, however, so it became law.^[20]

Bavarian identity[edit]

Bavarians have often emphasized a separate national identity and considered themselves as «Bavarians» first, «Germans» second.^[21]

In the 19th-century sense, an independent Bavarian State only existed from 1806 to 1871. This feeling started to come about more strongly among Bavarians when the Kingdom of Bavaria was forced by Bismarck to join the Protestant Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1871, while the Bavarian nationalists wanted to keep Bavaria as Catholic and an independent state. Aside from the minority Bavaria Party, most Bavarians now accept Bavaria is part of Germany.^[22]

Another consideration is that Bavarians foster different cultural identities: Franconia in the north, speaking East Franconian German; Bavarian Swabia in the south west, speaking Swabian German; and Altbayern (so-called «Old Bavaria», the regions forming the «historic», pentagon-shaped Bavaria before the acquisitions through the Vienna Congress, at present the districts of the Upper Palatinate, Lower and Upper Bavaria) speaking Austro-Bavarian.^{[citation needed]}

In Munich, the Old Bavarian dialect was widely spread, but nowadays High German is predominantly spoken there.

Flags and coat of arms[edit]

Flags[edit]

Uniquely among German states, Bavaria has two official flags of equal status, one with a white and blue stripe, the other with white and blue lozenges. Either may be used by civilians and government offices, who are free to choose between them.^[23] Unofficial versions of the flag, especially a lozenge style with coat of arms, are sometimes used by civilians.

Coat of arms[edit]

The modern coat of arms of Bavaria was designed by Eduard Ege in 1946, following heraldic traditions.

• The Golden Lion: At the dexter chief, sable, a lion rampant Or, armed and langued gules. This represents the administrative region of Upper Palatinate.
• The «Franconian Rake»: At the sinister chief, per fess dancetty, gules, and argent. This represents the administrative regions of Upper, Middle and Lower Franconia.
• The Blue «Pantier» (mythical creature from French heraldry, sporting a flame instead of a tongue): At the dexter base, argent, a Pantier rampant azure, armed Or and langued gules. This represents the regions of Lower and Upper Bavaria.
• The Three Lions: At the sinister base, Or, three lions passant guardant sable, armed and langued gules. This represents Swabia.
• The White-And-Blue inescutcheon: The inescutcheon of white and blue fusils askance was originally the coat of arms of the Counts of Bogen, adopted in 1247 by the House of Wittelsbach. The white-and-blue fusils are indisputably the emblem of Bavaria and these arms today symbolize Bavaria as a whole. Along with the People’s Crown, it is officially used as the Minor Coat of Arms.
• The People’s Crown (Volkskrone): The coat of arms is surmounted by a crown with a golden band inset with precious stones and decorated with five ornamental leaves. This crown first appeared in the coat of arms to symbolize sovereignty of the people after the royal crown was eschewed in 1923.

Geography[edit]

Bavaria shares international borders with Austria (Salzburg, Tyrol, Upper Austria and Vorarlberg) and the Czech Republic (Karlovy Vary, Plzeň and South Bohemian Regions), as well as with Switzerland (across Lake Constance to the Canton of St. Gallen). All of these countries are part of the Schengen Area, so the borders are completely open (except during COVID-19).

Neighboring states within Germany are Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Thuringia, and Saxony. Two major rivers flow through the state: the Danube (Donau) and the Main. The Bavarian Forest and the Bohemian Forest form the vast majority of the frontier with the Czech Republic and Bohemia.

The major cities in Bavaria are Munich (München), Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Augsburg, Regensburg, Würzburg, Ingolstadt, Fürth, and Erlangen.

The geographic center of the European Union is located in the northwestern corner of Bavaria.

Mountains[edit]

The Bavarian Alps define the border with Austria (including the Austrian federal-states of Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Salzburg), and within the range is the highest peak in Germany: the Zugspitze.

• Geuserberg
• Haidberg bei Zell
• Kellerberg (Forchheim)
• Kordigast
• Lindenstumpf
• Ospis

Hills[edit]

• Heidkopf (Spessart)
• Hohe Mark (Spessart)
• Parsberg (hill)
• Reisberg (Scheßlitz)

Climate[edit]

At lower elevations the climate is classified according to Köppen’s guide as “Cfb” or “Dfb” at lower altitudes, then at higher altitudes the climate becomes “Dfc” and “ET”.

The summer months have been getting hotter in recent years.^[24] For example, June 2019 was the warmest June in Bavaria since weather observations have been recorded^[24] and the winter 2019/2020 was 3 degrees Celsius warmer than the average temperature for many years all over Bavaria. On 20 December 2019 a record temperature of 20.2 °C (68.4 °F) was recorded in Piding.^[25] In general winter months are seeing more precipitation which is taking the form of rain more often than that of snow compared to the past.^[24] Extreme weather like the 2013 European floods or the 2019 European heavy snowfalls is occurring more and more often. One effect of the continuing warming is the melting of almost all Bavarian Alpine glaciers: Of the five glaciers of Bavaria only the Höllentalferner is predicted to exist over a longer time perspective. The Südliche Schneeferner has almost vanished since the 1980s.^[24]

Administrative divisions[edit]

Administrative regions[edit]

Bavaria is divided into seven administrative regions called Regierungsbezirke (singular Regierungsbezirk). Each of these regions has a state agency called the Bezirksregierung (district government).

• Altbayern:

1. Upper Palatinate (German: Oberpfalz)
2. Upper Bavaria (Oberbayern)
3. Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern)

• Franconia:

1. Upper Franconia (Oberfranken)
2. Middle Franconia (Mittelfranken)
3. Lower Franconia (Unterfranken)

• Swabia:

1. Swabia (Schwaben)

Bezirke[edit]

Bezirke (districts) are the third communal layer in Bavaria; the others are the Landkreise and the Gemeinden or Städte. The Bezirke in Bavaria are territorially identical with the Regierungsbezirke, but they are self-governing regional corporation, having their own parliaments. In the other larger states of Germany, there are only Regierungsbezirke as administrative divisions and no self-governing entities at the level of the Regierungsbezirke as the Bezirke in Bavaria.

Population and area[edit]

Bezirk	Coat of arms	Capital	Population (2019)[26]	Area (km2)	No. municipalities
Lower Bavaria		Landshut	1,244,169	9.48%	10,330	14.6%	258	12.5%
Lower Franconia		Würzburg	1,317,619	10.46%	8,531	12.1%	308	15.0%
Upper Franconia		Bayreuth	1,065,371	8.49%	7,231	10.2%	214	10.4%
Middle Franconia		Ansbach	1,775,169	13.65%	7,245	10.3%	210	10.2%
Upper Palatinate		Regensburg	1,112,102	8.60%	9,691	13.7%	226	11.0%
Swabia		Augsburg	1,899,442	14.21%	9,992	14.2%	340	16.5%
Upper Bavaria		Munich	4,710,865	35.12%	17,530	24.8%	500	24.3%
Total			13,124,737	100.0%	70,549	100.0%	2,056	100.0%

Districts[edit]

The second communal layer is made up of 71 rural districts (called Landkreise, singular Landkreis) that are comparable to counties, as well as the 25 independent cities (Kreisfreie Städte, singular Kreisfreie Stadt), both of which share the same administrative responsibilities.

Rural districts:

Aichach-Friedberg Altötting Amberg-Sulzbach Ansbach Aschaffenburg Augsburg Bad Kissingen Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen Bamberg Bayreuth Berchtesgadener Land Cham Coburg Dachau Deggendorf Dillingen Dingolfing-Landau Donau-Ries Ebersberg Eichstätt Erding Erlangen-Höchstadt Forchheim Freising Freyung-Grafenau Fürstenfeldbruck Fürth Garmisch-Partenkirchen Günzburg Hassberge Hof Kelheim Kitzingen Kronach Kulmbach Landsberg

Landshut Lichtenfels Lindau Main-Spessart Miesbach Miltenberg Mühldorf München (Landkreis München) Neuburg-Schrobenhausen Neumarkt Neustadt (Aisch)-Bad Windsheim Neustadt an der Waldnaab Neu-Ulm Nürnberger Land Oberallgäu Ostallgäu Passau Pfaffenhofen Regen Regensburg Rhön-Grabfeld Rosenheim Roth Rottal-Inn Schwandorf Schweinfurt Starnberg Straubing-Bogen Tirschenreuth Traunstein Unterallgäu Weilheim-Schongau Weissenburg-Gunzenhausen Wunsiedel Würzburg

Independent cities:

Amberg Ansbach Aschaffenburg Augsburg Bamberg Bayreuth Coburg Erlangen Fürth Hof Ingolstadt Kaufbeuren Kempten

Landshut Memmingen Munich (München) Nuremberg (Nürnberg) Passau Regensburg Rosenheim Schwabach Schweinfurt Straubing Weiden Würzburg

Municipalities[edit]

The 71 rural districts are on the lowest level divided into 2,031 regular municipalities (called Gemeinden, singular Gemeinde). Together with the 25 independent cities (kreisfreie Städte, which are in effect municipalities independent of Landkreis administrations), there are a total of 2,056 municipalities in Bavaria.

In 44 of the 71 rural districts, there are a total of 215 unincorporated areas (as of 1 January 2005, called gemeindefreie Gebiete, singular gemeindefreies Gebiet), not belonging to any municipality, all uninhabited, mostly forested areas, but also four lakes (Chiemsee-without islands, Starnberger See-without island Roseninsel, Ammersee, which are the three largest lakes of Bavaria, and Waginger See).

