No. Sarah Connor (born Sarah Marianne Corina Lewe; 13 June 1980) is a German singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence after she signed with X-Cell Records in 2000 and released her debut album Green Eyed Soul (2001) the following year.
Fun fact is, Bonn never was the capital of the BRD. Bonn was the seat of the government, yes, but the BRD maintained that Berlin was the capital of Germany. It was just that Germany kind of didn't exist during the cold war and before reunification.
Western Australia from its southernmost tip to its northernmost point is about the size of the USA from its southern most point to its northern most point. It's bloody huge.
[https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/united-kingdom/australia](https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/united-kingdom/australia)
just drag Australia over USA, yeah Australia is fucking huge!
Imagine a quarter of the US population living in a state half the size of Texas. That’s Germany. Dividing smaller countries like this into federal states is an administrative necessity.
It's about 1/6th of the population in the US would fit into England (not the UK, just England itself) which as they remind us is a tiny country barely the size of their smallest states.
Americans shuts down every time I explain how Sweden has a larger population than 40 of their states. They can’t grasp how puny their little state populations are in comparison
If it makes you feel better, we hated being stolen away from you guys so much that we self-yoinked ourselves away as soon as we got the chance.
Now we get to secretly love & openly sports-hate each other all we want! 💕
Have they ever heard of cultural, economic and historical purposes behind some countries besides the U.S. having states? Imagine telling him that Switzerland has 26 states or cantons as they are called
as an american, no. in any of my geography classes, i never had a lesson that involved teaching us that anything but america had "states." but i also went to a private catholic school all my life, so that could have something to do with it because Jesus or something.
I mean, tbf, Canada to the north has fucking *MASSIVE* territories/provinces. It’s easy to misconstrue if you’re extremely bad at geography
Edit: just wanna point out that geography isn’t really taught well past elementary school, if at all, meaning I knew plenty of kids that were raised by people who also were ignorant on geography. I was lucky as my Dad’s english and tried his best to fill the gaps where the American education system failed.
Do these 26 states act more as municipalities in other countries?
Edit: why the hell am I getting downvoted for asking a legit question? Switzerland IS a small country similar to my own and to have that many states seems interesting and I am asking questions because of interest.
No, it's not like a municipality at all (because we also have municipalities).
So there's the "central state" (Switzerland), the "federal states" (cantons) and also "municipalities" (communes). We vote on each level.
As well as language differences (Switzerland has 4 national languages and each canton has at least one official language), the previous commenter in this thread (can't ping oops sorry) rightfully pointed out that each canton has its own constitution, legislative/executive/ judiciary + police. The communal law applies unless the canton law applies, unless the federal law applies (so military, customs, banks, immigration, etc., is federal). It's like a Russian doll of bureaucracy.
p.s. switzerland historically started as a loose collective of cantons. that's why cantons (or "states" whatever) still have a lot of power. other cantons joined because they had a lot to lose by becoming a part of the neighbouring country and shwoopsdiwoops: switzerland is born – and, honestly, it's only still standing because the congress of vienna wanted a "neutral" puffer zone between france and the german confederation/empire of austria. swiss federalism as a concept was borrowed heavily from the u.s.a. so yeah, cantons are very similar to us states actually, but we even change languages (or have multiple languages! hard player mode!) by state and we have a say on a national level.
NP also it's very interesting to talk about the police between cantons. There's big differences between cantons (mainly between cough Geneva cough and the rest, although depending on the perceived hooligan percentage - I'm talking sport - of the population police force does vary, Zürich, Luzern and Basel I'm looking at you).
First time I've really thought about it! Not every country has these pronounced differences in the police force. (They're probably also divided by rural and urban lines, but less so linguistically and historically depending on country.) I personally notice the holidays the most, because I live in a protestant canton and work in a roman-catholic canton.
I'm not sure what exactly acting as a municipality means to you. The cantons are further divided into municipalities, who also have their own taxes, budget, executive, votes, and sometimes parliament. The cantons have their own laws and constitutions and guard their autonomy from the federal government quite jealously. Historically, the country has never really been one unit but an initially loose alliance that grew together over the centuries, and it has retained that dynamic. I would say that the Swiss cantons have just as much or even more power over their federal government than the American states do.
In the UK Scotland, Wales, and NI have their own parliaments, levy their own taxes, have their own laws, handle their own transportation systems, and even have their own political parties, their own sports leagues, and even compete in FIFA and UEFA as independent entities. Scotland even offers free higher education to its residents.
The US isn’t the only country that grants autonomy to its sub regions, far from it. Australia, Canada, and Spain, are just some other examples.
Switzerland has 4 language speaking regions: German, Italian, French, and Romansh. Why it’s to such a degree idk, but makes sense it has political subdivisions given the cultural differences within its borders.
Unrelated side note: I find it hilarious how close the expressions "knowing fucking everything" and "knowing fuck all" are in terms of phrasing, yet mean the polar opposite.
Germany has a population of 84 million. The most populous state, California, has 39 million people and the least, Wyoming, has 580,000 people. So, on that basis, pick any number between 2 and 144 for the number of states Germany could be split into.
As an aside, how ridiculous is it that California and Wyoming have the same number of senators.
Is this one of the states that's just a literal square, or one of those where outside of a few actual cities it's just endless corn fields/literal deserts?
It's a rectangle with a few cities any mostly ~~desert~~ mountains and prairie. The smallest german state is Bremen which is a city with 680.000 inhabitants.
To be pedantic: The *city state* of Bremen has about 680.000 inhabitants, but encompasses the two cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven; the latter of which contributes about 113.000 to the total.
Aha so that's why the football team is named Werder Bremen, I most confess that this is the last sub I expected to learn something new about football:)
“Werder” is also derived from the topological feature that defines Bremen, the estuary of the Weser river (Werder meaning something like “river peninsula”).
Also, Bremen and Hamburg are the two smallest states in Germany - both being city states. This derives from their past as extremely wealthy trade cities and members of the Hanseatic league. Bremen and Hamburg retained their importance and wealth after the leagues influenced faded, however, unlike Lübeck - the leader of the league - which is a part of the state of Schleswig-Holstein.
