effects such as humidity or light exposure but intrinsically due to the existence of other competing phases which do not share these favorable features in the band structures. In fact, these other phases may well be an intermediate step in the decomposition process of the material to the AX and (Ge,Sn,Pb)X 2 reaction products. It is thus important to understand the relative stability and relations between these crystallographic phases, how they influence the band structures, and how their trends depend on the chemical substitution space.Some of the relations within the perovskite type of structures are already well understood. Specifically, we have recently shown that both the Sn and Pb based compounds in this family primarily undergo octahedral rotations related to the Goldschmidt tolerance factor t < 1 while the Ge and Si based ones show a ferroelectric off-centering of the central IV-atom leading to a rhombohedrally distorted perovskite. [5] The rotational distortions in CsSnX 3 were studied both experimentally [6] and computationally [7] and are well known from oxide perovskites. Similar rotated octahedron phases also occur for the plumbates but are further complicated in the hybrid organic ones by the symmetry breaking of the organic ion. However, the relation between the perovskite and the nonperovskite phases such as the yellow phase [8] in CsSnI 3 or the monoclinic phase [9] of CsSnCl 3 are not yet understood. These phases are usually described in terms of edge-sharing rather than corner-sharing octahedra.Because in the stannates the yellow phase has a higher density and the rotations also are clearly driven by the need to make the space for the alkali ion tighter, we proposed in previous work that to avoid the non-perovskite phases one needs to make the size of the IV-X network smaller relative to the A filler cation. First this already explains why larger organic ions are preferred to Cs in the plumbates but also guides the way to how to develop lead-free alternatives. This naturally led us to explore the Ge and Si based materials. [10][11][12] In fact, the CsGeX 3 family is found not to exhibit octahedron rotational distortions but a ferroelectric rhombohedral phase (R) [13] at low temperature and a cubic perovskite phase at high temperature and was shown to have a band structure maintaining the favorable features of the perovskite structure. However the situation is different forThe alkali-trihalogeno-germanates AGeX 3 with A: Rb or Cs and X a halogen (I, Br, Cl) along with the corresponding stannates (ASnX 3 ) and plumbates (APbX 3 ) exhibit a large variety of crystal structures, some of which are of the perovskite type. These materials, better known as "halide perovskites" have recently gained worldwide attention as promising photovoltaic and more broadly opto-electronic materials. However, their stability problems relative to the non-perovskite phases are a major issue. It is shown that some of the phase relations in these materials can be understood in terms of the relative orientation of the GeX ...