The
administrative divisions of the German Democratic Republic (commonly known as East Germany) were constituted in two different forms during the country's 41-year-long history. The GDR first retained the traditional German division into
federated states called
Länder, but in 1952 replaced them with arbitrarily-drawn districts called
Bezirke. Immediately before
German reunification in 1990, the old
Länder were restored, but they were not effectively reconstituted until after the GDR had ceased to exist as a separate state.