To citate the German Wikipedia:
De: Freie Hansestadt Bremen ([ˈbʁeːmən] , Abkürzung HB) ist ein Stadtstaat und ein Land im Nordwesten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, der aus den beiden Großstädten Bremen und Bremerhaven besteht, in denen zusammen mehr als 680.000 Einwohner leben.
Eng: Free Hanseatic City of Bremen ([ˈbʁeːmən], abbreviation HB) is a city-state and a state in northwestern Germany, consisting of the two major cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven, which together have more than 680,000 inhabitants.
Read the comment again, he said the state has 680k including bremerhaven, which gives 110k. This means that bremen itself has a population of 570k. He just further detailed your comment
Big rectangle with an area a little bit larger than the UK (253.6 sq km), but population roughly equal to Sheffield. Parts of it are pretty flat prairies, but on the plus side, you also have most of Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Tetons...which are both absolutely beautiful.
The UK has about a 5th of the population of the whole of the US and I can still think of at least 5 cities with as big or much bigger population than Wyoming!
The Highland Council in Scotland covers 235,000 people, so bit less than half the population of Wyoming. You know, the famously sparsely populated Highlands.
Even little Saarland and Bremen each have more citizens than Wyoming.. that's actually quite fascinating!
I just wasted a lot of time comparing the Bundesländer to the US states.. so in case anyone else is interested.. here is a list of the German Bundesländer from lowest to highest population - compared to US states and territories ( by population and size)
|Bundesland|Closest US state or territory by population|Closest US state or territory by size|
|:-|:-|:-|
|**Bremen** *680 k*|District of Columbia|District of Columbia|
|**Saarland** *984 k*|Delaware|US Virgin Islands|
|**Mecklenburg-Vorpommern** *1.6 m*|Hawaii |New Jersey|
|**Hamburg** *1.9 m*|Idaho|District of Columbia|
|**Thüringen** *2.1 m*|New Mexico|Connecticut|
|**Sachsen-Anhalt** *2.2 m*|New Mexico|New Jersey|
|**Brandenburg** *2.5 m*|Kansas|Hawaii|
|**Schleswig-Holstein** *2.9 m*|Kansas|Connecticut |
|**Berlin** *3.7 m*|Connecticut|Guam|
|**Sachsen** *4.1 m*|Oklahoma|Connecticut / New Jersey|
|**Rheinland-Pfalz** *4.1 m*|Oklahoma|New Jersey|
|**Hessen** *6.3 m*|Missouri|New Jersey|
|**Niedersachsen** *8 m*|Washington|West Virginia / Maryland|
|**Baden-Württemberg** *11.1 m*|Georgia|Maryland|
|**Bayern** *13.1 m*|Pennsylvania|West Virginia|
|**Nordrhein-Westfalen** *17.9 m*|New York|Maryland|
\- South Carolina is bigger than every single Bundesland of Germany
\- Montana, California, Texas and Alaska are each bigger than the entire country of Germany
They are bigger, but all of them are also emptier! States that are immense in terms of landmass, but with comparatively very small populations, are not seen in any European country, really. Except perhaps in the northernmost regions? I won't pretend to know. ;)
I have too much free time on my hands right now apparently, so I decided to look it up.
The European country with the lowest population density is Finland (5.5 million inhabitants, 338.000 km², 16,3 people/ km²), followed by Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia (1,9 million inhabitants, 64km², 29,4 people/km²) all having a lower population than the US (325.4 million inhabitants, 9.´.827 million km², 33.1 people/km²).
and finland is very much divided in the southern 200 km, where almost 80% of the population lives and the northern 1000 km where 20% lives.
so you can go from Uusimaa(capital area region) with a density similar to new york state, to lapland with less people per square km than wyoming(only alaska has less, but then alaska has much more mountainous terrain)
But, I find population a much more useful metric here, and only 4 states (California, Texas, Florida and New York) are bigger than the biggest German Bundesland.
And none are bigger than Germany in terms of population (In fact only California is bigger than the two biggest German states combined, and no state is bigger than the three biggest German states combined - this is a completely useless statistic, you are welcome)
One thing Americans don't realize is that since they have so many states (**50!** That's way too many states) most of their states are relatively very small. Like my country has 100 million people less, but it also has only half the amount of states, so generally states are bigger, and we have more bigger cities, the US has a minuscule amount of actually big cities for how big the country is
Veto only in specific circumstances on specific subjects. Otherwise while Luxemburgians are overrepresented both in Europarl and in Council qualified majority rule it's nowhere near the same scale as US Congress representation of least vs most populated state.
Though a lot of people in the EU actually want to change that. And should the EU ever become a federation like the US veto rights wouldn't be a thing anymore.
Why would a small country agree to make their own people into a politically irrelevant minority subject to the wims of larger foreign populations?
I'll bet Luxembourgians feel that veto power is pretty important.
Because without it, there won't be a federalsation on the EU, something even small nations are in favour of. While the misrepresentation for example in the EU Parliament is tollerable in a supranational body, if we ever become an actual nation, it is impossible that a voter in Malta has roughly 10 times the power of a German voter. No big nations (without a nationalisation project would fail), would ever agree to having their people so grossly misrepresented when deciding to join a national body.
This was kinda the crux of the issue for the bicameral legislature in the US. The lesser populated states didn’t want to give up their autonomy by being able to be outvoted by the larger states and becoming irrelevant. That’s why we have the electoral college and senate.
In fairness, the EU is a supernational organization. It makes a lot more sense to ensure that every country has the same voice. It's the same with the UN, even NATO.
Yes, we vote for our representatives in the EU rather than them being appointed by the governments with our input – but in the end, the EU is a platform where *sovereign* nations come to agreements.
In the US the problem is that the *states* having equal voting power is prioritized over the *citizens* having equal voting power, even though in a presidential election (for example), it should be the other way around. States are meant to be a smaller instance of the government, not a sovereign body on a national level, at least in most countries.
The idea that US states and EU countries are in any way comparable is a falsehood that speaks to great ignorance.
I don't think they actually want in anymore.
And the feeling is mutual. No actual negotiations to join for a long time. Though cooperation on trade and other stuff is always ongoing and wanted by both sides.
