Kingdom of Bavaria

The third German kingdom, which kept its own army, its own diplomats and its own beer law inside the German Empire, and is still the most self-conscious of the German states. Bavaria was raised from an electorate to a kingdom in 1806 as a reward for allying with Napoleon, and it roughly doubled in size in the process by absorbing Franconia and Swabian territories - which is why the modern state contains populations with distinct dialects and, unusually for Bavaria, Protestant ones. It was the largest German state after Prussia. Ludwig I built Munich into a neoclassical capital and founded the Oktoberfest's parent celebration; his abdication in 1848 followed a scandal over a dancer. Ludwig II built Neuschwanstein and two other palaces, bankrupted himself doing it, funded Wagner, was declared insane by ministers and died in a lake the next day in circumstances never explained. His castles are now among the most visited buildings in Europe. Bavaria fought against Prussia in 1866 and with it in 1870, then joined the German Empire on terms that preserved its army in peacetime, its railways, its postal service and its embassies. The monarchy fell in 1918 and a short-lived soviet republic followed. Munich was where Hitler's movement began and where his 1923 putsch failed. The Reinheitsgebot of 1516 is often called the oldest food regulation still in use. Bavaria has around 13 million people today. The kingdom lasted from 1806 to 1918 with Munich as its capital. Bavaria is now the largest German state by area. Its royal house, the Wittelsbachs, had ruled since 1180. Neuschwanstein receives well over a million visitors a year.

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