Major cities and towns[edit]

City	Region	Inhabitants (2000)	Inhabitants (2005)	Inhabitants (2010)	Inhabitants (2015)	Change (%)
Munich	Upper Bavaria	1,210,223	1,259,677	1,353,186	1,450,381	+11.81
Nuremberg	Middle Franconia	488,400	499,237	505,664	509,975	+3.53
Augsburg	Swabia	254,982	262,676	264,708	286,374	+3.81
Regensburg	Upper Palatinate	125,676	129,859	135,520	145,465	+7.83
Ingolstadt	Upper Bavaria	115,722	121,314	125,088	132,438	+8.09
Würzburg	Lower Franconia	127,966	133,906	133,799	124,873	+4.56
Fürth	Middle Franconia	110,477	113,422	114,628	124,171	+3.76
Erlangen	Middle Franconia	100,778	103,197	105,629	108,336	+4.81
Bayreuth	Upper Franconia	74,153	73,997	72,683	72,148	−1.98
Bamberg	Upper Franconia	69,036	70,081	70,004	73,331	+1.40
Aschaffenburg	Lower Franconia	67,592	68,642	68,678	68,986	+1.61
Landshut	Lower Bavaria	58,746	61,368	63,258	69,211	+7.68
Kempten	Swabia	61,389	61,360	62,060	66,947	+1.09
Rosenheim	Upper Bavaria	58,908	60,226	61,299	61,844	+4.06
Neu-Ulm	Swabia	50,188	51,410	53,504	57,237	+6.61
Schweinfurt	Lower Franconia	54,325	54,273	53,415	51,969	−1.68
Passau	Lower Bavaria	50,536	50,651	50,594	50,566	+0.11
Freising	Upper Bavaria	40,890	42,854	45,223	46,963	+10.60
Straubing	Lower Bavaria	44,014	44,633	44,450	46,806	+0.99
Dachau	Upper Bavaria	38,398	39,922	42,954	46,705	+11.87

Source: Bayerisches Landesamt für Statistik und Datenverarbeitung^[27][28]

Politics[edit]

Bavaria has a multiparty system dominated by the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), which has won every election since 1945 with the exception of the 1950 ballot. Other important parties are The Greens, which became the second biggest political party in the 2018 local parliament elections and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), who have dominated the city of Munich until 2020. Hitherto, Wilhelm Hoegner has been the only SPD candidate to ever become Minister-President; notable successors in office include multi-term Federal Minister Franz Josef Strauss, a key figure among West German conservatives during the Cold War years, and Edmund Stoiber, who both failed with their bids for Chancellorship.

The German Greens and the center-right Free Voters have been represented in the state parliament since 1986 and 2008 respectively.

In the 2003 elections the CSU won a ⅔ supermajority – something no party had ever achieved in postwar Germany. However, in the subsequent 2008 elections the CSU lost the absolute majority for the first time in 46 years.^[29]

The losses were partly attributed by some to the CSU’s stance for an anti-smoking bill.^{[further explanation needed]} (A first anti-smoking law had been proposed by the CSU and passed but was watered down after the election, after which a referendum enforced a strict antismoking bill with a large majority).

Current Landtag[edit]

The last state elections were held on 14 October 2018 in which the CSU lost its absolute majority in the state parliament in part due to the party’s stances as part of the federal government, winning 37.2% of the vote; the party’s second worst local election outcome in its history after 1950. The Greens who had surged in the polls leading up to the election have replaced the social-democratic SPD as the second biggest force in the Landtag with 17.6% of the vote. The SPD lost over half of its previous share compared to 2013 with a mere 9.7% in 2018. The liberals of the FDP were again able to reach the five-percent-threshold in order to receive mandates in parliament after they were not part of the Landtag after the 2013 elections. Also entering the new parliament were the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), with 10.2% of the vote.^[30]

The center-right Free Voters party gained 11.6% of the vote and formed a government coalition with the CSU which led to the subsequent reelection of Markus Söder as Minister-President of Bavaria.^[31]

Government[edit]

• Bavarian Cabinet since 12 November 2018

The Constitution of Bavaria of the Free State of Bavaria was enacted on 8 December 1946. The new Bavarian Constitution became the basis for the Bavarian State after the Second World War.

Bavaria has a unicameral Landtag (English: State Parliament), elected by universal suffrage. Until December 1999, there was also a Senat, or Senate, whose members were chosen by social and economic groups in Bavaria, but following a referendum in 1998, this institution was abolished.^{[citation needed]}

The Bavarian State Government consists of the Minister-President of Bavaria, eleven Ministers and six Secretaries of State. The Minister-President is elected for a period of five years by the State Parliament and is head of state. With the approval of the State Parliament he appoints the members of the State Government. The State Government is composed of the:

• State Chancellery (Staatskanzlei)
• Ministry of the Interior, for Sport and Integration (Staatsministerium des Innern, für Sport und Integration)
• Ministry for Housing, Construction and Transport (Staatsministerium für Wohnen, Bau und Verkehr)
• Ministry of Justice (Staatsministerium der Justiz)
• Ministry for Education and Culture (Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultus)
• Ministry for Science and Art (Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst)
• Ministry of Finance and for Home Affairs (Staatsministerium der Finanzen und für Heimat)
• Ministry for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy (Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft, Landesentwicklung und Energie)
• Ministry for Environment and Consumer Protection (Staatsministerium für Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz)
• Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forestry (Staatsministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten)
• Ministry for Family, Labour and Social Affairs (Staatsministerium für Familie, Arbeit und Soziales)
• Ministry for Health and Care (Staatsministerium für Gesundheit und Pflege)
• Ministry for Digital Affairs (Staatsministerium für Digitales)^[32]

Political processes also take place in the seven regions (Regierungsbezirke or Bezirke) in Bavaria, in the 71 rural districts (Landkreise) and the 25 towns and cities forming their own districts (kreisfreie Städte), and in the 2,031 local authorities (Gemeinden).

In 1995 Bavaria introduced direct democracy on the local level in a referendum. This was initiated bottom-up by an association called Mehr Demokratie (English: More Democracy). This is a grass-roots organization which campaigns for the right to citizen-initiated referendums. In 1997 the Bavarian Supreme Court tightened the regulations considerably (including by introducing a turn-out quorum). Nevertheless, Bavaria has the most advanced regulations on local direct democracy in Germany. This has led to a spirited citizens’ participation in communal and municipal affairs—835 referendums took place from 1995 through 2005.

Minister-presidents of Bavaria since 1945[edit]

Ministers-President of Bavaria
No.	Name	Born and died	Party affiliation	Begin of tenure	End of tenure
1	Fritz Schäffer	1888–1967	CSU	1945	1945
2	Wilhelm Hoegner	1887–1980	SPD	1945	1946
3	Hans Ehard	1887–1980	CSU	1946	1954
4	Wilhelm Hoegner	1887–1980	SPD	1954	1957
5	Hanns Seidel	1901–1961	CSU	1957	1960
6	Hans Ehard	1887–1980	CSU	1960	1962
7	Alfons Goppel	1905–1991	CSU	1962	1978
8	Franz Josef Strauß	1915–1988	CSU	1978	1988
9	Max Streibl	1932–1998	CSU	1988	1993
10	Edmund Stoiber	*1941	CSU	1993	2007
11	Günther Beckstein	*1943	CSU	2007	2008
12	Horst Seehofer	*1949	CSU	2008	2018
13	Markus Söder	*1967	CSU	2018	Incumbent

Designation as a «free state»[edit]

Unlike most German states (Länder), which simply designate themselves as «State of» (Land […]), Bavaria uses the style of «Free State of Bavaria» (Freistaat Bayern). The difference from other states is purely terminological, as German constitutional law does not draw a distinction between «States» and «Free States». The situation is thus analogous to the United States, where some states use the style «Commonwealth» rather than «State». The term «Free State», a creation of the 19th century and intended to be a German alternative to (or translation of) the Latin-derived republic was common among the states of the Weimar Republic, after German monarchies had been abolished. Unlike most other states – many of which were new creations – Bavaria has resumed this terminology after World War II. Two other states, Saxony and Thuringia, also call themselves «Free State».

Arbitrary arrest and human rights[edit]

In July 2017, Bavaria’s parliament enacted a new revision of the «Gefährdergesetz», allowing the authorities to imprison a person for a three months term, renewable indefinitely, when they haven’t committed a crime but it is assumed that they might commit a crime «in the near future».^[33] Critics like the prominent journalist Heribert Prantl have called the law «shameful» and compared it to Guantanamo Bay detention camp,^[34] assessed it to be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights,^[35] and also compared it to the legal situation in Russia, where a similar law allows for imprisonment for a maximum term of two years (i.e., not indefinitely).^[36]

Economy[edit]

Bavaria has long had one of the largest economies of any region in Germany, and in Europe.^[37] Its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 exceeded €434 billion (about U.S. $600 billion).^[38] This makes Bavaria itself one of the largest economies in Europe, and only 20 countries in the world have a higher GDP.^[39] The GDP of the region increased to €617.1 billion in 2018, accounting for 18.5% of German economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €43,500 or 145% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 114% of the EU average. This makes Bavaria one of the wealthiest regions in Europe.^[40] Bavaria has strong economic ties with Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Northern Italy.^[41]
In 2019 GDP was €832.4 ($905.7) billion, €48,323 ($52,577.3) per capita.^[42]

Agriculture[edit]

The most distinctive high points of Bavarian agriculture are:

• Hop growing in region Hallertau, which is up to 80% of German production and exported worldwide.
• Inland aquaculture of carps and trout.
• The well-hydrated alpine meadows are used to produce large quantities of quality milk, which is used to make a variety of cheese (including blue-veined cheese), yogurt and butter (Meggle).
• The cultivation of asparagus is widespread, which is a very popular new season vegetable. In season («Spargelzeit») restaurants offer special separated asparagus menu . There is an asparagus museum in Schrobenhausen.
• There are farms producing venison from deer and roe.
• Viticulture is widespread in Lower Franconia.
• Good ecology and strict control allow produce a large amount of organic products («bio») and baby food.

• 

  Hop garten

• 

  Allgäuer meadows

• 

  Asparagus with sauce hollandaise

• 

  Vineyards in Klingenberg-am-Main

Industries[edit]

Bavaria has the best developed industry in Germany^[43] and the lowest unemployment rate with 2.9% as of October 2021.^[44]

Branches:

• Oil refining. Although there is oil production in Bavaria, it does not meet domestic needs. Most of the oil is imported via pipelines from the Czech Republic (Russian oil) and from the Italian port of Trieste (Near East oil). Three refineries are situated near Ingolstadt and another one in Burghausen. Last one is a part of Bavarian chemical triangle and delivery row materials to other chemical plants.

• 

  Refinery Ingolstadt

• 

  transalpine pipeline

• Automotive is the most important and best developed Bavarian industry, which included manufacture of luxury cars (4 BMW and 2 Audi plants, R&D centers, test tracks), trucks (Traton MAN), special vehicles (Tadano Faun), buses (Evobus/Setra) and automotive parts (engines, electronics, cables, seats, interiors, cabrio roofs, heating and brake systems, software). Bavaria has the second-most employees (207,829) in the automotive industry of all German states after Baden-Württemberg as of 2018.^[45]

• 

  BMW 7 Series

• 

  Audi A5

• 

  MAN TGX

• 

  Faun HK 100

• 

  Setra S515HDH

• Aerospace and defense, which manufacture multi-role attack jet Eurofighter Typhoon, missiles from MBDA and Diehl Defence, parts of rocket Ariane, regional jet Dornier 728, ultra-light planes from Grob Aerospace, turbo jet engines for civil and military applications from MTU Aero Engines, helicopters Airbus, main battle tank Leopard 2, drones, composite parts, avionics, radars, propellants, initiators, powder, munitions. In Munich suburban Oberpfaffenhofen situated control center of European satellite navigation system Galileo, German Space Operations Center, Microwaves and Radar Institute, Institute of Communications and Navigation, Remote Sensing Technology Institute, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Institute for Software Technology, Institute of System Dynamics and Control.

