These polygons represent 67 governmental districts (Regierungsbezirke) existing in several of the sovereign states of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1890. Governmental districts formed the middle level administrative units in nearly all of the larger federated German states which continued to form the Empire: Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt. Of all the larger federated states, only Mecklenburg continued not having middle-level administrative units.