GERMANY, from Lat. Germania (q.v:), is the English name of the country which the natives call Deutschland, and the French L'Allemagne. See AI.EMANNI The word is sometimes used to denote 'the whole area of the European continent within which the Germanic race and langwige are domidant. In this broad sense, it includes, besides Germany proper, parts of Austria, Switzerland, and, perhaps, even of the Netherlands; but in the present article the name is to be understood as denoting the existing Germanic empire, of which Prussia is the head. Germany occupies the central portions of Europe, and extends from 6° to 22° 40' e. long., and from 49' 7' to 55° 50' n. lat. It is bounded on the n. by the German ocean, the Danish peninsular; and the Baltic; on the e. by Russia and Austria; on the s. by Austria, Italy, and Switzerland; and on the w. by France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The population in 1875 was 42,757,812, Its area is estimated at 208,000 sq.m., or about Ath of that of all Europe. The coast-line measures about 950 miles. Germany is composed of an aggregation of different states (26 in number), which, as they are specially treated of under their respective heads, will only be noticed in the present article in as far as they severally form parts of the Germanic empire.
Besides the above political divisions, there are certain distinctive appellations applied to different parts of Germany, which have been derived either from the names and settle ments of the ancient Germanic tribes, or from the circles and other great subdivisions of tire old empire. Thus the name' of " Swabia" is still applied in common parlance to the districts embracing the greater part of Wfirtemberg, southern Baden, south western Bavaria, and Hohenzollern; "Franconia" to the Maine districts of Bamberg, Schweinfurt, and Wtirtzburg; the "Palatinate," Rhenish Bavaria and the north of Baden; "the Rhineland," to portions of Baden, Rhenish Prussia, Bavaria, Hesse-Darm stadt, and Nassau; " Voigtland," to the high ground between Hof and Plauen; " Thur ingia," to the districts lying between the upper Seale and the Werra, as Saxe-Weimar, etc.; " Lusatia," to the eastern part of Saxony; "East Friesland," to the country between
the lower Weser and Ems; and "Westphalia," to the district extending between lower Saxony, the Netherlands, Thuringia, and Hesse, to the German ocean.
Four-fifths of the population of this country are of the race called, in English, Germans, in French, Allemands, but by the people themselves Deutsche. The term. Deutsch, in Gothic, thiudisk, in 0. H. Ger. diuti,se (Latinized into theotiseus), is derived from the Gothic substantive thiuda, people, and therefore meant originally the popular language, or, in the mouth of the learned, the vulgar tongue. In the 12th and 18th centuries, it became elevated into the accepted designation both of this wide-spread tongue and of the race that speak it.
The Almanach de Gotha for 1878 divides the population of the German empire, in regard to nationality, as follows: Germans, 37,800,000; Poles, 2,450,000; Wends, 140,000; Czechs, 50,000; Lithuanians and Courlanders, 150,000; ,Danes, 150,000.; French and Walloons, 230,000.: of must be inottgled half i million of Jews.
The Germans admit of being divided intO High and Low Germans; the phraseology of the former is the cultivated language of all the. German states; that of the latter, known as Platt-Deutsch, is spoken in the north and northwest. The Poles are found exclusively in the east and north-east of Prussia; the Czechs, in Silesia, about Oppeln and Breslau; the Wends, in Silesia, Brandenburg, and Prussian Lusatia; the Lithuanians and Cour landers, in east Prussia; the Danes, in Slesvig; the Walloons, about Aix-la-Chapelle, in Rhenish Prussia; and the French, partly in the same region, and partly in the newly re-acquired provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Although the Jews are scattered over every part of Germany, they are most numerous in the Prussian territories.