The States of the German Confederation were those member states that from 20 June 1815 were part of the German Confederation, which lasted, with some changes in the member states, until 24 August 1866, under the presidency of the Austrian imperial House of Habsburg, which was represented by an Austrian presidential envoy to the Federal diet in Frankfurt.
On the whole, its territory nearly coincided with that remaining in the Holy Roman Empire at the outbreak of the French Revolution, with the notable exception of Belgium. Except for the two rival major powers, Habsburg and Prussia, and the western left bank of the Rhine (which France had annexed, with tiny Katzenelnbogen), the other member states or their precursors, making up most of present Germany, had been within Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine.
The four free cities were republics by constitution, while all the others were monarchies, some constitutional and some absolutist.