Rhineland-Palatinate
On 10 July 1945 the occupation authority on the soil of the present-day Rhineland-Palatinate transferred from the Americans to the French. To begin with, the French divided the region provisionally into two "upper presidiums" ("Oberpräsidien"), Rhineland-Hesse-Nassau (for the hitherto Prussian government districts and regions of Koblenz, Trier, and Montabaur) and Hesse-Palatinate (for the hitherto Bavarian Palatinate and old Hessian-Darmstadt province of Rhenish Hesse). The formation of the state was ordained on 30 August 1946, the last state in the Western Zone of Occupation to be established, by Regulation No. 57 of the French military government under General Marie-Pierre Kœnig. It was initially called Rhenish-Palatinate ("Rheinpfälzisches Land" or "Land Rheinpfalz"); the name Rhineland-Palatinate ("Rheinland-Pfalz") was first confirmed in the constitution of 18 May 1947.
North Rhine
It was formed on 5 June 1945 on the basis of the Berlin Declaration and the resulting creation of occupation zones for the victors of World War II out of the administrative regions ("Regierungsbezirke") of Aachen, Düsseldorf and Cologne, which were all part of Prussia's Rhine Province. The southern part of Rhine province, consisting of the administrative regions of Koblenz and Trier became part of the French occupation zone on 5 June 1945. The division of the Rhineland, which had been united in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna under the Prussian crown, was thus pre-destined to be split between different governments and administrations - from summer 1946 into the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. Rhine Province existed until 20 October 1946. On that day the government formed in August 1946 for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia dissolved the upper councils of the provinces of North Rhine and Westphalia on the instructions of the British occupying power.