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.
Western Palatinate
Western Palatinate or West Palatinate () is a sub-region in the west of the Palatinate, a German cultural and historic region in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It includes the western part of the Palatine Forest, the central part of the North Palatine Uplands, the West Palatine Moor and the Westrich Plateau. Its former name of "Further Palatinate" ("Hinterpfalz"), which emerged during the time of Bavarian rule in 1816 and was viewed by the local population as very discriminatory, is only commonly used in the Anterior Palatinate ("Vorderpfalz").