A
federal republic is a
federation of
states with a
republican form of government. A federation is the central government. The states in a federation also maintain all
political sovereignty that they do not yield to the federation. Usage of the term
republic is inconsistent but, as a minimum, it means a state or federation of states that does not have a
monarch as
head of state.
In English, before the merger of the two German states in 1990, the phrase "Federal Republic" was often used to refer to West Germany (within its pre-1990 borders), in contrast with the German Democratic Republic, otherwise called East Germany.
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