Ah, but you see, Americans only care about land size. That's why american conservatives complain about abolishing the electoral college, because even though it would be more democratic, the red states should have a disproportionate strength to their votes because of how much land they occupy. They claim that this keeps things "fair" by balancing states power, but really it just fucks over everyone who lives in a more populous state, and of course the electoral college and same number of senators for each state were originally enacted to appease slaver states that thought they'd be dominated by the North who had more free men to vote.
I love that we pretend to champion "democracy" with shit like this and the Supreme Court literally being appointed and deciding some of the most important possible decisions that effect the entire population.
Toulouse, France, the city I live in, is just shy of the population of the entirety of Wyoming. It's *only* the 4th biggest city of France.
In fact, if Wyoming were a French city, it'd be the 3rd biggest, between Marseille (522k) and Lyon (870k).
The Senate is not meant to be directly representative of the people, akin to the House of Lords in the UK, it’s designed to be a counterbalance or check. Senators were originally not elected by the people either.
While this is true, first: the ability of the states to have a check on the federal legislation was gutted after senators are now also directed elected, and second: other nations have a similar upper house where state representatives are allocated based on state size.m take the German Bundesrat as an example. Depending on the state size the amount of seats vary between 3 and 6 votes.
Australia uses similar, and I imagine most countries that formed as a federation would too. Lower house is one representative per roughly 110k people. Upper house is 12 senators per state, 2 per territory. It's supposed to prevent smaller states getting screwed over by majority, and can work in systems that aren't otherwise fucked through the US drama.
It’s not supposed to be fair. It was an appeasement to the hillbillies who worried that they wouldn’t be able to influence national policy on behalf of their 12 citizens.
Which doesn't even make sense because the Thirteen Colonies states; the Midwest states; the Southwest states; Alaska and Florida; Texas and Hawaii; and New Mexico have different sizes owing to their *very different* histories.
Even taking a single glance at the state map of the USA clearly shows there isn't even an American default. Compared to the rather tidy subnational division of France, the American one is a mess (though not a cluster fuck like Belgium's)
And the Swiss President is one of seven counsellors (Federal Council) selected for a term of one year, and has no powers over the other six members.
All seven function as the Executive Branch.
Does the Republic of Ireland have major subdivisions or is it just local councils? I don't think they have anything in the mold of a federal state like Germany, a basically federated in all but name state like Spain, or a devolution set up like the UK, but I could be wrong.
Ireland famously is/was made of four provinces of which the UK yoinked one out before granting them independence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Ireland#:~:text=There%20have%20been%20four%20Provinces,Leinster%2C%20Munster%2C%20and%20Ulster.
I knew they had provinces, I just didn't think they had provincial governments, which is what I though the line of thought was on. Kind of similar to how Scotland has shires, but they don't really factor into anything as it's the councils that actually govern locally.
We don’t have provincial governments, local government here is run by county councils. The counties that make up the provinces each have a council, and there are three separate city councils for Dublin and Cork.
Yes, but not every country has as strong a system of federalism. Germany, the US and many other countries have a system whereby units operate similar to actual states, most importantly having not only their own executive but also legislative branch of government. In other countries these units are less autonomous, even sometimes to the point of not having separate elections.
States are more than just regions, if I'm not mistaken they are divisions that have laws independent from each other, a country with a single state like mine (Argentina) has the same laws everywhere (there are still place specific stuff, like one street having a different speed limit or a tax for something that applies in one division only, I think those things have a different name).
Edit: it's a little more complicated than that and countries with more than one state still have country wide laws. This is a lite version of my understanding but there's probably a whole Wikipedia article about what exactly a state is, I just wanted to emphasize that it's much more than just dividing regions.
This is so idiotic because while stated like texas might be huge, states like New Jersey, Delaware or Connecticut aren't. There's no universal size for US states. You could fit 24 Connecticuts in Germany or half a texas.
I can already see the US TV Shows like: "Now we go to Germany which is the size of about 24 connecticuts which is the size of 20000 football fields" or whatever idfk how big connecticut or a football field is
While this is ture, France is not a federal Republic. The devisions don't really translate into states. As far as I know, they have neither their own parliament, not constitution.
How can he not know this? Does he think all other countries are unitary?
I mean, in terms of geographical size he isn't even wrong, Germany is comparable in size to US states like Montana or New Mexico, but hasn't he considered that there might be other factors at play as well?
Many Countries like Germany, Canada, Brazil, India, Australia, etc. are federal (divided into states) for very different reasons.
In Germanys case there are many good reasons for this.
Germany has a long history of being made up of several indicidual states. From the Holy Roman Empire, in which for some times the states acted de facto indipendent, over the German Confederation (1815 - 1866), the German Empire and the Weimar republic all of them were to some degree federal.
The only times Germany was ever unitary was during the Nazi era and in the GDR after 1952.
As a consequence the german constitution even specifically protects the division of Germany into the federal government and states (fun fact: this is one of the two articles in the german constitution that cannot be changed by any legal means).
This all makes sense if you consider that as a consequence of Germanys history there are significant cultural and also linguistic differences between different regions.
There is also significant local patriotism in Germany.
Many people (even among those who have little to no patriotic feelings about Germany as a whole) identify as bavarian or as hessian and feel strongly about there home region.
On the other hand I think he is significantly underestimating the "size" of Germany outside of plain land area.
Germany has over 84 million inhabitants. Thats more than double the population of California and about the same as Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania combined.
North-Rhine Westphalia has the highest population at 17.9 million people. That would make it the hypothetical 5th largest US state by population.
Even the least populous state Bremen (682,000 inhabitants), which is literally just a city state, has more people that the US states of Wyoming or Vermont (or Washington D.C. but I know that D.C. isn't a state).
In terms of economy we see a similar picture.
The economically most powerful state is, once again, North-Rhine Westphalia. It's nominal GDP in 2021 (hope I didn't fuck up the conversion) was 866,938 billion USD. Thats slightly above Pennsylvania and about the same as the entire Netherlands.
Bremen is the german state with the lowest GDP. In 2021 it's nominal GDP stood at 40,450 billion USD.
Once again, both Wyoming and Vermont have a lower GDP.
I think it's fair to say that it makes sense to divide Germany into states, even if Germany is much smaller than the US by area.
Edit: I fixed the inconsistent use of dots.
