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THE ''GAU'' IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD Originally a ''Gau'' was an old Frankish term for a politico-geographical division of a nation. The word is the German gloss of the Latin '' Pagus '', and hence the ''Gau'' is analogous with the '' Pays '' of medieval France . The ''Gau'' formed the unit of administration in the Carolingian empire during the Ninth and Tenth centuries. Many evolved into what would become known as a ''Grafschaft'', the territory of a Count ; counts were originally an appointed Governor , but the position became in time a hereditary vassal princedom, or Fiefdom . THE ''GAU'' DURING THE NAZI PERIOD The term ''Gau'' was revived in the 1920s as the name given to the administrative regions of the Nazi Party . With Germany 's annexation of neighbouring territories beginning in the late 1930s , a new unit of civil administration, the ''Reichsgau'', was also created. The Nazi Party ''Gaue'' The ''Gau'' was the main administrative region of the NSDAP (Nazi Party), created by a party statute dated May 22 , 1926 . Each ''Gau'' was headed by a '' Gauleiter ''. By 1938 all of Germany was divided into around thirty ''Gaue''. Following the suppression of the political institutions of the '' Länder '' (states) in 1934 , the ''Gaue'' had become the ''de facto'' administrative region of government, and each individual ''Gauleiter'' had considerable power within his territory. The original 32 ''Gaue'' were generally coterminous with the pre-existing ''Länder'' and Prussia n provinces. After the successful invasion of France in 1940 , the Alsace-Lorraine was re-annexed by Germany. The former '' Département '' of Moselle was incorporated into the ''Gau'' of Saar-Palatinate, while Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin were incorporated into Baden ''Gau''. Similarly, the formerly independent state of Luxembourg was annexed to Koblenz-Trier, and the Belgian territories of Eupen and Malmédy were incorporated into Cologne-Aachen. The ''Reichsgaue'' Main article: Reichsgau German -speaking territories annexed to Germany from 1938 were generally organised into ''Reichsgaue''. Unlike the pre-existing ''Gaue'', the new ''Reichsgaue'' formally combined the spheres of both party and civil administration. Following the annexation of Austria in 1938, the country, briefly renamed " Ostmark ", was sub-divided into seven ''Reichsgaue''. These had boundaries broadly the same as the former Austrian ''Länder'' (states), with the Tyrol and Vorarlberg being merged as "Tyrol-Vorarlberg", Burgenland being divided between Styria and "Lower Danube" (the re-named Lower Austria ). Upper Austria was also re-named "Upper Danube", thus eliminating the name of "Austria" from the official map. A small number of boundary changes were also made, the most significant of which was the massive expansion of Vienna 's official territory, at the expense of "Lower Danube". Northern and eastern territory annexed from the dismembered Czechoslovakia were mainly organised as the ''Reichsgau'' of Sudetenland , with territory to the south annexed to the ''Reichsgaue'' of Lower and Upper Danube. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939 , territories lost at the Treaty Of Versailles , together with some adjacent territory, were re-annexed to Germany as the Reichsgaue of Danzig-Westpreussen (which also incorporated the former Free City Of Danzig ) and Wartheland . LEGACY IN TOPOGRAPHY The medieval term ''Gau'' (sometimes ''Gäu''; ''gouw'' in Dutch ) has survived as (second, more generic) component of the names of certain regions -some named after a river- in Germany , Austria , Alsace , Switzerland and Belgium , e.g. in
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