• 

  Eurofighter Typhoon

• 

  Grob G 120TP

• 

  Airbus EC-665 Tiger

• 

  PARS 3 LR

• 

  Leopard 2

• Other transport manufacturing also represents in Bavaria. Even exists ship yards, for example Bavaria Yachtbau, despite location many hundreds kilometers from sea away; manufacturing of 4-stroke marine diesel engine, which using in cruise liners, ferries and warships. Rail technique produce in Munich-Allach (locomotive Siemens Vectron) and rail maintenance vehicle in Freilassing.

• 

  Bavaria R40

• 

  MAN marine diesel

• 

  Siemens Vectron

• 

  Robel BR 711.2

• Electronics. Chip design centers situated in Munich area (Infineon, Intel, Apple). There are 3 FABs: Infineon in Regensburg, Texas Instruments in Freising and Osram Optosemiconductors also in Regensburg. Power semiconductors are manufactured by Semikron. CNC controls are produced by Heidenhain, Traunreut and Siemens, Amberg. Silicon wafer for electronic manufacturing are delivered from Siltronic plant in Burghausen.

• 

  Campeon — Infineon and Intel R&D centers

• 

  CNC controls Heidehain iTNC 530

• 

  Programmable logic controller Siemens Simatic S7-1500

• 

  Silicon wafers

• Medical equipment. In Erlangen is a headquarters of Siemens Healthineers which produce devices for computer tomography, interventional X-ray systems, radiation therapy, molecular and magnetic resonance imaging, software. Brainlab creates software and hardware for image-guided surgery. Roche Diagnostics in Penzberg manufactures therapeutic proteins, diagnostic tests, reagents, analyze system and biopharma products.

• 

  Siemens E.Cam Duet

• Brewery. Bavaria has long tradition of brewery, near a half of all German breweries are located here (645 of 1300). All possible types of breweries exist: home brewery of hotel or restaurant, belong to big international concern, state-owned, castle or monastery breweries. The perfect quality of beer is guaranteed by 500-years law («Reinheitsgebot»), which allow as beer ingredients only water, hops, yeast and malt of barley, wheat or rye. But difference of roasting, fermentation or mixing allow to produce many different types of beers (not brand). Vladimir Putin at 2009 tasted beer from Brauerei Aying, Barack Obama at 2015 also tasted Bavarian beer of Karg Brauerei in Murnau. In Freising situated research center Weihenstephan for brewing and food quality.

• 

  Brauerei Aying

• 

  Murnau am Staffelsee

• 

  Cold reservoirs

• 

  Tanks

Companies[edit]

Many large companies are headquartered in Bavaria, including Adidas, Allianz, Airbus, Audi, BMW, Brose, BSH Hausgeräte, HypoVereinsbank, Infineon, KUKA, Traton, MTU Aero Engines, Munich Re, Osram, Puma, Rohde & Schwarz, Schaeffler, Siemens, Wacker Chemie, Linde, Vitesco Technologies, Webasto, Grob, Heidenhain, Koenig & Bauer, Kaeser Compressors, Krones, Knorr-Bremse, Wacker Neuson, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Siltronic, Leoni, Fielmann, MediaMarkt, Conrad Electronic, BayWa, ProSiebenSat.1 Media, Telefónica Germany, Knauf, Rehau, Giesecke+Devrient.

Also American companies open a lot of research and development centers in Munich region: Apple (chip design), Google (data security), IBM (Watson technology), Intel (drones and telecommunication chips), General Electric (3D-printers and additive manufacturing), Gleason (gears manufacturing), Texas Instruments (chip design and manufacturing), Coherent (lasers).

Tourism[edit]

With 40 million tourists in 2019, Bavaria is the most visited German state and one of Europe’s leading tourist destinations.^[46]

Attractions include:

• Amusement parks: Legoland in Günzburg, Bayern-Park in Reisbach (Vils), Playmobil in Zirndorf, Skyline Park in Bad Wörishofen and Bavaria Filmstadt in Grünwald
• Christmas markets in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nuremberg and Munich
• Factory Outlet Centers: Ingolstadt Village and Wertheim Village
• Festivals: Oktoberfest, Nürnberger Frühlingsfest and Nürnberger Herbstfest

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

  Hofer Theresienstein

• 

• 

• 

• 

  St. Bartholomä Church at Lake Königssee

• 

• 

• 

• 

Unemployment[edit]

The unemployment rate stood at 2.6% in October 2018, the lowest in Germany and one of the lowest in the European Union.^[47]

Year[48]	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Unemployment rate in %	5.5	5.3	6.0	6.9	6.9	7.8	6.8	5.3	4.2	4.8	4.5	3.8	3.7	3.8	3.8	3.6	3.5	3.2	2.9	2.8	3.6	3.5

Demographics[edit]

Bavaria has a population of approximately 13.1 million inhabitants (2020). 8 of the 80 largest cities in Germany are located within Bavaria with Munich being the largest (1,484,226 inhabitants, approximately 6.1 million when including the broader metropolitan area), followed by Nuremberg (518,370 inhabitants, approximately 3.6 million when including the broader metropolitan area), Augsburg (296,582 inhabitants) and Regensburg (153,094 inhabitants). All other cities in Bavaria had less than 150,000 inhabitants each in 2020. Population density in Bavaria was 186/km² (480/sq mi), below the national average of 233/km² (600/sq mi). Foreign nationals resident in Bavaria (both immigrants and refugees/asylum seekers) were principally from other EU countries and Turkey.

Top-ten foreign resident populations[49]
Nationality	Population (31 December 2020)
1	Romania	191,410
2	Turkey	190,730
3	Croatia	126,090
4	Poland	116,320
5	Italy	105,930
6	Austria	85,050
7	Syria	77,445
8	Greece	76,875
9	Hungary	75,705
10	Bosnia and Herzegovina	60,415

Vital statistics[edit]

Vital statistics^[50]

Comparison period	Births	Deaths	Natural growth
January – November 2016	115,032	116,915	-1,883
January – November 2017	115,690	122,247	-6,557

Culture[edit]

Some features of the Bavarian culture and mentality are remarkably distinct from the rest of Germany. Noteworthy differences (especially in rural areas, less significant in the major cities) can be found with respect to religion, traditions, and language.

Religion[edit]

Bavarian culture (Altbayern) has a long and predominant tradition of Roman Catholic faith. Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger) was born in Marktl am Inn in Upper Bavaria and was Cardinal-Archbishop of Munich and Freising. Otherwise, the culturally Franconian and Swabian regions of the modern State of Bavaria are historically more diverse in religiosity, with both Catholic and Protestant traditions. In 1925, 70.0% of the Bavarian population was Catholic, 28.8% was Protestant, 0.7% was Jewish, and 0.5% was placed in other religious categories.^[52]

As of 2020 46.9% of Bavarians adhered to Catholicism (a decline from 70.4% in 1970).^[53][51] 17.2 percent of the population adheres to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, which has also declined since 1970.^[53][51] Three percent was Orthodox, Muslims make up 4.0% of the population of Bavaria. 31.9 percent of Bavarians are irreligious or adhere to other religions.

Traditions[edit]

Bavarians commonly emphasize pride in their traditions. Traditional costumes collectively known as Tracht are worn on special occasions and include in Altbayern Lederhosen for males and Dirndl for females. Centuries-old folk music is performed. The Maibaum, or Maypole (which in the Middle Ages served as the community’s business directory, as figures on the pole represented the trades of the village), and the bagpipes of the Upper Palatinate region bear witness to the ancient Celtic and Germanic remnants of cultural heritage of the region. There are many traditional Bavarian sports disciplines, e.g. the Aperschnalzen, competitive whipcracking.

Whether in Bavaria, overseas or with citizens from other nations Bavarians continue to cultivate their traditions. They hold festivals and dances to keep their heritage alive.

Food and drink[edit]

Bavarians tend to place a great value on food and drink. In addition to their renowned dishes, Bavarians also consume many items of food and drink which are unusual elsewhere in Germany; for example Weißwurst («white sausage») or in some instances a variety of entrails. At folk festivals and in many beer gardens, beer is traditionally served by the litre (in a Maß). Bavarians are particularly proud^[54] of the traditional Reinheitsgebot, or beer purity law, initially established by the Duke of Bavaria for the City of Munich (i.e. the court) in 1487 and the duchy in 1516. According to this law, only three ingredients were allowed in beer: water, barley, and hops. In 1906 the Reinheitsgebot made its way to all-German law, and remained a law in Germany until the EU partly struck it down in 1987 as incompatible with the European common market.^[55] German breweries, however, cling to the principle, and Bavarian breweries still comply with it in order to distinguish their beer brands.^[56] Bavarians are also known as some of the world’s most prolific beer drinkers, with an average annual consumption of 170 liters per person.^{[citation needed]}

Bavaria is also home to the Franconia wine region, which is situated along the river Main in Franconia. The region has produced wine (Frankenwein) for over 1,000 years and is famous for its use of the Bocksbeutel wine bottle. The production of wine forms an integral part of the regional culture, and many of its villages and cities hold their own wine festivals (Weinfeste) throughout the year.

• 

  Schweinsbraten

• 

  Nürnberger Rostbratwürste

Language and dialects[edit]

Three German dialects are most commonly spoken in Bavaria: Austro-Bavarian in Old Bavaria (Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate), Swabian German (an Alemannic German dialect) in the Bavarian part of Swabia (south west) and East Franconian German in Franconia (North). In the small town Ludwigsstadt in the north, district Kronach in Upper Franconia, Thuringian dialect is spoken. During the 20th century an increasing part of the population began to speak Standard German (Hochdeutsch), mainly in the cities.

Ethnography[edit]

Bavarians consider themselves to be egalitarian and informal.^[57] Their sociability can be experienced at the annual Oktoberfest, the world’s largest beer festival, which welcomes around six million visitors every year, or in the famous beer gardens. In traditional Bavarian beer gardens, patrons may bring their own food but buy beer only from the brewery that runs the beer garden.^[58]

Sports[edit]

Football[edit]

Bavaria is home to several football clubs including FC Bayern Munich, 1. FC Nürnberg, FC Augsburg, TSV 1860 Munich, FC Ingolstadt 04 and SpVgg Greuther Fürth. Bayern Munich is the most successful football team in Germany having won a record 32 German titles and 6 UEFA Champions League titles. They are followed by 1. FC Nürnberg who have won 9 titles. SpVgg Greuther Fürth have won 3 championships while TSV 1860 Munich have been champions once.