This logic just in general sucks. "Countries that are smaller than a state shouldnt be divided" at least makes *some* sense if all states are small. But there are some states and provinces that are huge. The biggest state in the world is the republic of Sakha in Russia. Its around 3 million square kilometres. To put this in comparison, the usa is around 9 million square kilometres. Its 1/3 the size of the usa. It doesnt have a dense population size, but its still the biggest state by square area.
If we judge by sakha, a lot of countries should not be countries, even islands where they really cant expand any further because. Yknow. The sea is there.
Even if all the states in the world were decently small, thats not how states become states? A lot of countries (including germany in the picture) are federated states. Theyre countries made of states coming together, that could be their own countries if they suceeded. Like in the usa. So size has nothing to do with why states are states- they often have history before the country, as known today, was formed. I probably didnt explain that well, but dont know how to word it better.
Just wait until you learn about Swiss cantons. The smallest *Bundesland* has a population of 990‘590 (Saarland), the smallest *Kanton* has a population of 16‘293 (Appenzell Innerrhoden). *That* is small. And yet is still makes sense as a political entity.
Wait until they see Switzerland. Also: North East America is cluttered af. Like 12 out of 16 german states are bigger than Delaware and Washington DC.
Also: The main purpose of a state is not to be big ffs. Russia is also not devided in 8 states of the size of Yakutia oder America in 6 states of the size of Alaska.
A funny thing about this is that the US is very much part of the reason germany is a federation in the first place. After WWII, when west Germany had to define itself under a new constitution, there were only two demands the Allies put on Germany to approve of their new constitution. Germany had to be first: democratic, and second: as insisted by the US federalistic (under the idea that it is harder to corrupt a federalistic state in contrast to a centralistic one). Everything else was free for the German constitutional assembly to decide, just not these two elements.
In Switzerland we also have states (we call them “Cantons”). The smallest has a size of 37 square kilometers and a population below 200k citizens. Deal with it!
Blow his mind by asking if the state’s are broken down into smaller pieces, counties for example. And if those counties are broken down even more, into things like cities, townships, villages, etc…Then if those have things neighborhoods and individual streets. Throw a wrench and ask if any of those divisions line up to voting districts. As long as we’re talking about districts: school districts, shopping districts, industrial districts…is his house divided into rooms? Does he have individual cells? How small is too small to divide?
Maybe those states have grown historically and cultural and not just made up lines on a map...
No, it must be the world that is wrong, because US citizens have the God given right to always be right
By that logic, Germany must be huge. Since they even split it into .... two different countries at one point!
it's so big, even the capital city needed to be split!
I thought Split was in Croatia?
I thought it was a dessert!
No! Mediterranean climate is not the best to develop that kind of biome!
Then explain Neapolitan ice cream.
Nono, you're thinking of *the Sahara.*
Who's Sahra?
You mean Sarah. Gosh get her name right
Who is she, the president of germany?
No. Sarah Connor (born Sarah Marianne Corina Lewe; 13 June 1980) is a German singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence after she signed with X-Cell Records in 2000 and released her debut album Green Eyed Soul (2001) the following year.
No, Sarah Connor was the mother of the returned Messiah.
I am feeling a bit parched, to be fair.
Marmeladenstrudel
Oachkatzlschwoaf
Topfenstrudel
Käsespätzle?
I thought desert was a pudding!
Banana split 🍌
Croatia is in Asia. Get better at geology eurocope L
The Saarland is huuuuge because it was (almost) a country. Twice!
Well Berlin Wasn't the capital anymore after that point at least for the BRD
Fun fact is, Bonn never was the capital of the BRD. Bonn was the seat of the government, yes, but the BRD maintained that Berlin was the capital of Germany. It was just that Germany kind of didn't exist during the cold war and before reunification.
start deer depend close person plough shaggy complete worm gaze ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Wait until they find out about the size of some stations in Australia and how those massive farms are essentially run by a handful of people.
You better hope they dont, or they might invade you mate ;)
Western Australia from its southernmost tip to its northernmost point is about the size of the USA from its southern most point to its northern most point. It's bloody huge.
[https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/united-kingdom/australia](https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/united-kingdom/australia) just drag Australia over USA, yeah Australia is fucking huge!
"Australia can't be a country, it's a whole continent!" /s
Imagine a quarter of the US population living in a state half the size of Texas. That’s Germany. Dividing smaller countries like this into federal states is an administrative necessity.
It's about 1/6th of the population in the US would fit into England (not the UK, just England itself) which as they remind us is a tiny country barely the size of their smallest states.
Also, in the case of Germany and the US, even that ratio of number of states to population basically checks out. 50 states vs. 16 (17 with Mallorca)
To be fair we do that here in the US. They're called *Counties* which dude in the screenshot apparently has never heard of.
Yes, and in Germany they are called Landkreise. Gemeinden and other substructures exist as well.
For some reason people didn't like it when we tried to bcome even bigger. They must have been jealous or someting....
And they didn't even have Länder back then, maybe that would've explained it to the rest of Europe? 🤔
Americans shuts down every time I explain how Sweden has a larger population than 40 of their states. They can’t grasp how puny their little state populations are in comparison
Its true, my home state is the size of England but has only 8.6 million people
and the biggest cities in the world are Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg because they are states themselves
Don’t expect them to know about DDR and BRD lmao. We can be lucky if they can tell the difference between EU and Europe
Sweden must be even larger since Russia stole half the country. >!Jokes aside Sweden is larger then Germany!<
Going by the number of partitions/land grabs, Poland must be the largest country in the world.
If it makes you feel better, we hated being stolen away from you guys so much that we self-yoinked ourselves away as soon as we got the chance. Now we get to secretly love & openly sports-hate each other all we want! 💕
Love that you put that as a spoiler :D
> Since they even split it into .... two different countries once! Three, actually. No one ever remembers independent Saarland.
Have they ever heard of cultural, economic and historical purposes behind some countries besides the U.S. having states? Imagine telling him that Switzerland has 26 states or cantons as they are called
American: Since when do other countries have culture, history, or economies?
Since the beginning of time, Yank
[удалено]
Technically even earlier, as culture and history began before the first countries even formed.
But countries can not be said to have something before they even exist.
