Saarland

Saarland () or The Saarland is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of and a population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the smallest in population apart from Bremen. Saarbrücken is the state capital and largest city; other cities include Neunkirchen and Saarlouis. Saarland is mainly surrounded by the department of Moselle (Grand Est) in France to the west and south and the neighboring state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany to the north and east; it also shares a small border, about long, with the canton of Remich in Luxembourg to the northwest.

Having long been a relatively small part of the long-contested territories along the Franco-German linguistic border, Saarland first gained specific economic and strategic importance in the nineteenth century due to the wealth of its coal deposits and the heavy industrialization that grew as a result. Saarland was first established as a distinct political entity in 1920 after World War I as the Territory of the Saar Basin, which was occupied and governed by France under a League of Nations mandate.