The Weimar Republic (German: Weimarer Republik [ˈvaɪmaʁɐ ʁepuˈbliːk] ([1] listen)) is the name given by historians to the federal republic and semipresidential representative democracy established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government. It is named after Weimar, the city where the constitutional assembly took place. During this period, and well into the succeeding Nazi era, the official name of the state was German Reich (Deutsches Reich), which continued on from the pre-1918 Imperial period.