List of historic states of Germany
Germany is traditionally a country organized as a federal state. The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the Napoleonic Wars led to an interregnum of federalized control. But after Congress of Vienna in 1815, the German-speaking territories of the former Holy Roman Empire became allied in the German Confederation, a league of states with a shared army and some federal elements to regulate issues that affected multiple states. After the Austro-Prussian War, the Northern states joined into a federal state called the North German Confederation, led by Prussia. The Southern states joined the federal state in 1870/71, which was consequently renamed the German Empire. The state continued as the Weimar Republic.
Present-day Germany is a federal republic which combines the States of Germany.