The German Empire consisted of 25 constituent states and an Imperial Territory, the largest of which was Prussia.These states, or Staaten (or Bundesstaaten, i.e. federal states, a name derived from the previous North German Confederation; they became known as Länder during the Weimar Republic) each had votes in the Bundesrat, which gave them representation at a federal level.

The administrative divisions of the German Democratic Republic (commonly referred to as East Germany) were constituted in two different forms during the country's history. The GDR first retained the traditional German division into federated states called Länder, but in 1952 they were replaced with districts called Bezirke.

Part of a series on the History of Germany Topics Chronology Historiography Military history Economic history Women's history Territorial evolution Historic states (Holy Roman Empire) Monarchs (Queens, Empresses, 1918, Family tree, Austria, Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony, Württemberg, Mediatised) Early history Germanic peoples Migration Period ...

Weimar Republic states Germany suffered significant territorial losses from the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, and some states had their borders altered by international border changes. In 1920, the state of Thuringia was formed from the former Ernestine duchies that continued briefly as republics before merging, except for Saxe-Coburg, which became part of …