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The Rhenish Palatinate (Rheinpfalz, sometimes "Lower Palatinate" or Niederpfalz) occupies rather more than a quarter of the German Bundesland (federal state) of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) and contains the towns of Ludwigshafen, Kaiserslautern, Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Pirmasens, Landau and Speyer.
Ruled by counts of the Wittelsbach dynasty from 1214 until 1918 (apart from almost 20 years of annexation by France after 1795), the state passed to the family's Bavarian line in 1815. The area was devastated during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and by French invasion in 1689. It became part of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1946.
The historical rulers of the palatinate included:
See also Palatinate
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