four years, half the members retiring every two years. The executive consisted of four departments: the interior, foreign and grand-ducal affairs; finance; justice; and ecclesiastical affairs and education. The chief sources of revenue were direct and indirect taxes, the railways and domains. The railways were operated by the state, and formed the only source of major public debt, about 22 million pounds sterling. The supreme courts lay in Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Offenburg, Heidelberg, Mosbach, Waldshut, Konstanz, and Mannheim, from which appeals passed to the Reichsgericht (the supreme tribunal) in Leipzig. Population At the beginning of the 19th century, Baden was a margraviate, with an area of barely 1,300 sq mi (3,400 km2) and a population of 210,000. Subsequently, the grand duchy acquired more territory so that, by 1905, it had 5,823 sq mi (15,082 km2) and a population of 2,010,728. Of that number, 61% were Roman Catholics, 37% Protestants, 1.5% Jews, and the remainder of other religions. At that time, about half of the population was rural, living in communities of less than 2,000; the density of the rest was about . The country was divided into the following districts: Mannheim district had the towns Mannheim, and Heidelberg Karlsruhe district included Karlsruhe and Pforzheim Freiburg im Breisgau district included Freiburg Konstanz district had Konstanz The capital of the duchy was Karlsruhe, and important towns other than those listed included Rastatt, Baden-Baden, Bruchsal, Lahr and Offenburg. The population was most thickly clustered in the north and near the Swiss city of Basel. The inhabitants of Baden are of various origins, those to the south of Murg being descended from the Alemanni and those to the north from the Franks, while the Swabian Plateau derives its name from the adjacent German tribe (Schwaben), who lived in Württemberg. Geography The Grand Duchy had an area of and consisted of a considerable portion of the eastern half of the fertile valley of the Rhine and of the mountains which form its boundary. The mountainous part was by far the most extensive, forming nearly 80% of the whole area. From Lake Constance in the south to the river Neckar in the north is a portion of the Black Forest (), which is divided by the valley of the Kinzig into two districts of different elevation. To the south of the Kinzig the mean height is ), and the highest summit, the Feldberg, reaches about , while