Germany

1. A country of north-central Europe bordered on the north by the Baltic and North seas. Occupied since c. 500 B.C. by Germanic tribes, it was part of the kingdom of the Franks by the time of Charlemagne and later became a loose federation of principalities and the nucleus of the Holy Roman Empire after the coronation of Otto I in 962. Religious strife and dynastic feuds weakened the imperial state, which was broken up by Napoleon in 1806. After 1815 Germany became a confederation, then an empire centered around Prussia (1871-1918).