The Landesliga (English: Football State League) is a tier of football in some states of the German football league system. In Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia, Bremen, Lower Saxony and Hamburg, the Landesligas are set right below the Oberliga and therefore are the sixth tier. The reason for this is that Bavaria, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, and Bremen are the only places in Germany where the Oberliga, the State, and the Verband are geographically the same, while the other two states simply chose to call their leagues Landesligas when establishing them in 1990. In the Middle Rhine and Lower Rhine regions of North Rhine-Westphalia it is also, since 2012, the sixth tier.