StatesArea in
Sq. Miles		Population
at Last
Census
Kingdoms
1.Prussia134,61640,163,333
2.Bavaria29,2926,876,497
3.Saxony5,7894,802,485
4.Württemburg7,5342,435,611
Grand-Duchies
5.Baden5,8232,141,832
6.Hesse2,9661,282,219
7.Mecklenburg-Schwerin5,068639,879
8.Saxe-Weimar1,397417,166
9.Mecklenburg-Strelitz1,131106,347
10.Oldenburg2,482482,430
Duchies
11.Brunswick1,418494,387
12.Saxe-Meiningen953278,792
13.Saxe-Altenburg511216,313
14.Saxe-Coburg-Gotha764257,208
15.Anhalt888331,047
Principalities
16.Schwarzburg-Sondershausen33389,984
17.Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt363100,712
18.Waldeck-Pyrmont43361,723
19.Reuss, Junior Branch122152,765
20.Reuss, Elder Branch31972,616
21.Schaumburg-Lippe13146,650
22.Lippe-Detmold469150,749
Free-Towns
23.Lübeck115116,533
24.Bremen99298,736
25.Hamburg1601,015,707
Reichsland
26.Alsace-Lorraine5,6041,871,702
TOTAL208,78064,903,423

Location and Extent.—This combination of Germanic States extends now from the Alps and the Bohemian mountains on the south to the Baltic on the north; and from the borders of France, Belgium, and Holland, on the west, to those of Russia on the east; the greatest distance across it from east to west and from north to south being about five hundred miles. The coast-line measures about nine hundred and fifty miles. The most remarkable features of the coast are the expansions of the river mouths in the Baltic; the lagoons called the Kurische Haff, Frische Haff, and Stettiner Haff; the estuaries of the Elbe and Weser; and the rounded inlets of Jade Bay and the Ems mouth, on the North Sea.

The mountains on the south and the sea on the north give natural frontiers for the most part, but west and east artificial boundaries are marked out, which correspond only in a few parts with the ethnographic limits of Germanic and Romanic peoples on the one side, and Germanic and Slavonic on the other.

Surface Characteristics.—The surface of the empire falls naturally into three divisions: the lowlands in the north, the table-land of the south, and the basin of the Middle Rhine.

The Lowlands are part of the Great European plain, and are largely occupied with sandy tracts, with here and there deposits of peat. They are well watered, and in certain districts fertile, while the monotony of their level is broken by two lines of hills whose heights vary from five hundred to eight hundred feet, and which may be said to extend roughly from the Mecklenberg to the Vistula, and from the moors of Lüneburg in Hanover to Silesia.

Table-lands.—In the southern plateau of Bavaria, the Fichtelgebirge is clearly the pivot round which the other mountain systems revolve. Thus, to its northwest there rises the Thuringian Forest and the Harz Mountains, and to the northeast the Erzgebirge, the Riesengebirge, and the Sudetic Mountains. Southwest radiate the Franconian and Swabian Juras and the Schwarzwald or Black Forest heights. Westward stretch the Taunus Mountains, while beyond these, and divided only by the Rhine, are the ridges of the Vosges. In the extreme southeast of Bavaria the Tyrolese or Noric Alps follow the northern bank of the Inn, and from this range rises the Zugspitze (nine thousand seven hundred feet), which is the highest summit in the whole empire. Between Basle and Mannheim, the Middle Rhine is splendidly sheltered by the Vosges and the Black Forest, which guard its course to left and right. (See further under [the Rhine].)

Rivers.—By far the greater part of the country is drained northwards to the Baltic and the North Sea by its navigable highways, the Vistula, Oder, Elbe, Weser, and Rhine. The southeastern corner alone belongs to the upper basin of the Danube, flowing towards the Black Sea. (See [Danube].)

The Vistula and the Oder are Baltic waterways, but more important from a commercial point of view are the Elbe, with its chief [496] affluents the Mulde, Havel, and the Saale, and the great Rhine, which both empty into the North Sea, along with the smaller Ems and the Weser, which latter is the only purely German stream. This fact is worth noticing, as the sources of the Oder, Elbe, and Vistula must be traced in Austria, and sections only of the Rhine and Danube traverse the empire.

Climate.—Broadly speaking, the general contours are not favorable to climate; for the level exposed flats, north and east offer no resistance to the passage in winter of the dry, piercing winds from Siberia and the Arctic, while to the south and west the mountainous tracts form effectual barriers against the moist Anti-trades. Extremes of temperature increase eastward in proportion to the distance from the Atlantic. In the warmer latitudes of the south, the elevations counteract the natural tendency to grow hotter, so that Ratisbon has the same temperature as Hamburg. In the Upper Harz the rainfall reaches sixty-six inches, but the mean annual precipitation is only about twenty inches. On the whole the climate may briefly be described as continental. It should be noted that the general slope of the country is from the southeast to northwest, that is, away from the sun, and also that the Rhine valley is so delightfully sheltered that it reaps the full benefit of its warm latitude, and thus enjoys excellent weather conditions.

Internal Communications.—The commercial prosperity of the empire may in some measure be traced to the excellence of the railways, the majority of which are managed by the state. Berlin is splendidly provided with communications by rail, and it may with truth be said that it is within twenty-four hours’ reach of almost every point in the empire. Further, the trunk systems have many of them an international importance; for the great Oriental express from Paris to Constantinople traverses the line from Strassburg to Vienna through Munich, while Paris is linked with the remote Siberia by means of the lines from Cologne to Berlin and from Berlin to Warsaw. Berlin is also directly connected with Breslau, Hamburg, Danzig, and Königsberg. From Frankfort-on-Main, which is the trading center between north and south Germany, lines radiate to Cologne, Ostend, Antwerp, Flushing, Rotterdam, and Berlin northward, and in a southerly direction to Strassburg, Basle, Munich, and Vienna, while east and west it is joined up with Dresden, Breslau and Metz.