n.
German Bayern
State (pop., 2002 est.: 12,330,000), southern Germany.
Conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC (see Noricum ; Raetia ), the area was taken by Charlemagne and incorporated into his empire in 788. It became one of the great duchies of the Holy Roman Empire . Under Maximilian I , Bavaria led the Catholic League in the Thirty Years' War . It was overrun repeatedly in the context of larger wars in the 18th century. It joined the German Empire in 1871, while remaining a kingdom. The king was overthrown in 1918; after a brief period of instability, Bavaria joined the Weimar Republic in 1919. Adolf Hitler had his first power base in Bavaria in the 1920s. It adopted a new constitution in 1946 and became a state of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. It has long been Germany's most Roman Catholic area. Its largest cities are Munich (its capital), Augsburg , and Nürnberg . Notable regions include the Bavarian Alps , the Black Forest , and the Bohemian Forest . Bavaria is famous for the beauty of its rolling landscape and the charm of its villages.