The Palatinate (or Pfalz in German) was a region of Germany located along the Rhine River, roughly where the modern German state of Rhineland-Pfalz is located. It is named for the Count Palatine, a title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

Prior to 1871, what is now Germany was a number of separate states, such as Württemberg, Prussia, Bavaria, etc., whose boundaries changed frequently as a result of war and other causes. Geographically, the Palatinate was divided between two small territorial clusters: the Rhenish, or Lower Palatinate, and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhenish Palatinate included lands on both sides of the Middle Rhine River between its Main and Neckar tributaries. Its capital until the 18th century was Heidelberg. The Upper Palatinate was located in northern Bavaria, on both sides of the Naab River as it flows south toward the Danube, and extended eastward to the Bohemian Forest. The boundaries of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic fortunes of its counts. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Palatinate’s lands on the west bank of the Rhine were incorporated into France, while its eastern lands were divided largely between neighboring Baden and Hesse.

After the defeat of Napoleon (1814-15), the Congress of Vienna gave the east-bank lands to Bavaria. These lands, together with some surrounding territories, again took the name of Palatinate in 1838.

Palatines

In the 18th and early 19th century, the term “Palatine” was used in America to describe immigrants from “The Palatinate” and other adjoining German-speaking areas. Finding an American reference to someone being from the “Palatinate” may not point to a specific place of origin, but rather an approximate location in or near western or southern Germany.

During the War of the Grand Alliance (1689-97), the troops of the French monarch Louis XIV ravaged the Rhenish Palatinate, causing many Germans to emigrate. Many of the early German settlers of America (the Pennsylvania Dutch) were refugees from the Palatinate.