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.
Guttenberg Castle (Palatinate)
From 1680 to 1697 the region was under French hegemony as part of the successes achieved under France's policy of reunionspolitik. From 1792 to 1815 the region was part of the First French Republic and was assigned to the département du Bas-Rhin (Department of Lower Rhine). In November 1815 the area between the rivers Lauter and Queich, including the ruins of Guttenberg, came under the sovereignty of the Empire of Austria as a result of the agreements reached in the Second Treaty of Paris. Finally in April 1816 the region of the Palatinate was surrendered in the Treaty of Munich to the Kingdom of Bavaria, becoming the Circle of the Rhine.