Bavaria
From Open Encyclopedia
| Flags | |
|---|---|
| "lozengy" variant | striped variant |
| Image:Flag de-bayern lozenge.png | Image:Flag de-bayern striped.png |
| Coat of Arms | |
| Image:Coat of arms of Bavaria.svg | |
| Statistics | |
| Capital: | Munich (München) |
| Area: | 70,553 km² |
| Inhabitants: | 12.4 Million (08/2003) |
| pop. density: | 164 inh./km² |
| Website: | bayern.de |
| ISO 3166-2: | DE-BY |
| Politics | |
| Minister-president: | Edmund Stoiber (CSU) |
| Ruling party: | CSU |
| Map | |
| Image:Germany Laender Bayern.png | |
- For other uses of "Bavaria", see Bavaria (disambiguation).
Contents |
Culture
Bavaria has a culture very 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: Bavarians are typically very conservative Roman Catholics, contrasting markedly with the more casual attitude to religion in much of the rest of Germany. The current pope, Benedict XVI, is from Bavaria.
Appearance: Bavarians resemble the inhabitants of Latin countries in that they give great attention to their personal appearance, while much of the rest of Germany dresses very casually. Also, in a business context, wearing traditional-style clothing is not unusual at least in the south of the Free State. Bavarian cities and towns, whether rich or poor, are among the best looked-after locations in Germany.
Food and Drink: Bavarians tend to place a greater value on food and drink than do other Germans. Bavarians also consume many items of food and drink which are unusual elsewhere in Germany.
Language: Bavarians are very proud of their marked dialects and most of them speak with their Bavarian, Franconian or Swabian accent.
Politics: The Christian Social Union, which has ruled in Bavaria uninterruptedly since 1957, doesn't seek election in any other state of Germany. The CSU, arguably the most inward looking of the major German political parties, combines socially conservative positions with advocacy for extensive involvement of the state in the economy.
Social behaviour: In comparison to the elaborate formality in the rest of Germany, Bavarians can be extremely egalitarian and folksy.
Geography
Bavaria shares international borders with Austria and the Czech Republic. Neighbouring states within Germany are Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony. Two major rivers flow through the state, the Danube (Donau) and the Main.
The major cities in Bavaria are Munich (München), Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Augsburg, Regensburg, Würzburg, Ingolstadt, Fürth and Erlangen.
See also: List of places in Bavaria.
Politics
Bavaria has a unicameral Landtag, or 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. The head of government is the Minister-president.
Bavaria has long been a bastion of conservative politics in Germany, with the Christian Social Union having almost a stranglehold on power since its inception in 1946. Every Minister-president since 1957 has been a member of this party.
In the 2003 elections the CSU won more than two thirds of the seats in Landtag. No party in post-war German history had achieved this before (not counting the rigged wins of the SED in East Germany). On the other hand the bigger and for that more liberal cities, especially Munich, have been governed for decades by the SPD (Social Democrats). From the historical point of view older Bavaria used to be one of the most liberal states until the (today) rather rural areas of Swabia and Francia were added in 1814/15 at the Congress of Vienna. The Free State of (older) Bavaria and the Duchery of Baden were the first German States to have a constitution in the early 19th Century.
Administrative Divisions
Regierungsbezirke (administrative regions)
Bavaria is divided into 7 administrative regions called Regierungsbezirke (singular Regierungsbezirk).
Image:Bavarian Admin Districts.jpg
- Oberfranken (Upper Franconia)
- Mittelfranken (Middle Franconia)
- Unterfranken (Lower Franconia)
- Schwaben (Swabia)
- Oberpfalz (Upper Palatinate)
- Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria)
- Niederbayern (Lower Bavaria)
These administrative regions consist of 71 administrative districts (called Landkreise, singular Landkreis) and 25 independent cities (kreisfreie Städte, singular kreisfreie Stadt).
Landkreise/kreisfreie Städte (administrative districs/independent cities)
Administrative districts:
Independent cities:
|
Gemeinden (municipalities)
The 71 administrative districts are on the lowest level divided into 2031 municipalities (called Gemeinden, singular Gemeinde). Together with the 25 independent cities (which are in effect municipalities independent of Landkreis administrations), there are a total of 2056 municipalities in Bavaria.
In 44 of the 71 administrative districts, there are a total of 215 unincorporated areas (as of January 1, 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 -with island Roseninsel, Ammersee, which are the three largest lakes of Bavaria, and Waginger See).
Dialects
Image:ChapelBavaria.JPG Several German dialects are spoken in Bavaria. In the administrative regions to the north the Franconian dialect is prevalent, in Swabia the local dialect is Swabian, a thread of the Alemannic dialect family. In the Upper Palatinate people speak the Northern Bavarian dialect that can vary regionally. In Upper and Lower Bavaria (Middle) Austro-Bavarian is the predominant dialect.
