Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate (
German:
Rheinland-Pfalz) is one of 16
Bundesländer of
Germany. It has an area of 19,846 km² and about four million inhabitants. The capital is
Mainz.
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 very 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 residing in the State 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 (
ministry of economy, traffic, agriculture and winegrowing)
List of Minister-presidents of Rhineland-Palatinate
*
June 13 1947 -
July 9 1947:
Wilhelm Boden,
CDU*
1947 -
1969:
Peter Altmeier,
CDU*
1969 -
1976:
Helmut Kohl,
CDU*
1976 -
1988:
Bernhard Vogel,
CDU*
1988 -
1991:
Carl-Ludwig Wagner,
CDU*
1991 -
1994:
Rudolf Scharping,
SPD*since
1994:
Kurt Beck,
SPDSee also:
List of Rhineland-Palatinate Cabinet Members.
March 26, 2006 state election
See also:Rhineland-Palatinate state election, 2006Kurt Beck (SPD) remained Minister-President, winning an outright majority. Beck offered the
FDP to continue the coalition ("red-yellow"). The FDP, however, declined and will be an opposition party. The
Alliance '90/The Greens lost their representation in the
Landtag.
Rhineland-Palatinate is divided into 24 districts, formerly 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.
 |
Rhineland_p_map.png |
Map of the
districts of Rhineland-Palatinate:
Every district is composed of numerous municipalities, which can consist of cities, villages, or groups of villages known as
Verbandsgemeinden.Furthermore there are twelve cities which do not belong to any district and are identified on the map with letters:
#
Frankenthal (F)#
Kaiserslautern (Ka)#
Koblenz Coblenz (Ko)#
Landau (La, the main city and an enclave)#
Ludwigshafen (Rheinpfalz-Kreis) (L)#
Mainz (M)#
Neustadt (Weinstraße) (N)#
Pirmasens (P)#
Speyer Spires (S)#
Trier (T)#
Worms (W)#
Zweibrücken (Z)
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.
Rhineland-Palatinate has supplied immigrants to many parts of the world. The
Hunsrückischen dialect in Brazil bears testimony to this fact, as do the names of the villages of
New Paltz and
Palatine Bridge, New York.
*
Official governmental portal*
Tourist Information and Travel Guide to Rhineland-Palatinate
