A
Land (or
Bundesland), plural
Länder, is one of the sixteen federal states of
Germany. The
Länder have considerable freedom over most issues of
government, like the states of the
U.S., although they are of course smaller than most American states. Some of them represent historic regions, such as
Bavaria, which could be called the Texas of Germany, and
Schleswig-Holstein, which has a long history of being disputed by
Germany and
Denmark. Others are more recent formations, such as
Saxony-Anhalt, which consists partly of former
Saxony territory and partly of principalities which for some time were independent of each other.
Three of the Länder are autonomous city states, covering only the city limits: Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg. The remaining thirteen are known as Flächenstaaten. They are listed here English name first, German second:
Baden-Württemberg
Bavaria (Bayern)
Brandenburg
Hesse (Hessen)
Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen)
Mecklenburg-Lower Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen)
Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz)
Saarland
Saxony (Sachsen)
Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt)
Schleswig-Holstein
Thuringia (Thüringen)