Rhineland-Palatinate

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Flag

Image:Flag of Rhineland-Palatinate.svg
Statistics
Capital:	Mainz
Area:	19,846 km²
Inhabitants:	4,059,604 (2005)
pop. density:	196 people/km²
Website:	http://www.rlp.de/
ISO 3166-2:	DE-RP
Politics
Minister-president:	Kurt Beck (SPD)
Ruling party:	SPD
Map
Image:Deutschland Lage von Rheinland-Pfalz.svg

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

1 Geography
2 Politics
- 2.1 List of Minister-presidents of Rhineland-Palatinate
- 2.2 March 26, 2006 state election
3 Administration
4 History
5 Emigration
6 External links

[edit] 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 north there are the Eifel and Hunsrück mountain chains on the left bank, and the Westerwald and Taunus mountains on the right banks 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.

[edit] Politics

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)

[edit] List of Minister-presidents of Rhineland-Palatinate

Image:KurtBeck.jpg

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, SPD

[edit] March 26, 2006 state election

Kurt 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.

Party	Party List votes	Vote percentage	Total Seats	Seat percentage
Social Democratic Party (SPD)	750,390	43.3%	58	57.4%
Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	668,610	38.6%	38	37.6%
Free Democratic Party (FDP)	134,709	7.8%	10	9.9%
Alliance '90/The Greens	86,255	4.98%	0	0.0%
Labour and Social Justice Party (WASG)	47,352	2.7%	0	0.0%
All Others	45,010	2.6%	0	0.0%
Totals	1,732,326	100.0%	101	100.0%

[edit] Administration

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.

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 urban districts which 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)

[edit] History

The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946. It was formed out of the northern part of the French Occupation Zone, which included 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.

[edit] Emigration

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. The Pennsylvania Dutch spoken by the Amish people is (among other dialects) derived from the German dialect spoken in the Rhineland-Palatinate.