The Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (or BGB) is the civil code of Germany. In development since 1881, it became effective on January 1, 1900, and was considered a massive and groundbreaking project.

The BGB served as a template for the regulations of several other civil law jurisdictions, including Portugal, Estonia, Latvia, the Republic of China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, People's Republic of China, Greece and Ukraine.

The introduction in France of the Napoleonic code in 1804 created in Germany a similar desire for obtaining a civil code (despite the opposition of the Historical School of Law of Friedrich Carl von Savigny), which would systematize and unify the various heterogeneous laws that were in effect in the country. However, the realization of such an attempt during the life of the German Confederation was difficult, for the appropriate legislative body did not exist.

However, in 1871, the various German states were united into the German Empire. In the beginning, civil law legislative power was held by the individual states, not the Empire (Reich) that comprised those states. An amendment to the constitution passed in 1873 (called "Lex Miquel-Lasker" - referring to the amendment's sponsors, representatives Johannes von Miquel and Eduard Lasker) transferred this legislative authority to the Reich. Various committees were then formed to draft a bill that was to become a civil law codification for the entire country, replacing the civil law systems of the states.