Basketball[edit]

Bavaria is also home to several professional basketball teams, including FC Bayern Munich, Brose Baskets Bamberg, s.Oliver Würzburg, Nürnberg Falcons BC and TSV Oberhaching Tropics.

Ice hockey[edit]

There are five Bavarian ice hockey teams playing in the German top-tier league DEL: EHC Red Bull München, Nürnberg Ice Tigers, Augsburger Panther, ERC Ingolstadt, and Straubing Tigers.

Notable people[edit]

Many famous people have been born or lived in present-day Bavaria:

• Kings: Arnulf of Carinthia, Carloman of Bavaria, Charles the Fat, Lothair I, Louis the Child, Louis the German, Louis the Younger, Ludwig I of Bavaria, Ludwig II of Bavaria, Ludwig III of Bavaria, Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, Maximilian II of Bavaria, Otto, King of Bavaria
• Religious leaders: Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger); Pope Damasus II, Pope Victor II.
• Painters: Albrecht Dürer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Carl Spitzweg, Erwin Eisch, Franz von Lenbach, Franz von Stuck, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter, Hans Holbein the Elder, Johann Christian Reinhart, Lucas Cranach, Paul Klee.
• Classical musicians Orlando di Lasso, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Leopold Mozart, Max Reger, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Carl Orff, Johann Pachelbel, Theobald Boehm, Klaus Nomi.
• Other musicians Hans-Jürgen Buchner, Barbara Dennerlein, Klaus Doldinger, Franzl Lang, Bands: Spider Murphy Gang, Sportfreunde Stiller, Obscura, Michael Bredl
• Opera singers Jonas Kaufmann, Diana Damrau.
• Writers, poets and playwrights Hans Sachs, Jean Paul, Friedrich Rückert, August von Platen-Hallermünde, Frank Wedekind, Christian Morgenstern, Oskar Maria Graf, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas Mann, Klaus Mann, Golo Mann, Ludwig Thoma, Michael Ende, Ludwig Aurbacher.
• Scientists Max Planck, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Werner Heisenberg, Adam Ries, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Georg Ohm, Johannes Stark, Carl von Linde, Ludwig Prandtl, Rudolf Mössbauer, Lothar Rohde, Hermann Schwarz, Robert Huber, Martin Behaim, Levi Strauss, Rudolf Diesel, Feodor Lynen, Georges J. F. Köhler, Erwin Neher, Ernst Otto Fischer, Johann Deisenhofer.
• Physicians Alois Alzheimer, Max Joseph von Pettenkofer, Sebastian Kneipp.
• Politicians Ludwig Erhard, Horst Seehofer, Christian Ude, Kurt Eisner, Franz-Josef Strauß, Roman Herzog, Leonard John Rose, Henry Kissinger.
• Football players Max Morlock, Karl Mai, Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier, Gerd Müller, Paul Breitner, Bernd Schuster, Klaus Augenthaler, Lothar Matthäus, Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Holger Badstuber, Thomas Müller, Mario Götze, Dietmar Hamann, Stefan Reuter
• Other sportspeople Bernhard Langer, Dirk Nowitzki
• Actors Michael Herbig, Werner Stocker, Helmut Fischer, Walter Sedlmayr, Gustl Bayrhammer, Ottfried Fischer, Ruth Drexel, Elmar Wepper, Fritz Wepper, Uschi Glas, Yank Azman.
• Entertainers Siegfried Fischbacher
• Film directors Helmut Dietl, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Bernd Eichinger, Joseph Vilsmaier, Hans Steinhoff, Heinz Badewitz and Werner Herzog.
• Designers Peter Schreyer, Damir Doma
• Entrepreneurs Charles Diebold, Adi Dassler, Rudolf Dassler, Levi Strauss
• Military Claus von Stauffenberg
• Nazis: Sepp Dietrich, Karl Fiehler, Karl Gebhardt, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Alfred Jodl, Josef Kollmer, Josef Mengele, Ernst Röhm, Franz Ritter von Epp, Julius Streicher
• Others: Kaspar Hauser, The Smith of Kochel, Mathias Kneißl, Matthias Klostermayr, Anneliese Michel, Herluka von Bernried

See also[edit]

• Outline of Germany
• Former countries in Europe after 1815
• List of Bavaria-related topics
• List of Premiers of Bavaria
• List of rulers of Bavaria

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

General and cited sources[edit]

• Phillips, Walter Alison; Ashworth, Philip Arthur (1911). «Bavaria» . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). pp. 543–551.

External links[edit]

• Official government website
• Official website of Bayern Tourismus Marketing GmbH
• Bavarian Studies in History and Culture
• Außenwirtschaftsportal Bayern
• Statistics
• Geographic data related to Bavaria at OpenStreetMap

Free State of Bavaria Freistaat Bayern (German) Freistoot Bayern (Bavarian)
State
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Bayernhymne (German) «Hymn of Bavaria»
Coordinates: 49°04′43″N 11°23′08″E / 49.07861°N 11.38556°ECoordinates: 49°04′43″N 11°23′08″E / 49.07861°N 11.38556°E
Capital	Munich
Government
• Body	Landtag of Bavaria
• Minister-President	Markus Söder (CSU)
• Governing parties	CSU / FW
• Bundesrat votes	6 (of 69)
• Bundestag seats	117 (of 736)
Area
• Total	70,550.19 km2 (27,239.58 sq mi)
Population  (2019-12-31)
• Total	13,124,737
• Density	186/km2 (480/sq mi)
Demonym	Bavarian
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
ISO 3166 code	DE-BY
GRP (nominal)	€633 billion (2019)[2]
GRP per capita	€48,000 (2019)
NUTS Region	DE2
HDI (2018)	0.956[3] very high · 5th of 16
Website	www.bayern.de

Bavaria ( bə-VAIR-ee-ə; German: Bayern [ˈbaɪɐn] (listen)), officially the Free State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈbaɪɐn] (listen); Bavarian: Freistoot Bayern), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of 70,550.19 km² (27,239.58 sq mi), Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany. With over 13 million inhabitants, it is the second largest German state in terms of population only to North Rhine-Westphalia, but due to its large size its population density is below the German average. Bavaria’s main cities are Munich (its capital and largest city and also the third largest city in Germany),^[4] Nuremberg, and Augsburg.

The history of Bavaria includes its earliest settlement by Iron Age Celtic tribes, followed by the conquests of the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC, when the territory was incorporated into the provinces of Raetia and Noricum. It became the Duchy of Bavaria (a stem duchy) in the 6th century AD following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It was later incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire, became an independent kingdom after 1806, joined the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871 while retaining its title of kingdom, and finally became a state of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.^[5]

Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the state’s Catholic heritage and conservative traditions.^[6] Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes a language, cuisine, architecture, festivals and elements of Alpine symbolism.^[7] The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, giving it a status as a wealthy German region.^[8]

Contemporary Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia and Swabia.

History[edit]

Antiquity[edit]

The Bavarians emerged in a region north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts, which had been part of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum.

The Bavarians spoke a Germanic dialect which developed into Old High German during the early Middle Ages, however, unlike other Germanic groups, they probably did not migrate from elsewhere when Western Roman influence collapsed.

Rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by the 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, Heruli. The name «Bavarian» («Baiuvarii») means «Men of Baia» which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520.

A 17th century Jewish chronicler, David Gans, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BC.^[9]

Middle Ages[edit]

From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria, ending with Tassilo III who was deposed by Charlemagne.^[10]

Three early dukes are named in Frankish sources: Garibald I may have been appointed to the office by the Merovingian kings and married the Lombard princess Walderada when the church forbade her to King Chlothar I in 555. 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.

Garibald’s successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the eastern frontier against the expansion of Slavs and Avars around 600. Tassilo’s son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616.^[11]

After Garibald II, little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onward, he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and strengthen Christianity in his duchy. (It is unclear what Bavarian religious life consisted of before this time.)

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 Theodo’s death the duchy was divided among his sons, but reunited under his grandson Hugbert.

At Hugbert’s death (735) the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighboring Alemannia (modern southwest Germany and northern Switzerland). Odilo issued a law code for Bavaria, completed the process of church organization in partnership with St. Boniface (739), and tried to intervene in Frankish succession disputes by fighting for the claims of the Carolingian Grifo. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748.^[12][13]

Saint Boniface completed the people’s conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century.
Tassilo III (b. 741 – d. after 796) succeeded his father at the age of eight after an unsuccessful attempt by Grifo to rule Bavaria. He initially ruled under Frankish oversight but began to function independently from 763 onward. He was particularly noted for founding new monasteries and for expanding eastwards, fighting Slavs in the eastern Alps and along the Danube and colonizing these lands.

After 781, however, his cousin Charlemagne began to pressure Tassilo to submit and finally deposed him in 788. The deposition was not entirely legitimate.

Dissenters attempted a coup against Charlemagne at Tassilo’s old capital of Regensburg in 792, led by his own son Pépin the Hunchback. The king had to drag Tassilo out of imprisonment to formally renounce his rights and titles at the Assembly of Frankfurt in 794. This is the last appearance of Tassilo in the sources, and he probably died a monk. As all of his family were also forced into monasteries, this was the end of the Agilolfing dynasty.

For the next 400 years numerous families held the duchy, rarely for more than three generations. With the revolt of duke Henry the Quarrelsome in 976, Bavaria lost large territories in the south and south east.

The territory of Ostarrichi was elevated to a duchy in its own right and given to the Babenberger family. This event marks the founding of Austria. Later the counts of Tyrol next to other princes began to act more independently from the dukes of Bavaria, and the new Duchy of Merania was created from lordships once under the jurisdiction of the Duchy of Bavaria.

The last, and one of the most important, of the dukes of Bavaria was Henry the Lion of the house of Welf, founder of Munich, and de facto the second most powerful man in the empire as the ruler of two duchies. When in 1180, Henry the Lion was deposed as Duke of Saxony and Bavaria by his cousin, Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (a.k.a. «Barbarossa» for his red beard), Bavaria was awarded as fief to the Wittelsbach family, counts palatinate of Schyren («Scheyern» in modern German). They ruled for 738 years, from 1180 to 1918. In 1180 however also Styria was separated from Bavaria. The Electorate of the Palatinate by Rhine (Kurpfalz in German) was also acquired by the House of Wittelsbach in 1214, which they would subsequently hold for six centuries.^[14]

The first of several divisions of the duchy of Bavaria occurred in 1255. With the extinction of the Hohenstaufen in 1268, Swabian territories were acquired by the Wittelsbach dukes. Emperor Louis the Bavarian acquired Brandenburg, Tyrol, Holland and Hainaut for his House but released the Upper Palatinate for the Palatinate branch of the Wittelsbach in 1329. That time also Salzburg finally became independent from the Duchy of Bavaria.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, upper and lower Bavaria were repeatedly subdivided. Four Duchies existed after the division of 1392: Bavaria-Straubing, Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Munich. In 1506 with the Landshut War of Succession, the other parts of Bavaria were reunited, and Munich became the sole capital. The country became a center of the Jesuit-inspired Counter-Reformation.

