Kreis, (German: “Circle”), any of the several imperial circles (administrative districts) of the Holy Roman Empire from the early 16th century until its dissolution in 1806, a period in which the empire became an increasingly looser federation of principalities. The Kreise were the Burgundian, Lower Rhine-Westphalian, Lower Saxon, Upper Saxon, Electoral Rhenish, Upper Rhenish, Franconian, Swabian, Bavarian, and Austrian. They were established by the emperor Maximilian I (1493–1519). The Diet of Augsburg in 1555 accorded them law-enforcement powers, including the right to carry out the decisions of the Reichskammergericht, or imperial chamber. Especially in western and southern Germany, the circles provided a measure of needed regional political cohesion during the great religious and political upheaval of the Reformation.
The Kreis (an abbreviation of Landkreis, “county”) is an administrative unit in modern Germany. Kreise usually constitute the highest level of local government.