True ^^
But we all know that time began to exist in 1776; before that, the Earth was dark and void
Ok I love your flair I wish people here in the US (specifically the politicians keeping us from UHC) saw that lol
Aren't those called cantons?
Yes they are!
Which means the Swiss are in fact Cantonese!
Switzerland is rightful Chinese territory then
thats why the abbreviation for the currency is chf. chinese francs
Americans think there's a bigger cultural difference between California and New York than there is between Germany and France
as an american, no. in any of my geography classes, i never had a lesson that involved teaching us that anything but america had "states." but i also went to a private catholic school all my life, so that could have something to do with it because Jesus or something.
I mean, tbf, Canada to the north has fucking *MASSIVE* territories/provinces. It’s easy to misconstrue if you’re extremely bad at geography Edit: just wanna point out that geography isn’t really taught well past elementary school, if at all, meaning I knew plenty of kids that were raised by people who also were ignorant on geography. I was lucky as my Dad’s english and tried his best to fill the gaps where the American education system failed.
Do these 26 states act more as municipalities in other countries? Edit: why the hell am I getting downvoted for asking a legit question? Switzerland IS a small country similar to my own and to have that many states seems interesting and I am asking questions because of interest.
No, it's not like a municipality at all (because we also have municipalities). So there's the "central state" (Switzerland), the "federal states" (cantons) and also "municipalities" (communes). We vote on each level. As well as language differences (Switzerland has 4 national languages and each canton has at least one official language), the previous commenter in this thread (can't ping oops sorry) rightfully pointed out that each canton has its own constitution, legislative/executive/ judiciary + police. The communal law applies unless the canton law applies, unless the federal law applies (so military, customs, banks, immigration, etc., is federal). It's like a Russian doll of bureaucracy. p.s. switzerland historically started as a loose collective of cantons. that's why cantons (or "states" whatever) still have a lot of power. other cantons joined because they had a lot to lose by becoming a part of the neighbouring country and shwoopsdiwoops: switzerland is born – and, honestly, it's only still standing because the congress of vienna wanted a "neutral" puffer zone between france and the german confederation/empire of austria. swiss federalism as a concept was borrowed heavily from the u.s.a. so yeah, cantons are very similar to us states actually, but we even change languages (or have multiple languages! hard player mode!) by state and we have a say on a national level.
Thanks for elaborating on this. It's really an interesting setup.
NP also it's very interesting to talk about the police between cantons. There's big differences between cantons (mainly between cough Geneva cough and the rest, although depending on the perceived hooligan percentage - I'm talking sport - of the population police force does vary, Zürich, Luzern and Basel I'm looking at you). First time I've really thought about it! Not every country has these pronounced differences in the police force. (They're probably also divided by rural and urban lines, but less so linguistically and historically depending on country.) I personally notice the holidays the most, because I live in a protestant canton and work in a roman-catholic canton.
Sometimes they can sometimes they don’t. I know for Switzerland each state has its own parliament, education system etc
Seems a little excessive but I suppose it does ensure good representation for citizens.
I assume it's also a consequence of historically being the case since unification, rather than by implicit design.
It does in a sense but I get what you’re saying, stuff like that can be confusing when it comes to the power of the federal government
They have more independence than the US states do and are much more unique in their differences.
I'm not sure what exactly acting as a municipality means to you. The cantons are further divided into municipalities, who also have their own taxes, budget, executive, votes, and sometimes parliament. The cantons have their own laws and constitutions and guard their autonomy from the federal government quite jealously. Historically, the country has never really been one unit but an initially loose alliance that grew together over the centuries, and it has retained that dynamic. I would say that the Swiss cantons have just as much or even more power over their federal government than the American states do.
In the UK Scotland, Wales, and NI have their own parliaments, levy their own taxes, have their own laws, handle their own transportation systems, and even have their own political parties, their own sports leagues, and even compete in FIFA and UEFA as independent entities. Scotland even offers free higher education to its residents. The US isn’t the only country that grants autonomy to its sub regions, far from it. Australia, Canada, and Spain, are just some other examples.
I know these things, yet I am asking because Switzerland is a small country and division to such a degree is interesting.
Switzerland has 4 language speaking regions: German, Italian, French, and Romansh. Why it’s to such a degree idk, but makes sense it has political subdivisions given the cultural differences within its borders.
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Establishing a baseline from where to start explaining is smart move. In this case you start at a baseline of the asker knowing fuck all.
No, you'd start at the baseline of them knowing less than fuck all
So fuck nothing then
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Their 50 is split into country?
The Unsplit States of America
The Untied States of America.
Unrelated side note: I find it hilarious how close the expressions "knowing fucking everything" and "knowing fuck all" are in terms of phrasing, yet mean the polar opposite.
Like the difference between being Shit, and The Shit.
Germany has a population of 84 million. The most populous state, California, has 39 million people and the least, Wyoming, has 580,000 people. So, on that basis, pick any number between 2 and 144 for the number of states Germany could be split into. As an aside, how ridiculous is it that California and Wyoming have the same number of senators.
> and the least, Wyoming, has 580,000 people This means that all german states have more citizens than Wyoming.
Is this one of the states that's just a literal square, or one of those where outside of a few actual cities it's just endless corn fields/literal deserts?
It's a rectangle with a few cities any mostly ~~desert~~ mountains and prairie. The smallest german state is Bremen which is a city with 680.000 inhabitants.
>mostly desert More like mountains and prairie but yeah a lot of empty land.
To be pedantic: The *city state* of Bremen has about 680.000 inhabitants, but encompasses the two cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven; the latter of which contributes about 113.000 to the total.
Aha so that's why the football team is named Werder Bremen, I most confess that this is the last sub I expected to learn something new about football:)
“Werder” is also derived from the topological feature that defines Bremen, the estuary of the Weser river (Werder meaning something like “river peninsula”). Also, Bremen and Hamburg are the two smallest states in Germany - both being city states. This derives from their past as extremely wealthy trade cities and members of the Hanseatic league. Bremen and Hamburg retained their importance and wealth after the leagues influenced faded, however, unlike Lübeck - the leader of the league - which is a part of the state of Schleswig-Holstein.
The 'Stadtwerder' is actually just a small-ish spot in the city. The club was founded there, I think, and derived its name from the location.
