Gau (territory)

The Germanic word is reflected in Gothic gawi (neuter; genitive gaujis) and early Old High German gewi, gowi (neuter) and in some compound names -gawi as in Gothic (e.g. Durgawi "Canton of Thurgau", Alpagawi "Allgäu"), later gâi, gôi, and after loss of the stem suffix gaw, gao, and with motion to the feminine as gawa[1] besides gowo (from gowio).

[4] Charlemagne, by his capitulary legislation, adopted the comitatus subdivision and appointed local rulers as deputies of the central Imperial authority.

Similar to many shires in England, during the Middle Ages, many such Gaue came to be known as counties or Grafschaften, the territory of a Graf (count) within the Holy Roman Empire.

Such a count or Graf would originally have been an appointed governor, but the position generally became an hereditary vassal princedom, or fief in most of continental Europe.

The original 33 Gaue were generally coterminous with the Reichstag election districts of the Weimar Republic, based on the constituent states (Länder) and the provinces of Prussia.

Following the suppression of the political institutions of the Länder in the course of the Nazi Gleichschaltung process and the appointment of Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governors) in 1933, the Gaue became the de facto administrative regions of the government and each individual Gauleiter had considerable power within his territory.

A small number of boundary changes also took place, the most significant of which was the massive expansion of Vienna's official territory, at the expense of "Lower Danube".