History
Main article: History of Bavaria
A precursor to the name Bayern, was the name Bayuwaren given by the Romans to the province. A later mention was made by the Franks ca. 520. Saint Boniface completed the people's conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria resisted the Protestant Reformation, and remains strongly Roman Catholic.
From about 550 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the duchy of Bavaria, ending with Tassilo III who was deposed by Charlemagne. For the next 400 years numerous families held the duchy, rarely for more than three generations. The last, and one of the most important, of these dukes was Henry the Lion of the house of Welf, founder of Munich.
When Henry the Lion was deposed as duke of Saxony and Bavaria by his cousin, Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1180, Bavaria was awarded as fief to the Wittelsbach family, which ruled from 1180 to 1918. The first of several divisions of the duchy occurred in 1255 but in 1506 Bavaria was reunited and Munich became the sole capital. In 1623 the dukes acquired the electoral dignity.
Bavaria became a kingdom in 1806, and in 1815 the Rhenish Palatinate was annexed to it. In between 1799 and 1817 the leading minister count Montgelas followed a strict policy of mondernisation and lay the foundations of adminstrative structres that survived even the monarchy and are (in their core) vaild until today. In 1818 a modern constitution (with the standards of the time) was passed, that established a bicameral Parliament with a House of Lords ("Kammer der Reichsräte") and a House of Commons ("Kammer der Abgeordneten"). The constitution was valid until the collapse of the monarchy at the end of the First World War.
Bavaria managed to preserve its independence by playing off the rivalries of Prussia and Austria, but defeat in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War led to its incorporation into the German Empire in 1871. In the early 20th century Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Henrik Ibsen, and other notable artists were drawn to Bavaria, notably to the Schwabing district of Munich, but the region was devastated by World War I. Image:Wieskirche1998.jpg Socialist premier Kurt Eisner, who deposed King Ludwig III, was assassinated in 1919 leading to a violently suppressed communist revolt. Extremist activity on the right also increased, notably the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, and Munich and Nuremberg became Nazi strongholds under the Third Reich. As a manufacturing center, Munich was heavily bombed during World War II and occupied by U.S. troops.
Since World War II, Bavaria has been rehabilitated into a prosperous industrial hub. A massive reconstruction effort restored much of Munich's historic core, and the city played host to the 1972 Summer Olympics. More recently, state minister-president Edmund Stoiber was the CDU/CSU candidate for chancellor in the 2002 federal election, and native son Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
See also
- Bavarian Soviet Republic
- List of rulers of Bavaria
- List of Premiers of Bavaria
- Former countries in Europe after 1815
Miscellaneous
There are many famous people who were born or lived in present-day Bavaria:
- Pope Benedict XVI -- as of April 2005 he is the current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. His baptismal name is Joseph Ratzinger.
- Painters such as Hans Holbein the Elder, Albrecht Dürer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Lucas Cranach, Carl Spitzweg, Franz von Lenbach, Franz von Stuck and Franz Marc.
- Musicians such as Orlando di Lasso, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Carl Orff and Theobald Boehm, the inventor of the modern flute.
- Modern musicians like Klaus Doldinger and Barbara Dennerlein.
- Writers, poets and playwrights like Hans Sachs, Jean Paul, Frank Wedekind, Christian Morgenstern, Oskar Maria Graf, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas Mann and his sons Klaus and Golo Mann.
- Scientists such as the Nobel prize winner Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and Werner Heisenberg, also Adam Ries, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Georg Ohm, Carl von Linde, Rudolf Moessbauer and Robert Huber.
- Well-known inventors such as Martin Behaim, Levi Strauss and Rudolf Diesel.
- Physicians like Max Joseph von Pettenkofer, Sebastian Kneipp and the Neurologist Alois Alzheimer, who first described the Alzheimer's Disease.
- Footballers like Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier, Gerd Müller, Paul Breitner, Klaus Augenthaler and Lothar Matthäus.
- Film directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Joseph Vilsmaier and Werner Herzog.
- Kaspar Hauser
- The Smith of Kochel
The motorcycle and automobile makers BMW (Bayerische Motoren-Werke, or Bavarian Motor Works) and Audi, Grundig (consumer electronics), Siemens (electricity, telephones, informatics, medical instruments), Adidas and Puma have (or had) a Bavarian industrial base.
A famous annual festival is called Oktoberfest or October Festival. It was first celebrated in 1810 as a public feast when the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig married Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The celebration originally was designed as a feast for all members of the Bavarian Nation, who should celebrate the country and the crown. It only turned to a pure matter of boozing in the 20th century and is nowadays attended rather by tourists than by Bavarians. Munich locals often despise it. It is celebrated during the two weeks leading up to the first Sunday in October.
Bavaria has also given its name to a major Dutch brewery, Bavaria Brewery.
The meaning of the coat of arms
Modern coat of arms was designed by Eduard Ege, following heraldic traditions in 1946.