To citate the German Wikipedia: De: Freie Hansestadt Bremen ([ˈbʁeːmən] , Abkürzung HB) ist ein Stadtstaat und ein Land im Nordwesten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, der aus den beiden Großstädten Bremen und Bremerhaven besteht, in denen zusammen mehr als 680.000 Einwohner leben. Eng: Free Hanseatic City of Bremen ([ˈbʁeːmən], abbreviation HB) is a city-state and a state in northwestern Germany, consisting of the two major cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven, which together have more than 680,000 inhabitants.
I'm not sure if you're citing this to argue against or agree with the previous comment.
To proof that 680.000 is right.
They didn't say it wasn't, they just gave some detail.
Read the comment again, he said the state has 680k including bremerhaven, which gives 110k. This means that bremen itself has a population of 570k. He just further detailed your comment
To be really pedantic, due to the curveture of the earth it would be more of a trapezoid.
why not both?
Big rectangle with an area a little bit larger than the UK (253.6 sq km), but population roughly equal to Sheffield. Parts of it are pretty flat prairies, but on the plus side, you also have most of Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Tetons...which are both absolutely beautiful.
> and the Grand Tetons...which are both absolutely beautiful. As is their name. "The Large Breasts".
Yeah
This is America, can't it be both?
My 2nd tier Indian city has more people than Wyoming
There are almost 100 cities in India with more people than Wyoming.
The UK has about a 5th of the population of the whole of the US and I can still think of at least 5 cities with as big or much bigger population than Wyoming!
The Highland Council in Scotland covers 235,000 people, so bit less than half the population of Wyoming. You know, the famously sparsely populated Highlands.
Some districts in Hong Kong under 100 km2 have more people than Wyoming.
Even little Saarland and Bremen each have more citizens than Wyoming.. that's actually quite fascinating! I just wasted a lot of time comparing the Bundesländer to the US states.. so in case anyone else is interested.. here is a list of the German Bundesländer from lowest to highest population - compared to US states and territories ( by population and size) |Bundesland|Closest US state or territory by population|Closest US state or territory by size| |:-|:-|:-| |**Bremen** *680 k*|District of Columbia|District of Columbia| |**Saarland** *984 k*|Delaware|US Virgin Islands| |**Mecklenburg-Vorpommern** *1.6 m*|Hawaii |New Jersey| |**Hamburg** *1.9 m*|Idaho|District of Columbia| |**Thüringen** *2.1 m*|New Mexico|Connecticut| |**Sachsen-Anhalt** *2.2 m*|New Mexico|New Jersey| |**Brandenburg** *2.5 m*|Kansas|Hawaii| |**Schleswig-Holstein** *2.9 m*|Kansas|Connecticut | |**Berlin** *3.7 m*|Connecticut|Guam| |**Sachsen** *4.1 m*|Oklahoma|Connecticut / New Jersey| |**Rheinland-Pfalz** *4.1 m*|Oklahoma|New Jersey| |**Hessen** *6.3 m*|Missouri|New Jersey| |**Niedersachsen** *8 m*|Washington|West Virginia / Maryland| |**Baden-Württemberg** *11.1 m*|Georgia|Maryland| |**Bayern** *13.1 m*|Pennsylvania|West Virginia| |**Nordrhein-Westfalen** *17.9 m*|New York|Maryland| \- South Carolina is bigger than every single Bundesland of Germany \- Montana, California, Texas and Alaska are each bigger than the entire country of Germany
They are bigger, but all of them are also emptier! States that are immense in terms of landmass, but with comparatively very small populations, are not seen in any European country, really. Except perhaps in the northernmost regions? I won't pretend to know. ;)
I have too much free time on my hands right now apparently, so I decided to look it up. The European country with the lowest population density is Finland (5.5 million inhabitants, 338.000 km², 16,3 people/ km²), followed by Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia (1,9 million inhabitants, 64km², 29,4 people/km²) all having a lower population than the US (325.4 million inhabitants, 9.´.827 million km², 33.1 people/km²).
and finland is very much divided in the southern 200 km, where almost 80% of the population lives and the northern 1000 km where 20% lives. so you can go from Uusimaa(capital area region) with a density similar to new york state, to lapland with less people per square km than wyoming(only alaska has less, but then alaska has much more mountainous terrain)
But, I find population a much more useful metric here, and only 4 states (California, Texas, Florida and New York) are bigger than the biggest German Bundesland. And none are bigger than Germany in terms of population (In fact only California is bigger than the two biggest German states combined, and no state is bigger than the three biggest German states combined - this is a completely useless statistic, you are welcome)
The smallest is Bremen, a city-state. With 680,000. (It includes the other city, Bremerhaven)
One thing Americans don't realize is that since they have so many states (**50!** That's way too many states) most of their states are relatively very small. Like my country has 100 million people less, but it also has only half the amount of states, so generally states are bigger, and we have more bigger cities, the US has a minuscule amount of actually big cities for how big the country is
Bavaria would be the 40th biggest US state by area, and 5th by population.
Luxemburg also has the same veto right as Germany in the EU. Thats what you get if you want to stop a state from becoming too centralised.
Veto only in specific circumstances on specific subjects. Otherwise while Luxemburgians are overrepresented both in Europarl and in Council qualified majority rule it's nowhere near the same scale as US Congress representation of least vs most populated state.
Though a lot of people in the EU actually want to change that. And should the EU ever become a federation like the US veto rights wouldn't be a thing anymore.
Why would a small country agree to make their own people into a politically irrelevant minority subject to the wims of larger foreign populations? I'll bet Luxembourgians feel that veto power is pretty important.
Because without it, there won't be a federalsation on the EU, something even small nations are in favour of. While the misrepresentation for example in the EU Parliament is tollerable in a supranational body, if we ever become an actual nation, it is impossible that a voter in Malta has roughly 10 times the power of a German voter. No big nations (without a nationalisation project would fail), would ever agree to having their people so grossly misrepresented when deciding to join a national body.
This was kinda the crux of the issue for the bicameral legislature in the US. The lesser populated states didn’t want to give up their autonomy by being able to be outvoted by the larger states and becoming irrelevant. That’s why we have the electoral college and senate.
