Other divisions · History
The four occupation zones, 1945–49
After 1945 the victors split Germany into an American, a British, a French and a Soviet zone, with Berlin under all four. Today 37% of Germany's people live in the former British zone, 32% in the American, 12% in the French and 15% in the former Soviet zone.
| Zone | Districts | People | Share | Area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American zone Bavaria (without Lindau), Hesse, Württemberg-Baden, and the Bremen enclave | 147 | 26.9 m | 32.3% | 108,159 km² |
| British zone Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia | 114 | 30.8 m | 36.9% | 98,382 km² |
| French zone Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Württemberg-Hohenzollern, South Baden, Lindau | 64 | 9.7 m | 11.6% | 42,089 km² |
| Soviet zone Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia (as finally established, July 1945) | 75 | 12.4 m | 14.8% | 108,068 km² |
| Berlin (four sectors) Under joint Allied administration; American, British, French and Soviet sectors | 1 | 3.7 m | 4.4% | 891 km² |
The zones were drawn up in London by the European Advisory Commission in 1944 and confirmed at Yalta, with a French zone carved out of the American and British ones in 1945. When the fighting ended, American and British troops stood deep inside the area promised to the Soviet Union, in Thuringia, western Saxony, around Magdeburg and in western Mecklenburg. In early July 1945 they withdrew to the agreed line, and in exchange the Western Allies moved into their sectors of Berlin. Give or take a few villages swapped later in 1945, the line they withdrew to became the inner-German border.
The American zone had no coast, so the United States kept Bremen and Bremerhaven as an enclave for shipping supplies, inside the British zone. The French zone reached Lake Constance and took in the Bavarian district of Lindau as a land link to the French zone in Austria. In the south-west the line between the American and French zones followed whole districts along the Karlsruhe–Stuttgart–Ulm autobahn, which the Americans wanted for themselves; it split Baden and Württemberg into three states until Baden-Württemberg was founded in 1952.
The western zones merged step by step (the Anglo-American Bizone in 1947, the Trizone in 1949) and became the Federal Republic in May 1949; the Soviet zone became the GDR in October 1949. So the Soviet zone matches the former East used on the rest of this site.
The western zones still differ from one another, mostly because the states they were built from do. The former British zone, with the Ruhr and the northern ports, has the highest unemployment in the West (7.2%, against 4.8% in the former American zone) and the lowest AfD vote (16.7%, against 20.4% in the former French zone). The former American zone, with Bavaria, Hesse and northern Württemberg, has the highest salaries of the three western zones (€4,428 a month on average).
Does the line still show?
Today's figures on each side, as population-weighted averages of the district values (our calculation from the live themes on this site).
| Indicator | American zone | British zone | French zone | Soviet zone | Berlin (four sectors) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AfD vote 2025 | 18.5% | 16.7% | 20.4% | 36.0% | 15.2% |
| Green vote 2025 | 13.0% | 12.8% | 11.5% | 5.7% | 16.8% |
| Unemployment 2025 | 4.8% | 7.2% | 5.1% | 7.0% | 10.3% |
| Gross monthly salary € 31.12.2025 | 4,428 | 4,154 | 4,188 | 3,549 | 4,459 |
| Young people 31.12.2025 | 13.7% | 13.4% | 13.0% | 10.9% | 15.1% |
| Childcare 1 March 2025 | 33.8% | 36.0% | 33.0% | 57.3% | 49.4% |
| Foreign population 31.12.2025 | 19.7% | 16.5% | 16.4% | 8.8% | 26.9% |
How we drew the line
Each of today's 401 districts is assigned to the occupation zone that held the majority of its area, as the zones stood after the Western Allies' withdrawal from Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and western Mecklenburg in July 1945 and with the Bremen enclave as finally constituted (Land Bremen of 1 January 1947: Bremen and Bremerhaven). Most districts follow from today's state borders, which descend from the zone-era states. In Baden-Württemberg, where the zone border followed whole pre-1973 districts, each of today's districts is assigned from the old districts it was formed from (e.g. Alb-Donau-Kreis: mostly the old Landkreis Ulm, American; Zollernalbkreis, Sigmaringen, Calw, Freudenstadt, Rastatt: French). Berlin is shown as a zone of its own.
- An approximation by today's district boundaries: districts formed in the 1970s from parts of both zones are shown wholly in the zone that held most of their area (Alb-Donau-Kreis and Enzkreis: American; small French parts not shown).
- Shows the zones as finally established. From May to early July 1945 American and British troops held much of the later Soviet zone, and from 1945 to the end of 1946 the American Bremen enclave also took in the Landkreise Wesermünde, Osterholz and Wesermarsch (shown British).
- The Saarland was part of the French zone in 1945 but was separated from it in 1946–47 and joined the Federal Republic only in 1957.
- Comparisons between zones show association, not cause: the zones are built from whole states, so state policy and economic history are mixed in.