- The Golden Lion: The rampant lion Palatinate in its golden-and-red amour stands for the administrative region of Upper Palatinate.
- The "Franconian Rake": It represents the administrative regions of the Upper, Middle and Lower Franconia.
- The Blue Panther: At the bottom left of the third field there is a blue panther rampant, with gold talons, on a white (silver) ground. It rep-resents the regions of the Lower and Upper Bavaria.
- The Three Lions: In the fourth field three black lions with red talons stand on a golden ground one above the other, with heads askance. On the Bavarian coat of arms they symbolize Swabia.
- The White-And-Blue Heart-Shaped Shield: The heart-shaped shield of white and blue fusils askance was originally the coat of arms of the Counts of Bogen to be adopted in 1247 by the Wittelsbachs House. The white-and-blue fusils are indisputably the emblem of Bavaria and the heart-shaped shield today symbolizes Bavaria as a whole. Along with the People's Crown, it is officially used as the Minor Coat of Arms.
- The People's Crown: The four coat fields with the heart-shaped shield in the centre are crowned with a golden band with precious stones decorated with five ornamental leaves. This crown appeared for the first time in the coat of arms in 1923 to symbolize sovereignty of the people after the dropping out of the royal crown.
Bavarian "citizenship"
The fact that, different to the constitutions of all other German Länder, the Bavarian constitution provides for a Bavarian citizenship, is often mentioned as an indicator for Bavarian distinctiveness. Some Bavarians are keen to emphasize that - in accordance with the generous indication of the constitution - they regard everyone
- born in Bavaria,
- born to a Bavarian parent,
- adopted by a Bavarian as a child,
- married to a Bavarian, or
- naturalized in Bavaria,
as a fellow-Bavarian; some of those falling under this untechnical definition express pride to being "Bavarian". However, state legislation regulating citizenship procedures has never been enacted, the constitution itself provides that all Germans enjoy the same rights as Bavarian citizens, and no office issues certificates concerning a "Bavarian" citizenship. Thus, the notion of citizenship rather bears a folkloristic, not really a political meaning.
German-Bavarian relations
It is a common joke in Germany that Bavaria is not part of Germany. In fact a minority seriously agree to this notion; the Bayernpartei (Bavaria Party) has tendencies to make Bavaria an independent state in Europe. It is important to note that Bavaria is the only state that declined the approval of the German constitution in 1949.
Population and area
Admin. Region population(2003) area (km²) municipalities Lower Bavaria .... 1,162,972 9.6% 10,330 14.6% 258 12.5% Lower Franconia .. 1,329,399 11.0% 8,531 12.1% 308 15.0% Upper Franconia .. 1,113,790 9.2% 7,231 10.2% 214 10.4% Middle Franconia . 1,678,535 13.9% 7,246 10.3% 210 10.2% Upper Palatinate . 1,069,121 8.8% 9,690 13.7% 226 11.0% Swabia ........... 1,773,688 14.4% 9,992 14.2% 340 16.5% Upper Bavaria .... 3,996,043 33.1% 17,530 24.8% 500 24.3% ------------------ ---------- ------ ------ ------ ---- ------ BAVARIA .......... 12,086,548 100.0% 70,549 100.0% 2056 100.0%
Bavarian Culture Overseas
The Bavarians take great pride in their culture. Traditions are taught to the children and descendants of Bavarian citizens through literature, music and cultural events. Whether actually in Bavaria, overseas or full citizens of other nations they continue to cultivate their traditions. They hold festivals and dances to keep their traditions alive.
In New York the German American Cultural Society is a larger umbrella group for others such as the Bavarian organizations, which represent a specific part of Germany. They proudly put forth a German Parade each year. Various affilliated events take place amongst its groups, one of which is the Bavarian Dancers.
External links
- Offical site of the state of Bavaria
- Bavaria, Overview on Bavaria, its history and culture.
- Bayern Viewer aerial views and maps of Bavaria
- Detailed map
- The Royal House of Bavaria, in German only
- Bavaria information
- Bavarian Dancers - Bavarian American Culture
ar:بافاريا ast:Estáu Llibre de Baviera bg:Бавария ca:Baviera cs:Bavorsko da:Bayern de:Bayern eo:Bavario es:Baviera et:Baieri fa:بایرن fi:Baijeri fr:Bavière gl:Baviera he:בוואריה hr:Bavarska hu:Bajorország id:Bayern it:Baviera ja:バイエルン州 jv:Bayern ka:ბავარია ko:바이에른 주 la:Bavaria lt:Bavarija lv:Bavārija nds:Bayern nl:Beieren no:Bayern pl:Bawaria pt:Baviera ro:Bavaria ru:Бавария simple:Bavaria sk:Bavorsko sr:Бајерн sv:Bayern ta:பவேரியா uk:Баварія zh:巴伐利亚
