Geography, Administrative Regions and Population
When Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire, and Bavaria became a kingdom in 1806, its area reduplicated. Tyrol (1805–1814) and Salzburg (1810–1816) were temporarily reunited with Bavaria but finally ceded to Austria. In return the Rhenish Palatinate and Franconia were annexed to Bavaria in 1815.
The Kingdom of Bavaria was divided from 1837 into 8 administrative regions called Regierungsbezirke (singular Regierungsbezirk). The regions ("Kreis") were named after its main rivers before, but King Ludwig I reorganized the administrative regions of Bavaria in 1837 and re-introduced the old names Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, Upper Palatinate and Palatinate. He changed his royal titles to Ludwig, King of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, Duke in Swabia and Count Palatinate of the Rhine. His successors kept these titles. Ludwig's plan to reunite also the eastern part of the Palatinate with Bavaria could not be realized. The Electorate of the Palatinate, a former dominion of the Wittelsbach, had been split up in 1815, the eastern bank of the Rhine with Mannheim and Heidelberg was given to Baden, only the western bank was granted to Bavaria. Here Ludwig founded the city of Ludwigshafen as a Bavarian rival to Mannheim.
After the lost Austro-Prussian War (1866) the Kingdom of Bavaria had to cede several Lower Franconian districts to Prussia. The duchy of Coburg was never part of the Kingdom of Bavaria since it was united with Bavaria only in 1920. Also Ostheim was added to Bavaria (1945) after the end of the monarchy.
Read more about this topic: Kingdom Of Bavaria
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