5/5/2014 Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Federal Republic of Germany
Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Flag Coat of arms
Motto:
"Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" (German)
"Unity and Justice and Freedom" (unofficial)
[1][2][3][4]
Anthem:
Third stanza of
Das Lied der Deutschen
[5]
(Song of the
Germans)
Bundesadler
Locat ion of Germany (dark green)
in Europe (green & dark grey)
Germany
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the country. For other uses of terms redirecting here, see Germany (disambiguation) and
Deutschland (disambiguation).
Germany (
i
/drmni/; German: Deutschland),
officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German:
Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [bndsepu
blik dtlant] ( )),
[15]
is a federal parliamentary
republic in western-central Europe. The country consists of
16 states and its capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany
covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres
(137,847 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal
climate. With 80.6 million inhabitants, it is the most
populous member state in the European Union. Germany is
the major economic and political power of the European
continent and a historic leader in many cultural, theoretical
and technical fields.
Various Germanic tribes occupied what is now northern
Germany and southern Scandinavia since classical
antiquity. A region named Germania was documented by
the Romans before AD 100. During the Migration Period
that coincided with the decline of the Roman Empire, the
Germanic tribes expanded southward and established
kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the
10th century, German territories formed a central part of
the Holy Roman Empire.
[16]
During the 16th century,
northern German regions became the centre of the
Protestant Reformation. Occupied during the Napoleonic
Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German
Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the
German states in 1871 into the German Empire, which was
dominated by Prussia.
After the German Revolution of 19181919 and the
subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire
was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic in
1918, with some of its territory partitioned in the Treaty of
Versailles. Despite its lead in many scientific and cultural
fields at this time, Germany nonetheless endured significant
economic and political instability, which intensified during
the Great Depression and contributed to the establishment
of the Third Reich in 1933. The subsequent rise of fascism
led to World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by
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