Electorate of Bavaria[edit]

In 1623 the Bavarian duke replaced his relative of the Palatinate branch, the Electorate of the Palatinate in the early days of the Thirty Years’ War and acquired the powerful prince-electoral dignity in the Holy Roman Empire, determining its Emperor thence forward, as well as special legal status under the empire’s laws.

During the early and mid-18th century the ambitions of the Bavarian prince electors led to several wars with Austria as well as occupations by Austria (War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession with the election of a Wittelsbach emperor instead of a Habsburg).

From 1777 onward, and after the younger Bavarian branch of the family had died out with elector Max III Joseph, Bavaria and the Electorate of the Palatinate were governed once again in personal union, now by the Palatinian lines.

The new state also comprised the Duchies of Jülich and Berg as these on their part were in personal union with the Palatinate.

Kingdom of Bavaria[edit]

When Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire, Bavaria became – by grace of Napoleon – a kingdom in 1806 due, in part, to the Confederation of the Rhine.^[15]

Its area doubled after the Duchy of Jülich was ceded to France, as the Electoral Palatinate was divided between France and the Grand Duchy of Baden. The Duchy of Berg was given to Jerome Bonaparte. Tyrol and Salzburg were temporarily reunited with Bavaria but finally ceded to Austria by the Congress of Vienna.

In return Bavaria was allowed to annex the modern-day region of Palatinate to the west of the Rhine and Franconia in 1815. Between 1799 and 1817, the leading minister, Count Montgelas, followed a strict policy of modernisation copying Napoleonic France; he laid the foundations of centralized administrative structures that survived the monarchy and, in part, have retained core validity through the 20st century.

In May 1808, a first constitution was passed by Maximilian I,^[16] being modernized in 1818. This second version established a bicameral Parliament with a House of Lords (Kammer der Reichsräte) and a House of Commons (Kammer der Abgeordneten). That constitution was followed until the collapse of the monarchy at the end of World War I.

After the rise of Prussia to power in the early 18th century, Bavaria preserved its independence by playing off the rivalry of Prussia and Austria. Allied to Austria, it was defeated along with Austria in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War and was not incorporated into the North German Confederation of 1867, but the question of German unity was still alive. When France declared war on Prussia in 1870, all the south German states (Baden, Württemberg, Hessen-Darmstadt and Bavaria) aside from Austria, joined the Prussian forces and ultimately joined the Federation, which was renamed Deutsches Reich (German Empire) in 1871.

Bavaria continued formally as a monarchy, and it had some special rights within the federation (such as an army, railways, postal service and a diplomatic body of its own) but the diplomatic body were later undone by Wilhelm II who declared them illegal and got rid of the diplomatic service.^{[citation needed]}

Part of the German Empire[edit]

When Bavaria became part of the newly formed German Empire, this action was considered controversial by Bavarian nationalists who had wanted to retain independence from the rest of Germany, as had Austria.

As Bavaria had a heavily Catholic majority population, many people resented being ruled by the mostly Protestant northerners of Prussia. As a direct result of the Bavarian-Prussian feud, political parties formed to encourage Bavaria to break away and regain its independence.^[17]

In the early 20th century, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Henrik Ibsen, and other artists were drawn to Bavaria, especially to the Schwabing district of Munich, a center of international artistic activity.

Free State of Bavaria[edit]

Free State has been an adopted designation after the abolition of monarchy in the aftermath of World War I in several German states.

On 12 November 1918, Ludwig III signed a document, the Anif declaration, releasing both civil and military officers from their oaths; the newly formed republican government, or «People’s State» of Socialist premier Kurt Eisner,^[18] interpreted this as an abdication. To date, however, no member of the House of Wittelsbach has ever formally declared renunciation of the throne.^[19]

On the other hand, none has ever since officially called upon their Bavarian or Stuart claims. Family members are active in cultural and social life, including the head of the house, Franz, Duke of Bavaria. They step back from any announcements on public affairs, showing approval or disapproval solely by Franz’s presence or absence.

Eisner was assassinated in February 1919, ultimately leading to a Communist revolt and the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic being proclaimed 6 April 1919. After violent suppression by elements of the German Army and notably the Freikorps, the Bavarian Soviet Republic fell in May 1919. The Bamberg Constitution (Bamberger Verfassung) was enacted on 12 or 14 August 1919 and came into force on 15 September 1919 creating the Free State of Bavaria within the Weimar Republic.

Extremist activity further increased, notably the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch led by the National Socialists, and Munich and Nuremberg became seen as Nazi strongholds during the Weimar Republic and Nazi dictatorship. However, in the crucial German federal election, March 1933, the Nazis received less than 50% of the votes cast in Bavaria.

As a manufacturing centre, Munich was heavily bombed during World War II and was occupied by U.S. troops, becoming a major part of the American Zone of Allied-occupied Germany (1945–47) and then of «Bizonia».

The Rhenish Palatinate was detached from Bavaria in 1946 and made part of the new state Rhineland-Palatinate. During the Cold War, Bavaria was part of West Germany. In 1949, the Free State of Bavaria chose not to sign the Founding Treaty (Gründungsvertrag) for the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany, opposing the division of Germany into two countries after World War II.

The Bavarian Parliament did not sign the Basic Law of Germany, mainly because it was seen as not granting sufficient powers to the individual Länder (states), but at the same time decided that it would still come into force in Bavaria if two-thirds of the other Länder ratified it.
All of the other Länder ratified it, however, so it became law.^[20]

Bavarian identity[edit]

Bavarians have often emphasized a separate national identity and considered themselves as «Bavarians» first, «Germans» second.^[21]

In the 19th-century sense, an independent Bavarian State only existed from 1806 to 1871. This feeling started to come about more strongly among Bavarians when the Kingdom of Bavaria was forced by Bismarck to join the Protestant Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1871, while the Bavarian nationalists wanted to keep Bavaria as Catholic and an independent state. Aside from the minority Bavaria Party, most Bavarians now accept Bavaria is part of Germany.^[22]

Another consideration is that Bavarians foster different cultural identities: Franconia in the north, speaking East Franconian German; Bavarian Swabia in the south west, speaking Swabian German; and Altbayern (so-called «Old Bavaria», the regions forming the «historic», pentagon-shaped Bavaria before the acquisitions through the Vienna Congress, at present the districts of the Upper Palatinate, Lower and Upper Bavaria) speaking Austro-Bavarian.^{[citation needed]}

In Munich, the Old Bavarian dialect was widely spread, but nowadays High German is predominantly spoken there.

Flags and coat of arms[edit]

Flags[edit]

Uniquely among German states, Bavaria has two official flags of equal status, one with a white and blue stripe, the other with white and blue lozenges. Either may be used by civilians and government offices, who are free to choose between them.^[23] Unofficial versions of the flag, especially a lozenge style with coat of arms, are sometimes used by civilians.

Coat of arms[edit]

The modern coat of arms of Bavaria was designed by Eduard Ege in 1946, following heraldic traditions.

• The Golden Lion: At the dexter chief, sable, a lion rampant Or, armed and langued gules. This represents the administrative region of Upper Palatinate.
• The «Franconian Rake»: At the sinister chief, per fess dancetty, gules, and argent. This represents the administrative regions of Upper, Middle and Lower Franconia.
• The Blue «Pantier» (mythical creature from French heraldry, sporting a flame instead of a tongue): At the dexter base, argent, a Pantier rampant azure, armed Or and langued gules. This represents the regions of Lower and Upper Bavaria.
• The Three Lions: At the sinister base, Or, three lions passant guardant sable, armed and langued gules. This represents Swabia.
• The White-And-Blue inescutcheon: The inescutcheon of white and blue fusils askance was originally the coat of arms of the Counts of Bogen, adopted in 1247 by the House of Wittelsbach. The white-and-blue fusils are indisputably the emblem of Bavaria and these arms today symbolize Bavaria as a whole. Along with the People’s Crown, it is officially used as the Minor Coat of Arms.
• The People’s Crown (Volkskrone): The coat of arms is surmounted by a crown with a golden band inset with precious stones and decorated with five ornamental leaves. This crown first appeared in the coat of arms to symbolize sovereignty of the people after the royal crown was eschewed in 1923.

Geography[edit]

Bavaria shares international borders with Austria (Salzburg, Tyrol, Upper Austria and Vorarlberg) and the Czech Republic (Karlovy Vary, Plzeň and South Bohemian Regions), as well as with Switzerland (across Lake Constance to the Canton of St. Gallen). All of these countries are part of the Schengen Area, so the borders are completely open (except during COVID-19).

Neighboring states within Germany are Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Thuringia, and Saxony. Two major rivers flow through the state: the Danube (Donau) and the Main. The Bavarian Forest and the Bohemian Forest form the vast majority of the frontier with the Czech Republic and Bohemia.

The major cities in Bavaria are Munich (München), Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Augsburg, Regensburg, Würzburg, Ingolstadt, Fürth, and Erlangen.

The geographic center of the European Union is located in the northwestern corner of Bavaria.

Mountains[edit]

The Bavarian Alps define the border with Austria (including the Austrian federal-states of Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Salzburg), and within the range is the highest peak in Germany: the Zugspitze.

• Geuserberg
• Haidberg bei Zell
• Kellerberg (Forchheim)
• Kordigast
• Lindenstumpf
• Ospis

Hills[edit]

• Heidkopf (Spessart)
• Hohe Mark (Spessart)
• Parsberg (hill)
• Reisberg (Scheßlitz)

Climate[edit]

At lower elevations the climate is classified according to Köppen’s guide as “Cfb” or “Dfb” at lower altitudes, then at higher altitudes the climate becomes “Dfc” and “ET”.

