1. A new delimitation of federal territory may be made to ensure that the Laender by the size and capacity are able effectively to fulfill the functions incumbent upon them. Due regard shall be given to regional, historical and cultural ties, economic expediency, and the requirements of regional policy and planning.
2. Measures for a new delimitation of federal territory shall be effected by federal statutes which shall require confirmation by referendum. The Laender thus affected shall be consulted.
3. A referendum shall be held in the laender from whose territories or partial territories a new Land or a Land which redefined boundaries is the be formed (affected Laender). The referendum shall be held on the question whether the affected Laender are to remain within their existing boundaries or whether the new Land or Land with redefined boundaries should be formed. The referendum shall be deemed to be in favor of the formation of a new Land or of a Land with redefined boundaries where approval is given to the change by a majority in all the territories or partial territories of an affected Land whose assignment to a Land is to be changed in the same sense. The referendum shall be deemed not to be in favor where change; such rejection shall, however, be of no consequence where in one part of the territory whose assignment of the affected Land is to be changed a majority of two-thirds approve of the change, unless in the entire territory of the affected Land a majority of two-thirds reject the change.
4. Where in a clearly definable area of interconnected population and economic settlement, the parts of which lie in several Laender and which has a population of at least one million, one tenth of those of its population entitled to vote in Bundestag elections petition by popular initiative for the assignment of that area to one Land, provision shall be made within two years in a federal statute determining whether the delimitation of the affected Laender shall be changed pursuant to paragraph 2 of this Article or determining that a plebiscite shall be held in the affected Laender.
5. The plebiscite shall establish whether approval is given to a change of Laender delimitation to be proposed in the statute. The statute may put forward different proposals, not exceeding two in number, for the plebiscite. Where approval is given by a majority to a proposed change of Laender delimitation, provision shall be made within two years in a federal statute determining whether the delimitation of the Laender concerned shall be changed pursuant to paragraph 2 of this Article. Where approval is given, in accordance with the third and fourth sentences of paragraph 3 of this Article, to a proposal put forward for the plebiscite, a federal statute providing for the formation of the proposed Land shall be enacted within two years of the plebiscite and shall no longer require confirmation by referendum.
6. A majority in a referendum or in a plebiscite shall consist of a majority of the votes cast, provided that they amount to at least one quarter of the population entitled to vote in Bundestag elections. Other detailed provisions concerning referendums, popular petitions and plebiscites (Volksentscheide, Volksbefragungen) shall be made in a federal statute; such statute may also provide that popular petitions may not be repeated within a period of five years.
7. Other changes concerning the territory of the Laender may be effected by state agreements between the Laender concerned or by a federal statute with the approval of the Bundesrat where the territory which is to be the subject of a new delimitation does not have more than 10,000 inhabitants. Detailed provision shall be made in a federal statute requiring the approval of the Bundesrat and the majority of the members of the Bundestag. It shall make provision for the affected communes and districts to be heard.
