<P> The unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 , in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France . Princes of the German states , excluding Austria , gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor after the French capitulation in the Franco - Prussian War . Unofficially , the de facto transition of most of the German - speaking populations into a federated organization of states had been developing for some time through alliances formal and informal between princely rulers , but in fits and starts . The self - interests of the various parties hampered the process over nearly a century of autocratic experimentation , beginning in the era of the Napoleonic Wars , which prompted the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806 , and the subsequent rise of German nationalism . </P>
<P> The unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 , in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France . Princes of the German states , excluding Austria , gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor after the French capitulation in the Franco - Prussian War . Unofficially , the de facto transition of most of the German - speaking populations into a federated organization of states had been developing for some time through alliances formal and informal between princely rulers , but in fits and starts . The self - interests of the various parties hampered the process over nearly a century of autocratic experimentation , beginning in the era of the Napoleonic Wars , which prompted the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806 , and the subsequent rise of German nationalism . </P>
when did the unification of germany take place
when did the unification of germany take place
18 January 1871
18 January 1871