The climate of Bavaria differs greatly according to the character of the region, being cold in the vicinity of Tirol but warm in the plains adjoining the Danube and the Main. On the whole, the temperature is in the winter months considerably colder than that of England, and a good deal hotter during summer and autumn.
_Area and Population._--Bavaria proper, or the eastern portion, contains an area of 26,998 sq. m., and the Palatinate or western, 2288 sq. m., making the whole extent of the kingdom about 29,286 sq. m. The total population, according to the census of 1905, was 6,512,824. Almost a quarter of the inhabitants live in towns, of which Munich and Nuremberg have populations exceeding 100,000, Augsburg, Würzburg, Fürth and Ludwigshafen between 50,000 and 100,000, while twenty-six other towns number from 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants.
Ethnographically, the Bavarians belong to various ancient tribes; Germanized Slavs in the north-east, Swabians and Franks in the centre, Franks towards the west, and, in the Palatinate, Walloons. Politically, the country is divided into eight provinces, as follows:--
+------------------+------------+----------------+---------+ | | |Pop. of Province| Area in | | Provinces. | Capital. | in 1905. | sq. m. | +------------------+------------+----------------+---------+ | Upper Bavaria | Munich | 1,410,763 | 6,456 | | Lower Bavaria | Landshut | 706,345 | 4,152 | | Upper Palatinate | Regensburg | 573,476 | 3,728 | | Upper Franconia | Bayreuth | 637,239 | 2,702 | | Middle Franconia | Ansbach | 868,072 | 2,925 | | Lower Franconia | Würzburg | 680,769 | 3,243 | | Swabia | Augsburg | 750,880 | 3,792 | | The Palatinate | Spires | 885,280 | 2,288 | | | +----------------+---------+ | | Total | 6,512,824 | 29,286 | +------------------+------------+----------------+---------+
_Religion._--The majority of the inhabitants (about 70%) are Roman Catholics. The Protestant-Evangelical Church claims about 29%, while Jews, and a very small number of other sects, account for the remainder.
The districts of Lower Bavaria, Upper Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate are almost wholly Roman Catholic, while in the Rhine Palatinate, Upper Franconia, and especially Middle Franconia, the preponderance is on the side of the Protestants. The exercise of religious worship in Bavaria is altogether free. The Protestants have the same civil rights as the Roman Catholics, and the sovereign may be either Roman Catholic or Protestant. Of the Roman Catholic Church the heads are the two archbishops of Munich-Freising and Bamberg, and the six bishops of Eichstätt, Spires, Würzburg, Augsburg, Regensburg and Passau, of whom the first three are suffragans of Bamberg. The "Old Catholic" party, under the bishop of Bonn, has failed, despite its early successes, to take deep root in the country. Among the Protestants the highest authority is the general consistory of Munich. The numbers of the different religions in 1900 were as follows:--Roman Catholics, 4,357,133; Protestants, 1,749,206; Jews, 54,928.