Palatinate

Palatinate, in German history, name of two imperial regions not related geographically, the western Rhenish, or Lower, Palatinate (German Rheinpfalz or Niederpfalz) and the Upper Palatinate (German Oberpfalz) of northeastern Bavaria. The Rhenish Palatinate, which historically comprised territory for the most part west of the Rhine River in central Germany, was in 1947 incorporated into the State of Rhineland-Palatinate in West Germany (now part of Germany). The Upper, or Bavarian, Palatinate is the region west of Bohemia and north of the Danube River. The name Palatinate is derived from the ancient and medieval office of count palatine, a nobleman who held judicial powers and had charge of the various imperial castles where Holy Roman emperors stayed while traveling; hence the term became associated with the districts where the counts palatine were sovereign representatives.