The Rhineland

The Rhineland is the region of west-central Europe along the Rhine River, historically centered on western Germany but understood culturally and economically to extend into eastern France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Densely populated, heavily industrialized and traversed by one of Europe's busiest commercial waterways, the region was demilitarized after the First World War under the Treaty of Versailles and became a flashpoint of interwar diplomacy when Germany remilitarized it in 1936. Its historic cities, vineyards and cathedral towns have long made it one of the cultural centers of German-speaking Europe.