Talk:Kingdom of Bavaria

typo or my misunderstanding?
I'm a little confused, and by no means a historian/geographer. In the 1808 map depicted by the "geography, administrative regions and population" section the area surrounding Passau is described as 'IX: Unterdonaukreis', but in the "statistics" section it states that Unterdonaukreis was transformed into Swabia post 1837, which is on the other side of the country. Apologies if I am missing something obvious, I just wanted to point this out if it was a genuine typographic error. DPCorry (talk) 23:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

rewrite needed
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like much of this article reads like it has been auto translated from a foreign (non-English) language (probably German). It is difficult to read and the real intent of many sentences is lost. Can someone provide a better translation from the German, if that is what this is? Or alternately could someone fluent in English and familiar with the subject material rewrite this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.177.6.251 (talk) 23:12, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Administrativ divisions
''The Kingdom of Bavaria was divided from 1837 into 8 administrative regions called Regierungsbezirke (singular Regierungsbezirk). The regions ("Kreis") were named after ...''

Confusingly, two names are given for the Bavarian regions: Regierungsbezirk and Kreis. The first is the general technical German term for 2. level administrative units, the latter is the term actually used in Bavaria. Second-level administrative units (Regierungsbezirke) were introduced in most German states after 1806 but they were often given different names: Württemberg and Bavaria: Kreis, Hesse: Province, Baden: Landeskommisärbezirk, Saxony: Kreishauptmannschaft. In some states, these units were not only administrative but also political in that they had elected bodies and self-administrative powers. But it is not necessary to get into that here. The Bavarian constitution of 1808 states the division of the state into Kreise: “§ 4: Ohne Rücksicht auf die bis daher bestandene Eintheilung in Provinzen, wird das ganze Königreich in möglichst gleiche Kreise, und, so viel thunlich, nach natürlichen Grenzen getheilt.“ Through all the changes until today, the nomenclature has not changed. The present consitution states: “Art. 9: (1) Das Staatsgebiet gliedert sich in Kreise (Regierungsbezirke); die Abgrenzung erfolgt durch Gesetz. (2) 1 Die Kreise sind in Bezirke eingeteilt; die kreisunmittelbaren Städte stehen den Bezirken gleich.“ To avoid too much confustion, it at least adds ”Regierungsbezirk“ in brackets, so that everybody knows, this is the 2. level division. Then, again adding confusion, the Kreise continue to be made up of “Bezirke”, although the standard German (Regierungs-)Bezirke are made up of Kreise. Of course, we all know, Bavaria needs to set itself apart from the rest of Germany. Thus, the Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch only sticks to the common German terminology and groups the Bavarian Kreise under that heading of Regierungsbezirke which makes sense. Otherwise a comparison with other German states would have been confusing. Besides, the book was written in the 1860s, long after the Kreise had been established. Despite the terminology in the Bavarian constituion, today the term Regierungsbezirk prevails and the Bezirke, like in the rest of Germany, are called Landkreise.Sundar1 (talk) 13:14, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for making this "clear"! Gerard von Hebel (talk) 15:14, 3 December 2015 (UTC)