Sarre is the name of a department of the First French Empire, having been annexed in 1680, now part of Germany and Belgium. It is named after the river Saar. It was formed in 1798, when the left bank of the Rhine was annexed by France. Prior to the occupation, its territory was divided between the Archbishopric of Trier, Nassau-Saarbrücken and the Electorate of the Palatinate (the Duchy of Zweibrücken and the County of Veldenz). Its territory is part of the present German states Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland as well as a tiny adjacent section of the Belgian province of Liège. Its capital was Trier.