The summer months have been getting hotter in recent years.^[24] For example, June 2019 was the warmest June in Bavaria since weather observations have been recorded^[24] and the winter 2019/2020 was 3 degrees Celsius warmer than the average temperature for many years all over Bavaria. On 20 December 2019 a record temperature of 20.2 °C (68.4 °F) was recorded in Piding.^[25] In general winter months are seeing more precipitation which is taking the form of rain more often than that of snow compared to the past.^[24] Extreme weather like the 2013 European floods or the 2019 European heavy snowfalls is occurring more and more often. One effect of the continuing warming is the melting of almost all Bavarian Alpine glaciers: Of the five glaciers of Bavaria only the Höllentalferner is predicted to exist over a longer time perspective. The Südliche Schneeferner has almost vanished since the 1980s.^[24]

Administrative divisions[edit]

Administrative regions[edit]

Bavaria is divided into seven administrative regions called Regierungsbezirke (singular Regierungsbezirk). Each of these regions has a state agency called the Bezirksregierung (district government).

• Altbayern:

1. Upper Palatinate (German: Oberpfalz)
2. Upper Bavaria (Oberbayern)
3. Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern)

• Franconia:

1. Upper Franconia (Oberfranken)
2. Middle Franconia (Mittelfranken)
3. Lower Franconia (Unterfranken)

• Swabia:

1. Swabia (Schwaben)

Bezirke[edit]

Bezirke (districts) are the third communal layer in Bavaria; the others are the Landkreise and the Gemeinden or Städte. The Bezirke in Bavaria are territorially identical with the Regierungsbezirke, but they are self-governing regional corporation, having their own parliaments. In the other larger states of Germany, there are only Regierungsbezirke as administrative divisions and no self-governing entities at the level of the Regierungsbezirke as the Bezirke in Bavaria.

Population and area[edit]

Bezirk	Coat of arms	Capital	Population (2019)[26]	Area (km2)	No. municipalities
Lower Bavaria		Landshut	1,244,169	9.48%	10,330	14.6%	258	12.5%
Lower Franconia		Würzburg	1,317,619	10.46%	8,531	12.1%	308	15.0%
Upper Franconia		Bayreuth	1,065,371	8.49%	7,231	10.2%	214	10.4%
Middle Franconia		Ansbach	1,775,169	13.65%	7,245	10.3%	210	10.2%
Upper Palatinate		Regensburg	1,112,102	8.60%	9,691	13.7%	226	11.0%
Swabia		Augsburg	1,899,442	14.21%	9,992	14.2%	340	16.5%
Upper Bavaria		Munich	4,710,865	35.12%	17,530	24.8%	500	24.3%
Total			13,124,737	100.0%	70,549	100.0%	2,056	100.0%

Districts[edit]

The second communal layer is made up of 71 rural districts (called Landkreise, singular Landkreis) that are comparable to counties, as well as the 25 independent cities (Kreisfreie Städte, singular Kreisfreie Stadt), both of which share the same administrative responsibilities.

Rural districts:

Aichach-Friedberg Altötting Amberg-Sulzbach Ansbach Aschaffenburg Augsburg Bad Kissingen Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen Bamberg Bayreuth Berchtesgadener Land Cham Coburg Dachau Deggendorf Dillingen Dingolfing-Landau Donau-Ries Ebersberg Eichstätt Erding Erlangen-Höchstadt Forchheim Freising Freyung-Grafenau Fürstenfeldbruck Fürth Garmisch-Partenkirchen Günzburg Hassberge Hof Kelheim Kitzingen Kronach Kulmbach Landsberg

Landshut Lichtenfels Lindau Main-Spessart Miesbach Miltenberg Mühldorf München (Landkreis München) Neuburg-Schrobenhausen Neumarkt Neustadt (Aisch)-Bad Windsheim Neustadt an der Waldnaab Neu-Ulm Nürnberger Land Oberallgäu Ostallgäu Passau Pfaffenhofen Regen Regensburg Rhön-Grabfeld Rosenheim Roth Rottal-Inn Schwandorf Schweinfurt Starnberg Straubing-Bogen Tirschenreuth Traunstein Unterallgäu Weilheim-Schongau Weissenburg-Gunzenhausen Wunsiedel Würzburg

Independent cities:

Amberg Ansbach Aschaffenburg Augsburg Bamberg Bayreuth Coburg Erlangen Fürth Hof Ingolstadt Kaufbeuren Kempten

Landshut Memmingen Munich (München) Nuremberg (Nürnberg) Passau Regensburg Rosenheim Schwabach Schweinfurt Straubing Weiden Würzburg

Municipalities[edit]

The 71 rural districts are on the lowest level divided into 2,031 regular municipalities (called Gemeinden, singular Gemeinde). Together with the 25 independent cities (kreisfreie Städte, which are in effect municipalities independent of Landkreis administrations), there are a total of 2,056 municipalities in Bavaria.

In 44 of the 71 rural districts, there are a total of 215 unincorporated areas (as of 1 January 2005, called gemeindefreie Gebiete, singular gemeindefreies Gebiet), not belonging to any municipality, all uninhabited, mostly forested areas, but also four lakes (Chiemsee-without islands, Starnberger See-without island Roseninsel, Ammersee, which are the three largest lakes of Bavaria, and Waginger See).

Major cities and towns[edit]

City	Region	Inhabitants (2000)	Inhabitants (2005)	Inhabitants (2010)	Inhabitants (2015)	Change (%)
Munich	Upper Bavaria	1,210,223	1,259,677	1,353,186	1,450,381	+11.81
Nuremberg	Middle Franconia	488,400	499,237	505,664	509,975	+3.53
Augsburg	Swabia	254,982	262,676	264,708	286,374	+3.81
Regensburg	Upper Palatinate	125,676	129,859	135,520	145,465	+7.83
Ingolstadt	Upper Bavaria	115,722	121,314	125,088	132,438	+8.09
Würzburg	Lower Franconia	127,966	133,906	133,799	124,873	+4.56
Fürth	Middle Franconia	110,477	113,422	114,628	124,171	+3.76
Erlangen	Middle Franconia	100,778	103,197	105,629	108,336	+4.81
Bayreuth	Upper Franconia	74,153	73,997	72,683	72,148	−1.98
Bamberg	Upper Franconia	69,036	70,081	70,004	73,331	+1.40
Aschaffenburg	Lower Franconia	67,592	68,642	68,678	68,986	+1.61
Landshut	Lower Bavaria	58,746	61,368	63,258	69,211	+7.68
Kempten	Swabia	61,389	61,360	62,060	66,947	+1.09
Rosenheim	Upper Bavaria	58,908	60,226	61,299	61,844	+4.06
Neu-Ulm	Swabia	50,188	51,410	53,504	57,237	+6.61
Schweinfurt	Lower Franconia	54,325	54,273	53,415	51,969	−1.68
Passau	Lower Bavaria	50,536	50,651	50,594	50,566	+0.11
Freising	Upper Bavaria	40,890	42,854	45,223	46,963	+10.60
Straubing	Lower Bavaria	44,014	44,633	44,450	46,806	+0.99
Dachau	Upper Bavaria	38,398	39,922	42,954	46,705	+11.87

Source: Bayerisches Landesamt für Statistik und Datenverarbeitung^[27][28]

Politics[edit]

Bavaria has a multiparty system dominated by the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), which has won every election since 1945 with the exception of the 1950 ballot. Other important parties are The Greens, which became the second biggest political party in the 2018 local parliament elections and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), who have dominated the city of Munich until 2020. Hitherto, Wilhelm Hoegner has been the only SPD candidate to ever become Minister-President; notable successors in office include multi-term Federal Minister Franz Josef Strauss, a key figure among West German conservatives during the Cold War years, and Edmund Stoiber, who both failed with their bids for Chancellorship.

The German Greens and the center-right Free Voters have been represented in the state parliament since 1986 and 2008 respectively.

In the 2003 elections the CSU won a ⅔ supermajority – something no party had ever achieved in postwar Germany. However, in the subsequent 2008 elections the CSU lost the absolute majority for the first time in 46 years.^[29]

The losses were partly attributed by some to the CSU’s stance for an anti-smoking bill.^{[further explanation needed]} (A first anti-smoking law had been proposed by the CSU and passed but was watered down after the election, after which a referendum enforced a strict antismoking bill with a large majority).

Current Landtag[edit]

The last state elections were held on 14 October 2018 in which the CSU lost its absolute majority in the state parliament in part due to the party’s stances as part of the federal government, winning 37.2% of the vote; the party’s second worst local election outcome in its history after 1950. The Greens who had surged in the polls leading up to the election have replaced the social-democratic SPD as the second biggest force in the Landtag with 17.6% of the vote. The SPD lost over half of its previous share compared to 2013 with a mere 9.7% in 2018. The liberals of the FDP were again able to reach the five-percent-threshold in order to receive mandates in parliament after they were not part of the Landtag after the 2013 elections. Also entering the new parliament were the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), with 10.2% of the vote.^[30]

The center-right Free Voters party gained 11.6% of the vote and formed a government coalition with the CSU which led to the subsequent reelection of Markus Söder as Minister-President of Bavaria.^[31]

Government[edit]

• Bavarian Cabinet since 12 November 2018

The Constitution of Bavaria of the Free State of Bavaria was enacted on 8 December 1946. The new Bavarian Constitution became the basis for the Bavarian State after the Second World War.

Bavaria has a unicameral Landtag (English: State Parliament), elected by universal suffrage. Until December 1999, there was also a Senat, or Senate, whose members were chosen by social and economic groups in Bavaria, but following a referendum in 1998, this institution was abolished.^{[citation needed]}

The Bavarian State Government consists of the Minister-President of Bavaria, eleven Ministers and six Secretaries of State. The Minister-President is elected for a period of five years by the State Parliament and is head of state. With the approval of the State Parliament he appoints the members of the State Government. The State Government is composed of the:

• State Chancellery (Staatskanzlei)
• Ministry of the Interior, for Sport and Integration (Staatsministerium des Innern, für Sport und Integration)
• Ministry for Housing, Construction and Transport (Staatsministerium für Wohnen, Bau und Verkehr)
• Ministry of Justice (Staatsministerium der Justiz)
• Ministry for Education and Culture (Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultus)
• Ministry for Science and Art (Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst)
• Ministry of Finance and for Home Affairs (Staatsministerium der Finanzen und für Heimat)
• Ministry for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy (Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft, Landesentwicklung und Energie)
• Ministry for Environment and Consumer Protection (Staatsministerium für Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz)
• Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forestry (Staatsministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten)
• Ministry for Family, Labour and Social Affairs (Staatsministerium für Familie, Arbeit und Soziales)
• Ministry for Health and Care (Staatsministerium für Gesundheit und Pflege)
• Ministry for Digital Affairs (Staatsministerium für Digitales)^[32]

Political processes also take place in the seven regions (Regierungsbezirke or Bezirke) in Bavaria, in the 71 rural districts (Landkreise) and the 25 towns and cities forming their own districts (kreisfreie Städte), and in the 2,031 local authorities (Gemeinden).