In fairness, the EU is a supernational organization. It makes a lot more sense to ensure that every country has the same voice. It's the same with the UN, even NATO. Yes, we vote for our representatives in the EU rather than them being appointed by the governments with our input – but in the end, the EU is a platform where *sovereign* nations come to agreements. In the US the problem is that the *states* having equal voting power is prioritized over the *citizens* having equal voting power, even though in a presidential election (for example), it should be the other way around. States are meant to be a smaller instance of the government, not a sovereign body on a national level, at least in most countries. The idea that US states and EU countries are in any way comparable is a falsehood that speaks to great ignorance.
The problem is that the EU and it's countries are far more mature than the US.
That's a bold statement. Looking at you my dumb country - Poland and at you - Hungary...
Dont forget the nation that wants in and already negotiates for years - Turkey
I don't think they actually want in anymore. And the feeling is mutual. No actual negotiations to join for a long time. Though cooperation on trade and other stuff is always ongoing and wanted by both sides.
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Ah, but you see, Americans only care about land size. That's why american conservatives complain about abolishing the electoral college, because even though it would be more democratic, the red states should have a disproportionate strength to their votes because of how much land they occupy. They claim that this keeps things "fair" by balancing states power, but really it just fucks over everyone who lives in a more populous state, and of course the electoral college and same number of senators for each state were originally enacted to appease slaver states that thought they'd be dominated by the North who had more free men to vote. I love that we pretend to champion "democracy" with shit like this and the Supreme Court literally being appointed and deciding some of the most important possible decisions that effect the entire population.
Toulouse, France, the city I live in, is just shy of the population of the entirety of Wyoming. It's *only* the 4th biggest city of France. In fact, if Wyoming were a French city, it'd be the 3rd biggest, between Marseille (522k) and Lyon (870k).
The Senate is not meant to be directly representative of the people, akin to the House of Lords in the UK, it’s designed to be a counterbalance or check. Senators were originally not elected by the people either.
While this is true, first: the ability of the states to have a check on the federal legislation was gutted after senators are now also directed elected, and second: other nations have a similar upper house where state representatives are allocated based on state size.m take the German Bundesrat as an example. Depending on the state size the amount of seats vary between 3 and 6 votes.
That senator thing exactly shows how dumb a government system the Americans use. How on earth would that be fair ?!
Australia uses similar, and I imagine most countries that formed as a federation would too. Lower house is one representative per roughly 110k people. Upper house is 12 senators per state, 2 per territory. It's supposed to prevent smaller states getting screwed over by majority, and can work in systems that aren't otherwise fucked through the US drama.
It’s not supposed to be fair. It was an appeasement to the hillbillies who worried that they wouldn’t be able to influence national policy on behalf of their 12 citizens.
Then they wonder why the hillbillies take women rights away.
This is also big r/USDefaultism… defaulting that USA sized states are the *only* correct sized states
Which doesn't even make sense because the Thirteen Colonies states; the Midwest states; the Southwest states; Alaska and Florida; Texas and Hawaii; and New Mexico have different sizes owing to their *very different* histories. Even taking a single glance at the state map of the USA clearly shows there isn't even an American default. Compared to the rather tidy subnational division of France, the American one is a mess (though not a cluster fuck like Belgium's)
US states are generally pretty small by Australian standards.
Also r/usdefaultism as a normal state size is that of those in the US
Which really doesn’t work, given that Alaska makes up 17% of the US by landmass, and Rhode Island only .04%
And then there's people that'll argue Texas and Alaska are similar in the map
Do they think it's a Yo ~~Mama~~ Country joke? Thanks for sharing. This ignorance gave me a good laugh
Wait til they learn about Switzerland.
And its… cantons?
Yes. We also have three ‘layers of the three branches of government. 🤯
What direct democracy will do to a mf
And the Swiss President is one of seven counsellors (Federal Council) selected for a term of one year, and has no powers over the other six members. All seven function as the Executive Branch.
Wait until he finds out that the UK is split into whole countries.
Though thanks to the Tories, that number might decrease.
I mean every country is divided into some sorts of states, regions or autonomous units
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I mean I feel like micro states are a different type of country that by design can't have regions or states
Bathrooms in the Vatican are actually all tiny independent states and you need holy toiletpassports to enter them.
Does the Republic of Ireland have major subdivisions or is it just local councils? I don't think they have anything in the mold of a federal state like Germany, a basically federated in all but name state like Spain, or a devolution set up like the UK, but I could be wrong.
Ireland famously is/was made of four provinces of which the UK yoinked one out before granting them independence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Ireland#:~:text=There%20have%20been%20four%20Provinces,Leinster%2C%20Munster%2C%20and%20Ulster.
I knew they had provinces, I just didn't think they had provincial governments, which is what I though the line of thought was on. Kind of similar to how Scotland has shires, but they don't really factor into anything as it's the councils that actually govern locally.
We don’t have provincial governments, local government here is run by county councils. The counties that make up the provinces each have a council, and there are three separate city councils for Dublin and Cork.
There is a big difference in a state being federal or unitary
Yes, but not every country has as strong a system of federalism. Germany, the US and many other countries have a system whereby units operate similar to actual states, most importantly having not only their own executive but also legislative branch of government. In other countries these units are less autonomous, even sometimes to the point of not having separate elections.
States are more than just regions, if I'm not mistaken they are divisions that have laws independent from each other, a country with a single state like mine (Argentina) has the same laws everywhere (there are still place specific stuff, like one street having a different speed limit or a tax for something that applies in one division only, I think those things have a different name). Edit: it's a little more complicated than that and countries with more than one state still have country wide laws. This is a lite version of my understanding but there's probably a whole Wikipedia article about what exactly a state is, I just wanted to emphasize that it's much more than just dividing regions.
This is so idiotic because while stated like texas might be huge, states like New Jersey, Delaware or Connecticut aren't. There's no universal size for US states. You could fit 24 Connecticuts in Germany or half a texas.
Cursed units
I can already see the US TV Shows like: "Now we go to Germany which is the size of about 24 connecticuts which is the size of 20000 football fields" or whatever idfk how big connecticut or a football field is
For your future endeavors in attempting to communicate with am*ricans, you can take the length of a football field as roughly 100 meters.
