Swabia

For other uses, see Swabia (disambiguation).
"Schwaben" redirects here. For the naval ship, see SMS Schwaben.
"Suevia" redirects here. For other uses, see Suevia (disambiguation).
Today's Swabia within Germany. The Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis (yellow) is at the transitional area of the Swabian, Upper Rhenish and Lake Constance dialects of Alemannic. The western Bodenseekreis district is not considered a part of modern Swabia. The dividing line is between Baden-Württemberg (west) and Bavaria (east).
The coat of arms of Baden-Württemberg: Or, three lions passant sable, the arms of the Duchy of Swabia, in origin the arms of the House of Hohenstaufen. Also used for Swabia (and Württemberg-Baden, 1945–1952) are the three antlers of the coat of arms of Württemberg.

Swabia[nb 1] is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of the German stem duchies, representing the historic settlement area of the Germanic tribe alliances named Alemanni and Suebi.

This territory would include all of the Alemannic German area, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with the Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during the early modern period, now divided between the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.

Swabians (Schwaben, singular Schwabe) are the natives of Swabia and speakers of Swabian German. Their number was estimated at close to 0.8 million by SIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in the regions of Tübingen, Stuttgart and Bavarian Swabia.
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