The Empire is a multicoloured patchwork of dynastic territories compared to the solid blocks of colour used for other, supposedly, more centralised states

Nothing underscores the nineteenth-century interpretation more clearly: the Empire is a multicoloured patchwork of dynastic territories compared to the solid blocks of colour used for other, supposedly, more centralised states. Yet most maps produced prior to 1806 showed the Empire with clear outer boundaries divided into the Kreise, its official regional subdivisions. Territories were often named and sometimes marked, but did not dominate.

P.H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire (2016),  253-4