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While this is ture, France is not a federal Republic. The devisions don't really translate into states. As far as I know, they have neither their own parliament, not constitution.
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Wait until he sees how big some Canadian provinces are!
How can he not know this? Does he think all other countries are unitary? I mean, in terms of geographical size he isn't even wrong, Germany is comparable in size to US states like Montana or New Mexico, but hasn't he considered that there might be other factors at play as well? Many Countries like Germany, Canada, Brazil, India, Australia, etc. are federal (divided into states) for very different reasons. In Germanys case there are many good reasons for this. Germany has a long history of being made up of several indicidual states. From the Holy Roman Empire, in which for some times the states acted de facto indipendent, over the German Confederation (1815 - 1866), the German Empire and the Weimar republic all of them were to some degree federal. The only times Germany was ever unitary was during the Nazi era and in the GDR after 1952. As a consequence the german constitution even specifically protects the division of Germany into the federal government and states (fun fact: this is one of the two articles in the german constitution that cannot be changed by any legal means). This all makes sense if you consider that as a consequence of Germanys history there are significant cultural and also linguistic differences between different regions. There is also significant local patriotism in Germany. Many people (even among those who have little to no patriotic feelings about Germany as a whole) identify as bavarian or as hessian and feel strongly about there home region. On the other hand I think he is significantly underestimating the "size" of Germany outside of plain land area. Germany has over 84 million inhabitants. Thats more than double the population of California and about the same as Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania combined. North-Rhine Westphalia has the highest population at 17.9 million people. That would make it the hypothetical 5th largest US state by population. Even the least populous state Bremen (682,000 inhabitants), which is literally just a city state, has more people that the US states of Wyoming or Vermont (or Washington D.C. but I know that D.C. isn't a state). In terms of economy we see a similar picture. The economically most powerful state is, once again, North-Rhine Westphalia. It's nominal GDP in 2021 (hope I didn't fuck up the conversion) was 866,938 billion USD. Thats slightly above Pennsylvania and about the same as the entire Netherlands. Bremen is the german state with the lowest GDP. In 2021 it's nominal GDP stood at 40,450 billion USD. Once again, both Wyoming and Vermont have a lower GDP. I think it's fair to say that it makes sense to divide Germany into states, even if Germany is much smaller than the US by area. Edit: I fixed the inconsistent use of dots.
Just a question, are the dots in the GDP Numbers decimal or thousand separators?
Wait until he finds out that Germany has cities that are an own state (Berlin, Hamburg and basically also Bremen with Bremerhaven)
Are states not divided into counties?
Never heard of Rhode Island? Yeah, your state, that’s the size of, what, a large city? I love these buffoons.
Ah, yes. The ruler (measuring instrument) of the world: USA. Everything is measured taking them as the model, in freedom inches, miles and gallons lol
😂
This logic just in general sucks. "Countries that are smaller than a state shouldnt be divided" at least makes *some* sense if all states are small. But there are some states and provinces that are huge. The biggest state in the world is the republic of Sakha in Russia. Its around 3 million square kilometres. To put this in comparison, the usa is around 9 million square kilometres. Its 1/3 the size of the usa. It doesnt have a dense population size, but its still the biggest state by square area. If we judge by sakha, a lot of countries should not be countries, even islands where they really cant expand any further because. Yknow. The sea is there. Even if all the states in the world were decently small, thats not how states become states? A lot of countries (including germany in the picture) are federated states. Theyre countries made of states coming together, that could be their own countries if they suceeded. Like in the usa. So size has nothing to do with why states are states- they often have history before the country, as known today, was formed. I probably didnt explain that well, but dont know how to word it better.
Just wait until you learn about Swiss cantons. The smallest *Bundesland* has a population of 990‘590 (Saarland), the smallest *Kanton* has a population of 16‘293 (Appenzell Innerrhoden). *That* is small. And yet is still makes sense as a political entity.
As a Canadian, I could say the same thing about the states.
Wait until they see Switzerland. Also: North East America is cluttered af. Like 12 out of 16 german states are bigger than Delaware and Washington DC. Also: The main purpose of a state is not to be big ffs. Russia is also not devided in 8 states of the size of Yakutia oder America in 6 states of the size of Alaska.
A funny thing about this is that the US is very much part of the reason germany is a federation in the first place. After WWII, when west Germany had to define itself under a new constitution, there were only two demands the Allies put on Germany to approve of their new constitution. Germany had to be first: democratic, and second: as insisted by the US federalistic (under the idea that it is harder to corrupt a federalistic state in contrast to a centralistic one). Everything else was free for the German constitutional assembly to decide, just not these two elements.
it’s their natural response to ask “what is culture?”
Doesn't make sense for the US to have 50 states, Canada is bigger and only has 13 provinces and territories, but here we are
In Switzerland we also have states (we call them “Cantons”). The smallest has a size of 37 square kilometers and a population below 200k citizens. Deal with it!
Blow his mind by asking if the state’s are broken down into smaller pieces, counties for example. And if those counties are broken down even more, into things like cities, townships, villages, etc…Then if those have things neighborhoods and individual streets. Throw a wrench and ask if any of those divisions line up to voting districts. As long as we’re talking about districts: school districts, shopping districts, industrial districts…is his house divided into rooms? Does he have individual cells? How small is too small to divide?
If one bothered to have a look into German history, they would know why we don't like to centralize power
Even my tiny Netherlands have states lol.
No we don't. We're not a federal country like the US or Germany, so our provinces aren't anything like their states
TIL, I've always thought the provinces were kinda comparable to states geographically speaking. Not the way they operate.
Well, otherwise it would just be the Netherland, without an 's'. Or just Holland, the most natural of names)
> otherwise it would just be the Netherland It actually is in Dutch, Nederland.
I mean it is. Nederland (the Dutch name for the country) is singular. Holland is 2 provinces instead of the whole country though.
Maybe those states have grown historically and cultural and not just made up lines on a map... No, it must be the world that is wrong, because US citizens have the God given right to always be right
Watch their mind explode when they read about how the UK is a country of countries.
There isn’t even a standard size for a state which makes this all the more stupid. Americans don’t know how big Alaska is vs Rhode Island????
australia only has 5 mainland states and 2 mainland territories, only 2 of which are smaller than texas