Rhineland-Palatinate: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Flag
Statistics
Capital:	Mainz
Area:	19,846 km²
Inhabitants:	3,880,000 (2000)
pop. density:	196 people/km²
Homepage:	http://www.rlp.de/
ISO 3166-2:	DE-RP
Politics
Minister-President:	Kurt Beck (SPD)
Ruling party:	SPD/FDP coalition
Map

Rhineland-Palatinate (German Rheinland-Pfalz) is one of 16 Bundesländer of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 km² and 3.88 million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz.

Geography

Rhineland-Palatinate borders on (from the north and clockwise) North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, France, Saarland, Luxembourg and Belgium.

The main axis of the state is the Rhine river, that forms the border with Baden-Württemberg and Hesse in the southeast before running across the northern part of Rhineland-Palatinate. The Rhine Valley is bounded by mountain chains and forms a fascinating landscape with some of the historically most significant places of Germany.

In the northwest there are the southern parts of the Eifel mountains. Further south there is the Hunsrück mountain chain, which is continued by the Taunus mountains on the opposite side of the Rhine. The hilly lands in the south of the state are called the Palatine Forest (Pfälzerwald).

These mountain chains are separated from each other by the tributaries of the Rhine: the Moselle (Mosel), the Lahn and the Nahe.

See also List of places in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Rhineland-Palatinate is a parliamentary democracy. Every five years, all Germans over the age of 18 elect the members of the Rhineland-Palatinate Landtag. This regional parliament or legislature then elects the premier and confirms the cabinet members. Rhineland-Palatinate is the only German Bundesland to have a cabinet minister for winegrowing.

See here for a List of Rhineland-Palatinate Cabinet Members.

Rhineland-Palatinate is divided into 24 districts, grouped into the three administrative regions: Koblenz, Trier and Rheinhessen-Pfalz.

Since 2000, the employees and assets of the Bezirksregierungen form the Aufsichts- und Dienstleistungsdirektion Trier (Supervisory and Service Directorate Trier) and the Struktur- und Genehmigungsdirektionen (Structural and Approval Directorates) Nord in Koblenz and Süd in Neustadt (Weinstraße). These administrations execute their authority over the whole state, i. e. the ADD Trier oversees all schools.

Map of the districts of Rhineland-Palatinate:

Every district is divided into some Verbandsgemeinden. Furthermore there are twelve independent towns, which don't belong to any district:

1. Frankenthal
2. Kaiserslautern
3. Koblenz Coblenz
4. Landau
5. Ludwigshafen
6. Mainz
7. Neustadt (Weinstraße)
8. Pirmasens
9. Speyer Spires
10. Trier
11. Worms
12. Zweibrücken

The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946. It was formed out of parts of Bavaria (the Rhenish Palatinate), the southern parts of the Prussian Rhine Province (including the District of Birkenfeld which formerly belonged to Oldenburg), parts of the Prussian Province of Nassau (see Hesse-Nassau), and parts of Hesse-Darmstadt (Rheinhessen on the western banks of the Rhine); the new state was legally confirmed by referendum on 18 May 1947.

• June 13 1947 - July 9 1947: Dr. Wilhelm Boden, CDU
• 1947 - 1969: Dr. h.c. Peter Altmeier, CDU
• 1969 - 1976: Dr. phil. Dr. h. c. mult. Helmut Kohl, CDU
• 1976 - 1988: Dr. phil. Bernhard Vogel, CDU
• 1988 - 1991: Dr. Carl-Ludwig Wagner, CDU
• 1991 - 1994: Rudolf Scharping, SPD
• since 1994: Kurt Beck, SPD

Rhineland-Palatinate has supplied immigrants to many parts of the world. The Hunsrückischen dialect in Brazil bears testimony to this fact, as does the name of the village of New Paltz, New York.

States of Germany
Baden-Württemberg | Bavaria | Berlin | Brandenburg | Bremen | Hamburg | Hesse | Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania | Lower Saxony | North Rhine-Westphalia | Rhineland-Palatinate | Saarland | Saxony | Saxony-Anhalt | Schleswig-Holstein | Thuringia