Alamannia, or Alemania, was the kingdom established and inhabited by the Alemanni, a Germanic tribal confederation that had broken through the Roman limes in 213.

As the Holy Roman Empire started to form under King Conrad I of East Francia (reigning 911 to 918), the territory of Alamannia became the Duchy of Swabia in 915.

In the area of present-day Switzerland, the Alemannic territory expanded during the High Middle Ages, with the Walser migration into the Alps, with the Zähringer and later the influence of Bern towards Upper Burgundy, and into Grisons as lower Raetia came under the rule of the Werdenberg counts.

The Alamanni were pushed south from their original area of settlement in the Main basin and in the 5th and 6th century settled new territory on either side of the Rhine.

Alemannia, under Frankish rule (later the Duchy of Swabia) within the Holy Roman Empire, covered a territory that was more or less undisputed during the 7th to 13th centuries, organised into counties or pagi.

Swiggerstal (the modern Ermstal), Filiwigawe (Filsgau, named for the Fils), Trachgowe (Drachgau, near Schwäbisch Gmünd) and Alba (Albuch) between the Neckar and the Danube.

Rezia (Ries, ultimately from the name of the Roman province of Raetia) in the Northeastern corner, left of the Danube (capital Nördlingen).

Macrian appears to have been involved in building a large alliance of Alemannic tribes against Rome, which earned him the title of turbarum rex artifex ("king and crafter of unrest").

After their defeat in 496, the Alemanni bucked the Frankish yoke and put themselves under the protection of Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths[2] but after his death they were again subjugated by the Franks under Theudebert I in 536.

Western Alamannia did eventually (7th century) receive a diocese (Constance) through the cooperation of the bishops of Chur and the Merovingian monarchs.

After the death of Dagobert I in 638, Alamannia, like Bavaria, Aquitaine, and Brittany, broke its ties with its Frankish sovereigns and struggled for independence.

This was largely successful until the early 8th century, when a series of campaigns waged by the Arnulfing mayors of the palace reduced Alamannia to a province of Francia once again.

It was, however, during this period of de facto independence that the Alamanni began to be ruled by one duke, though Alsace and Rhaetia remained outside of the scope of Alamannia.

Between 709 and 712, Pepin of Heristal fought against Lantfrid, who appears as dux of the Alamanni, and who committed to writing the second Alamannic law code, the Lex Alamannorum.

During the reign of Louis the Pious, there were tendencies to renewed independence in Alamannia, and the 830s were marked by bloody feuds between the Alamannic and Rhaetian nobility vying for dominion over the area.

In the 10th century, no noble house of Alamannia succeeded in founding a ducal dynasty, as the Ottonians did in Saxony or the Liutpolding in Bavaria, though the Hunfridings came closest.

The duchy encompassed the area surrounding Lake Constance, the Black Forest, and the left and right banks of the Rhine, including Alsace and parts of the Swiss plateau, bordering on Upper Burgundy.

The duchy of Swabia was ruled by the Hohenstaufen during 1079–1268 and was disestablished with the execution of Conradin and its territory was politically fragmented during the succeeding interregnum period.

The names for Germany in modern Arabic (ألمانيا), Catalan (Alemanya), Welsh (Yr Almaen), Cornish (Almayn), French (Allemagne), Persian (ألمان), Galician-Portuguese (Alemanha), Spanish (Alemania), and Turkish (Almanya) all derive from Alamannia.