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Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 Bundesländer (federal states) of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 km² and about 4.048 million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946.
Palatinate (region)
The union with Bavaria was finally dissolved following the reorganisation of German states during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II. While Bavaria itself was part of the U.S. occupation zone, the Palatinate was occupied by French forces. The French reorganised their occupation zone by founding new states, so that in 1947 the Palatinate was combined with Rhenish Hesse ("Rheinhessen"), the former parts of the People's State of Hesse left of the Rhine, and the southern part of the Prussian Rhine Province, to form the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The Palatinate formed the administrative district ("Regierungsbezirk") Pfalz. 
This reorganisation came with smaller losses of former district territory to the Saarland, especially in the area of Sankt Wendel. As part of the 1969 administrative reform, some minor border changes were made in the north. The Diocese of Speyer and the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate still exist today largely based on the historic boundaries of the old Bavarian district of "die Pfalz".