In 1995 Bavaria introduced direct democracy on the local level in a referendum. This was initiated bottom-up by an association called Mehr Demokratie (English: More Democracy). This is a grass-roots organization which campaigns for the right to citizen-initiated referendums. In 1997 the Bavarian Supreme Court tightened the regulations considerably (including by introducing a turn-out quorum). Nevertheless, Bavaria has the most advanced regulations on local direct democracy in Germany. This has led to a spirited citizens’ participation in communal and municipal affairs—835 referendums took place from 1995 through 2005.

Minister-presidents of Bavaria since 1945[edit]

Ministers-President of Bavaria
No.	Name	Born and died	Party affiliation	Begin of tenure	End of tenure
1	Fritz Schäffer	1888–1967	CSU	1945	1945
2	Wilhelm Hoegner	1887–1980	SPD	1945	1946
3	Hans Ehard	1887–1980	CSU	1946	1954
4	Wilhelm Hoegner	1887–1980	SPD	1954	1957
5	Hanns Seidel	1901–1961	CSU	1957	1960
6	Hans Ehard	1887–1980	CSU	1960	1962
7	Alfons Goppel	1905–1991	CSU	1962	1978
8	Franz Josef Strauß	1915–1988	CSU	1978	1988
9	Max Streibl	1932–1998	CSU	1988	1993
10	Edmund Stoiber	*1941	CSU	1993	2007
11	Günther Beckstein	*1943	CSU	2007	2008
12	Horst Seehofer	*1949	CSU	2008	2018
13	Markus Söder	*1967	CSU	2018	Incumbent

Designation as a «free state»[edit]

Unlike most German states (Länder), which simply designate themselves as «State of» (Land […]), Bavaria uses the style of «Free State of Bavaria» (Freistaat Bayern). The difference from other states is purely terminological, as German constitutional law does not draw a distinction between «States» and «Free States». The situation is thus analogous to the United States, where some states use the style «Commonwealth» rather than «State». The term «Free State», a creation of the 19th century and intended to be a German alternative to (or translation of) the Latin-derived republic was common among the states of the Weimar Republic, after German monarchies had been abolished. Unlike most other states – many of which were new creations – Bavaria has resumed this terminology after World War II. Two other states, Saxony and Thuringia, also call themselves «Free State».

Arbitrary arrest and human rights[edit]

In July 2017, Bavaria’s parliament enacted a new revision of the «Gefährdergesetz», allowing the authorities to imprison a person for a three months term, renewable indefinitely, when they haven’t committed a crime but it is assumed that they might commit a crime «in the near future».^[33] Critics like the prominent journalist Heribert Prantl have called the law «shameful» and compared it to Guantanamo Bay detention camp,^[34] assessed it to be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights,^[35] and also compared it to the legal situation in Russia, where a similar law allows for imprisonment for a maximum term of two years (i.e., not indefinitely).^[36]

Economy[edit]

Bavaria has long had one of the largest economies of any region in Germany, and in Europe.^[37] Its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 exceeded €434 billion (about U.S. $600 billion).^[38] This makes Bavaria itself one of the largest economies in Europe, and only 20 countries in the world have a higher GDP.^[39] The GDP of the region increased to €617.1 billion in 2018, accounting for 18.5% of German economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €43,500 or 145% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 114% of the EU average. This makes Bavaria one of the wealthiest regions in Europe.^[40] Bavaria has strong economic ties with Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Northern Italy.^[41]
In 2019 GDP was €832.4 ($905.7) billion, €48,323 ($52,577.3) per capita.^[42]

Agriculture[edit]

The most distinctive high points of Bavarian agriculture are:

• Hop growing in region Hallertau, which is up to 80% of German production and exported worldwide.
• Inland aquaculture of carps and trout.
• The well-hydrated alpine meadows are used to produce large quantities of quality milk, which is used to make a variety of cheese (including blue-veined cheese), yogurt and butter (Meggle).
• The cultivation of asparagus is widespread, which is a very popular new season vegetable. In season («Spargelzeit») restaurants offer special separated asparagus menu . There is an asparagus museum in Schrobenhausen.
• There are farms producing venison from deer and roe.
• Viticulture is widespread in Lower Franconia.
• Good ecology and strict control allow produce a large amount of organic products («bio») and baby food.

• 

  Hop garten

• 

  Allgäuer meadows

• 

  Asparagus with sauce hollandaise

• 

  Vineyards in Klingenberg-am-Main

Industries[edit]

Bavaria has the best developed industry in Germany^[43] and the lowest unemployment rate with 2.9% as of October 2021.^[44]

Branches:

• Oil refining. Although there is oil production in Bavaria, it does not meet domestic needs. Most of the oil is imported via pipelines from the Czech Republic (Russian oil) and from the Italian port of Trieste (Near East oil). Three refineries are situated near Ingolstadt and another one in Burghausen. Last one is a part of Bavarian chemical triangle and delivery row materials to other chemical plants.

• 

  Refinery Ingolstadt

• 

  transalpine pipeline

• Automotive is the most important and best developed Bavarian industry, which included manufacture of luxury cars (4 BMW and 2 Audi plants, R&D centers, test tracks), trucks (Traton MAN), special vehicles (Tadano Faun), buses (Evobus/Setra) and automotive parts (engines, electronics, cables, seats, interiors, cabrio roofs, heating and brake systems, software). Bavaria has the second-most employees (207,829) in the automotive industry of all German states after Baden-Württemberg as of 2018.^[45]

• 

  BMW 7 Series

• 

  Audi A5

• 

  MAN TGX

• 

  Faun HK 100

• 

  Setra S515HDH

• Aerospace and defense, which manufacture multi-role attack jet Eurofighter Typhoon, missiles from MBDA and Diehl Defence, parts of rocket Ariane, regional jet Dornier 728, ultra-light planes from Grob Aerospace, turbo jet engines for civil and military applications from MTU Aero Engines, helicopters Airbus, main battle tank Leopard 2, drones, composite parts, avionics, radars, propellants, initiators, powder, munitions. In Munich suburban Oberpfaffenhofen situated control center of European satellite navigation system Galileo, German Space Operations Center, Microwaves and Radar Institute, Institute of Communications and Navigation, Remote Sensing Technology Institute, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Institute for Software Technology, Institute of System Dynamics and Control.

• 

  Eurofighter Typhoon

• 

  Grob G 120TP

• 

  Airbus EC-665 Tiger

• 

  PARS 3 LR

• 

  Leopard 2

• Other transport manufacturing also represents in Bavaria. Even exists ship yards, for example Bavaria Yachtbau, despite location many hundreds kilometers from sea away; manufacturing of 4-stroke marine diesel engine, which using in cruise liners, ferries and warships. Rail technique produce in Munich-Allach (locomotive Siemens Vectron) and rail maintenance vehicle in Freilassing.

• 

  Bavaria R40

• 

  MAN marine diesel

• 

  Siemens Vectron

• 

  Robel BR 711.2

• Electronics. Chip design centers situated in Munich area (Infineon, Intel, Apple). There are 3 FABs: Infineon in Regensburg, Texas Instruments in Freising and Osram Optosemiconductors also in Regensburg. Power semiconductors are manufactured by Semikron. CNC controls are produced by Heidenhain, Traunreut and Siemens, Amberg. Silicon wafer for electronic manufacturing are delivered from Siltronic plant in Burghausen.

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  Campeon — Infineon and Intel R&D centers

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  CNC controls Heidehain iTNC 530

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  Programmable logic controller Siemens Simatic S7-1500

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  Silicon wafers

• Medical equipment. In Erlangen is a headquarters of Siemens Healthineers which produce devices for computer tomography, interventional X-ray systems, radiation therapy, molecular and magnetic resonance imaging, software. Brainlab creates software and hardware for image-guided surgery. Roche Diagnostics in Penzberg manufactures therapeutic proteins, diagnostic tests, reagents, analyze system and biopharma products.

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  Siemens E.Cam Duet

• Brewery. Bavaria has long tradition of brewery, near a half of all German breweries are located here (645 of 1300). All possible types of breweries exist: home brewery of hotel or restaurant, belong to big international concern, state-owned, castle or monastery breweries. The perfect quality of beer is guaranteed by 500-years law («Reinheitsgebot»), which allow as beer ingredients only water, hops, yeast and malt of barley, wheat or rye. But difference of roasting, fermentation or mixing allow to produce many different types of beers (not brand). Vladimir Putin at 2009 tasted beer from Brauerei Aying, Barack Obama at 2015 also tasted Bavarian beer of Karg Brauerei in Murnau. In Freising situated research center Weihenstephan for brewing and food quality.

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  Brauerei Aying

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  Murnau am Staffelsee

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  Cold reservoirs

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  Tanks

Companies[edit]

Many large companies are headquartered in Bavaria, including Adidas, Allianz, Airbus, Audi, BMW, Brose, BSH Hausgeräte, HypoVereinsbank, Infineon, KUKA, Traton, MTU Aero Engines, Munich Re, Osram, Puma, Rohde & Schwarz, Schaeffler, Siemens, Wacker Chemie, Linde, Vitesco Technologies, Webasto, Grob, Heidenhain, Koenig & Bauer, Kaeser Compressors, Krones, Knorr-Bremse, Wacker Neuson, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Siltronic, Leoni, Fielmann, MediaMarkt, Conrad Electronic, BayWa, ProSiebenSat.1 Media, Telefónica Germany, Knauf, Rehau, Giesecke+Devrient.

Also American companies open a lot of research and development centers in Munich region: Apple (chip design), Google (data security), IBM (Watson technology), Intel (drones and telecommunication chips), General Electric (3D-printers and additive manufacturing), Gleason (gears manufacturing), Texas Instruments (chip design and manufacturing), Coherent (lasers).

