Editing German Confederation (section)

==Population==

===Demographic transition===
The population of the German Confederation (excluding Austria) grew 60% from 1815 to 1865, from 21,000,000 to 34,000,000.{{Sfn|Nipperdey|1996|page=86}} The era saw the [[demographic transition]] take place in Germany. It was a transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth and death rates{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}} as the country developed from a pre-industrial to a modernized agriculture and supported a fast-growing industrialized urban economic system. In previous centuries, the shortage of land meant that not everyone could marry, and marriages took place after age 25. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of [[infant mortality]], plus periodic epidemics and harvest failures. After 1815, increased agricultural productivity meant a larger food supply, and a decline in famines, epidemics, and malnutrition. This allowed couples to marry earlier, and have more children. Arranged marriages became uncommon as young people were now allowed to choose their own marriage partners, subject to a veto by the parents. The upper and middle classes began to practice [[birth control]], and a little later so too did the peasants.{{Sfn|Nipperdey|1996|pp=87–92, 99}} The population in 1800 was heavily rural,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clapham |first=J. H. |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.89837 |title=The Economic Development of France and Germany: 1815–1914 |date=1936 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.89837/page/n77 6]–28}}</ref> with only 8% of the people living in communities of 5,000 to 100,000 and another 2% living in cities of more than 100,000.

===Nobility===
In a heavily agrarian society, land ownership played a central role. Germany's nobles, especially those in the East called ''{{Lang|de|[[Junker]]s}}'', dominated not only the localities, but also the [[Prussian court]], and especially the [[Prussian army]]. Increasingly after 1815, a centralized Prussian government based in Berlin took over the powers of the nobles, which in terms of control over the peasantry had been almost absolute. They retained control of the judicial system on their estates until 1848, as well as control of hunting and game laws. They paid no land tax until 1861 and kept their police authority until 1872, and controlled church affairs into the early 20th century. To help the nobility avoid indebtedness, Berlin set up a credit institution to provide capital loans in 1809, and extended the loan network to peasants in 1849. When the German Empire was established in 1871, the nobility controlled the army and the Navy, the bureaucracy, and the royal court; they generally set governmental policies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weber |first=Eugen |url=https://archive.org/details/modernhistoryofe0000webe |title=A Modern History of Europe |date=1971 |publisher=Norton |isbn=0-3930-9981-4 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/modernhistoryofe0000webe/page/586 586] |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Sagarra|1977|pp=37–55, 183–202}}</ref>

===Peasantry===
Peasants continued to center their lives in the village, where they were members of a corporate body and helped manage community resources and monitor community life. In the East, they were serfs who were bound prominently to parcels of land. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents and obligatory services to the landlord, who was typically a nobleman.{{Efn|The monasteries of Bavaria, which controlled 56% of the land, were broken up by the government, and sold off around 1803.{{Sfn|Nipperdey|1996|p=59}}}} Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family, the patriarch made all the decisions and tried to arrange advantageous marriages for his children. Much of the villages' communal life centered around church services and holy days. In Prussia, the peasants drew lots to choose conscripts required by the army. The noblemen handled external relationships and politics for the villages under their control, and were not typically involved in daily activities or decisions.<ref>{{Harvnb|Sagarra|1977|pp=140–154}}</ref>{{efn|For details on the life of a representative peasant farmer who migrated in 1710 to Pennsylvania, see {{Cite journal |last=Kratz |first=Bernd |date=2008 |title=Hans Stauffer: A Farmer in Germany Before his Emigration to Pennsylvania |journal=Genealogist |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=131–169}}}}

===Rapidly growing cities===
After 1815, the urban population grew rapidly, due primarily to the influx of young people from the rural areas. [[Berlin]] grew from 172,000 people in 1800 to 826,000 in 1870; [[Hamburg]] grew from 130,000 to 290,000; [[Munich]] from 40,000 to 269,000; {{Lang|de|Breslau|italics=unset}} (now {{Lang|pl|[[Wrocław]]|italics=unset}}) from 60,000 to 208,000; [[Dresden]] from 60,000 to 177,000; {{Lang|de|[[Königsberg]]|italics=unset}} (now [[Kaliningrad]]) from 55,000 to 112,000. Offsetting this growth, there was extensive emigration, especially to the [[United States]]. Emigration totaled 480,000 in the 1840s, 1,200,000 in the 1850s, and 780,000 in the 1860s.<ref>Nipperdey, ''Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck: 1800–1866'' pp. 96–97</ref>

===Ethnic minorities===
Despite its name and intention, the German Confederation was not entirely populated by Germans; many people of other ethnic groups lived within its borders: 
* [[French language|French-speaking]] [[Walloons]] lived in [[Luxembourg (Belgium)|western Luxembourg]] prior to its division in 1839; 
* the [[Duchy of Limburg (1839–67)|Duchy of Limburg]] (a member between 1839 and 1866) had an entirely [[Dutch people|Dutch]] population; 
* [[Italians]] and [[Slovenians]] lived in south and southeast Austria; 
* Bohemia and Moravia, of the [[Lands of the Bohemian Crown]] were inhabited by a majority of [[Czech people|Czechs]]; 
* [[Silesia]] had also a [[Polish people|Polish]] and Czech inhabitants, while [[Sorbs]] were present in the parts of [[Kingdom of Saxony|Saxony]] and the Prussian [[province of Brandenburg]] known as [[Lusatia]]
* Prussian part of the [[partitions of Poland]] was inhabited by a majority of Poles.