Bavaria

The Kingdom of Bavaria (German: Königreich Bayern) was a German state that existed from 1805 to 1918. The Bavarian Elector Maximilian IV Joseph of the House of Wittelsbach became the first King of Bavaria in 1805 as Maximilian I Joseph. The monarchy would remain held by the Wittelsbachs until the kingdom's dissolution in 1918. Most of Bavaria's modern-day borders were established after 1814 with the Treaty of Paris, in which Bavaria ceded Tyrol and Vorarlberg to the Austrian Empire while receiving Aschaffenburg and parts of Hesse-Darmstadt. As a state within the German Empire, the kingdom was second in size, power and wealth only to the Kingdom of Prussia. Since the unification of Germany in 1871, Bavaria has remained part of Germany.