Tourism[edit]

With 40 million tourists in 2019, Bavaria is the most visited German state and one of Europe’s leading tourist destinations.^[46]

Attractions include:

• Amusement parks: Legoland in Günzburg, Bayern-Park in Reisbach (Vils), Playmobil in Zirndorf, Skyline Park in Bad Wörishofen and Bavaria Filmstadt in Grünwald
• Christmas markets in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nuremberg and Munich
• Factory Outlet Centers: Ingolstadt Village and Wertheim Village
• Festivals: Oktoberfest, Nürnberger Frühlingsfest and Nürnberger Herbstfest

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  Hofer Theresienstein

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  St. Bartholomä Church at Lake Königssee

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Unemployment[edit]

The unemployment rate stood at 2.6% in October 2018, the lowest in Germany and one of the lowest in the European Union.^[47]

Year[48]	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Unemployment rate in %	5.5	5.3	6.0	6.9	6.9	7.8	6.8	5.3	4.2	4.8	4.5	3.8	3.7	3.8	3.8	3.6	3.5	3.2	2.9	2.8	3.6	3.5

Demographics[edit]

Bavaria has a population of approximately 13.1 million inhabitants (2020). 8 of the 80 largest cities in Germany are located within Bavaria with Munich being the largest (1,484,226 inhabitants, approximately 6.1 million when including the broader metropolitan area), followed by Nuremberg (518,370 inhabitants, approximately 3.6 million when including the broader metropolitan area), Augsburg (296,582 inhabitants) and Regensburg (153,094 inhabitants). All other cities in Bavaria had less than 150,000 inhabitants each in 2020. Population density in Bavaria was 186/km² (480/sq mi), below the national average of 233/km² (600/sq mi). Foreign nationals resident in Bavaria (both immigrants and refugees/asylum seekers) were principally from other EU countries and Turkey.

Top-ten foreign resident populations[49]
Nationality	Population (31 December 2020)
1	Romania	191,410
2	Turkey	190,730
3	Croatia	126,090
4	Poland	116,320
5	Italy	105,930
6	Austria	85,050
7	Syria	77,445
8	Greece	76,875
9	Hungary	75,705
10	Bosnia and Herzegovina	60,415

Vital statistics[edit]

Vital statistics^[50]

Comparison period	Births	Deaths	Natural growth
January – November 2016	115,032	116,915	-1,883
January – November 2017	115,690	122,247	-6,557

Culture[edit]

Some features of the Bavarian culture and mentality are remarkably distinct from the rest of Germany. Noteworthy differences (especially in rural areas, less significant in the major cities) can be found with respect to religion, traditions, and language.

Religion[edit]

Bavarian culture (Altbayern) has a long and predominant tradition of Roman Catholic faith. Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger) was born in Marktl am Inn in Upper Bavaria and was Cardinal-Archbishop of Munich and Freising. Otherwise, the culturally Franconian and Swabian regions of the modern State of Bavaria are historically more diverse in religiosity, with both Catholic and Protestant traditions. In 1925, 70.0% of the Bavarian population was Catholic, 28.8% was Protestant, 0.7% was Jewish, and 0.5% was placed in other religious categories.^[52]

As of 2020 46.9% of Bavarians adhered to Catholicism (a decline from 70.4% in 1970).^[53][51] 17.2 percent of the population adheres to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, which has also declined since 1970.^[53][51] Three percent was Orthodox, Muslims make up 4.0% of the population of Bavaria. 31.9 percent of Bavarians are irreligious or adhere to other religions.

Traditions[edit]

Bavarians commonly emphasize pride in their traditions. Traditional costumes collectively known as Tracht are worn on special occasions and include in Altbayern Lederhosen for males and Dirndl for females. Centuries-old folk music is performed. The Maibaum, or Maypole (which in the Middle Ages served as the community’s business directory, as figures on the pole represented the trades of the village), and the bagpipes of the Upper Palatinate region bear witness to the ancient Celtic and Germanic remnants of cultural heritage of the region. There are many traditional Bavarian sports disciplines, e.g. the Aperschnalzen, competitive whipcracking.

Whether in Bavaria, overseas or with citizens from other nations Bavarians continue to cultivate their traditions. They hold festivals and dances to keep their heritage alive.

Food and drink[edit]

Bavarians tend to place a great value on food and drink. In addition to their renowned dishes, Bavarians also consume many items of food and drink which are unusual elsewhere in Germany; for example Weißwurst («white sausage») or in some instances a variety of entrails. At folk festivals and in many beer gardens, beer is traditionally served by the litre (in a Maß). Bavarians are particularly proud^[54] of the traditional Reinheitsgebot, or beer purity law, initially established by the Duke of Bavaria for the City of Munich (i.e. the court) in 1487 and the duchy in 1516. According to this law, only three ingredients were allowed in beer: water, barley, and hops. In 1906 the Reinheitsgebot made its way to all-German law, and remained a law in Germany until the EU partly struck it down in 1987 as incompatible with the European common market.^[55] German breweries, however, cling to the principle, and Bavarian breweries still comply with it in order to distinguish their beer brands.^[56] Bavarians are also known as some of the world’s most prolific beer drinkers, with an average annual consumption of 170 liters per person.^{[citation needed]}

Bavaria is also home to the Franconia wine region, which is situated along the river Main in Franconia. The region has produced wine (Frankenwein) for over 1,000 years and is famous for its use of the Bocksbeutel wine bottle. The production of wine forms an integral part of the regional culture, and many of its villages and cities hold their own wine festivals (Weinfeste) throughout the year.

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  Schweinsbraten

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  Nürnberger Rostbratwürste

Language and dialects[edit]

Three German dialects are most commonly spoken in Bavaria: Austro-Bavarian in Old Bavaria (Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate), Swabian German (an Alemannic German dialect) in the Bavarian part of Swabia (south west) and East Franconian German in Franconia (North). In the small town Ludwigsstadt in the north, district Kronach in Upper Franconia, Thuringian dialect is spoken. During the 20th century an increasing part of the population began to speak Standard German (Hochdeutsch), mainly in the cities.

Ethnography[edit]

Bavarians consider themselves to be egalitarian and informal.^[57] Their sociability can be experienced at the annual Oktoberfest, the world’s largest beer festival, which welcomes around six million visitors every year, or in the famous beer gardens. In traditional Bavarian beer gardens, patrons may bring their own food but buy beer only from the brewery that runs the beer garden.^[58]

Sports[edit]

Football[edit]

Bavaria is home to several football clubs including FC Bayern Munich, 1. FC Nürnberg, FC Augsburg, TSV 1860 Munich, FC Ingolstadt 04 and SpVgg Greuther Fürth. Bayern Munich is the most successful football team in Germany having won a record 32 German titles and 6 UEFA Champions League titles. They are followed by 1. FC Nürnberg who have won 9 titles. SpVgg Greuther Fürth have won 3 championships while TSV 1860 Munich have been champions once.

Basketball[edit]

Bavaria is also home to several professional basketball teams, including FC Bayern Munich, Brose Baskets Bamberg, s.Oliver Würzburg, Nürnberg Falcons BC and TSV Oberhaching Tropics.

Ice hockey[edit]

There are five Bavarian ice hockey teams playing in the German top-tier league DEL: EHC Red Bull München, Nürnberg Ice Tigers, Augsburger Panther, ERC Ingolstadt, and Straubing Tigers.

Notable people[edit]

Many famous people have been born or lived in present-day Bavaria:

• Kings: Arnulf of Carinthia, Carloman of Bavaria, Charles the Fat, Lothair I, Louis the Child, Louis the German, Louis the Younger, Ludwig I of Bavaria, Ludwig II of Bavaria, Ludwig III of Bavaria, Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, Maximilian II of Bavaria, Otto, King of Bavaria
• Religious leaders: Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger); Pope Damasus II, Pope Victor II.
• Painters: Albrecht Dürer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Carl Spitzweg, Erwin Eisch, Franz von Lenbach, Franz von Stuck, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter, Hans Holbein the Elder, Johann Christian Reinhart, Lucas Cranach, Paul Klee.
• Classical musicians Orlando di Lasso, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Leopold Mozart, Max Reger, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Carl Orff, Johann Pachelbel, Theobald Boehm, Klaus Nomi.
• Other musicians Hans-Jürgen Buchner, Barbara Dennerlein, Klaus Doldinger, Franzl Lang, Bands: Spider Murphy Gang, Sportfreunde Stiller, Obscura, Michael Bredl
• Opera singers Jonas Kaufmann, Diana Damrau.
• Writers, poets and playwrights Hans Sachs, Jean Paul, Friedrich Rückert, August von Platen-Hallermünde, Frank Wedekind, Christian Morgenstern, Oskar Maria Graf, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas Mann, Klaus Mann, Golo Mann, Ludwig Thoma, Michael Ende, Ludwig Aurbacher.
• Scientists Max Planck, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Werner Heisenberg, Adam Ries, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Georg Ohm, Johannes Stark, Carl von Linde, Ludwig Prandtl, Rudolf Mössbauer, Lothar Rohde, Hermann Schwarz, Robert Huber, Martin Behaim, Levi Strauss, Rudolf Diesel, Feodor Lynen, Georges J. F. Köhler, Erwin Neher, Ernst Otto Fischer, Johann Deisenhofer.
• Physicians Alois Alzheimer, Max Joseph von Pettenkofer, Sebastian Kneipp.
• Politicians Ludwig Erhard, Horst Seehofer, Christian Ude, Kurt Eisner, Franz-Josef Strauß, Roman Herzog, Leonard John Rose, Henry Kissinger.
• Football players Max Morlock, Karl Mai, Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier, Gerd Müller, Paul Breitner, Bernd Schuster, Klaus Augenthaler, Lothar Matthäus, Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Holger Badstuber, Thomas Müller, Mario Götze, Dietmar Hamann, Stefan Reuter
• Other sportspeople Bernhard Langer, Dirk Nowitzki
• Actors Michael Herbig, Werner Stocker, Helmut Fischer, Walter Sedlmayr, Gustl Bayrhammer, Ottfried Fischer, Ruth Drexel, Elmar Wepper, Fritz Wepper, Uschi Glas, Yank Azman.
• Entertainers Siegfried Fischbacher
• Film directors Helmut Dietl, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Bernd Eichinger, Joseph Vilsmaier, Hans Steinhoff, Heinz Badewitz and Werner Herzog.
• Designers Peter Schreyer, Damir Doma
• Entrepreneurs Charles Diebold, Adi Dassler, Rudolf Dassler, Levi Strauss
• Military Claus von Stauffenberg
• Nazis: Sepp Dietrich, Karl Fiehler, Karl Gebhardt, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Alfred Jodl, Josef Kollmer, Josef Mengele, Ernst Röhm, Franz Ritter von Epp, Julius Streicher
• Others: Kaspar Hauser, The Smith of Kochel, Mathias Kneißl, Matthias Klostermayr, Anneliese Michel, Herluka von Bernried

See also[edit]

• Outline of Germany
• Former countries in Europe after 1815
• List of Bavaria-related topics
• List of Premiers of Bavaria
• List of rulers of Bavaria

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

General and cited sources[edit]

• Phillips, Walter Alison; Ashworth, Philip Arthur (1911). «Bavaria» . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). pp. 543–551.

External links[edit]

• Official government website
• Official website of Bayern Tourismus Marketing GmbH
• Bavarian Studies in History and Culture
• Außenwirtschaftsportal Bayern
• Statistics
• Geographic data related to Bavaria at OpenStreetMap