Historically Brandenburg was an independent state which grew to become the core of modern Germany (see below). The state of Brandenburg was named after the town of Brandenburg an der Havel.
Brandenburg is known for its intact nature and its ambitious nature protection policy in the 1990s. After the political change, 15 large protected areas were founded, each of them has a state financed administration and rangers, who guide visitors and work for nature protection. Most protected areas have visitor centers.
- Biosphere Reserves
- Spreewald Biosphere Reserve (474 km²)
- Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve (1.291 km²)
- River Landscape Elbe-Brandenburg Biosphere Reserve (533 km²)
- Nature Parks
- Barnim Nature Park (750 km²)
- Dahme-Heideseen Nature Park (594 km²)
- High Fläming Nature Park (827 km²)
- Märkische Schweiz Nature Park (204 km²)
- Niederlausitzer Heidelandschaft Nature Park (490 km²)
- Niederlausitzer Landrücken Nature Park (580 km²)
- Nuthe-Nieplitz Nature Park (623 km²)
- Schlaube Valley Nature Park (225 km²)
- Uckermark Lakes Nature Park (895 km²)
- Westhavelland Nature Park (1.315 km²)
- Stechlin-Ruppiner Land Nature Park (1.080 km²)
See also: List of places in Brandenburg.
Administration
Brandenburg is divided into fourteen (rural) counties (Landkreise),
and four independent cities (kreisfreie Städte),
- Brandenburg an der Havel
- Cottbus
- Frankfurt (Oder)
- Potsdam
Coat of Arms
The red eagle of the Mark Brandenburg was according to tradition already adopted by margrave Gero (d. 965). Gustav A. Seyler in Band I 1.Abt, 3. Teil of Siebamchers Grosses Wappen-buch (Nurenberg, 1916) states that duke Albrecht of the house of Askanien - called 'the Bear' - (d. 1170) was the origina-tor. He divided his territory among his children, thereby creating the later Anhalt, Brandenburg and Meissen, later(Upper)-Saxony.
The Mark Brandenburg, known as the empires 'sandlitterbox' (Streusandbüchse) was bought in 1415 by burggrave Frederic IV of Nurenberg of the house of Hohenzollern. The Hohenzollerns made the poor marshes and woodlands over the centuries the nucleus of a powerfull state. In 1417 Frederic of Hohenzollern was made elector by emperor Sigis-mund. As elector Frederic I he quarte-red the arms of Hohenzol-lern (quarterly black and white) and the burgravate of Nuren-berg (in a red and silver border a black lion in gold) with the Brandenburg red eagle. The blue escutcheon with the golden scepter as symbol of the office of archchamberlain (Erzkämmerer) of the Empire was added under Frederic II (1440-70). December 1470 the emperor gave the duchies of Pommern (red griffin in white), Cassu-ben (black griffin in gold), Stettin (red griffin in blue) and Wenden (griffin striped green and red) in leage to the electors of Brandenburg, making them in turn the leagelords of the dukes of Stettin-Pommern. Quarters and helmcrest of these duchies and the principality of Rügen (parted horizontaly, a black lion in gold and an wall of bricks in red and blue) however were incorperated in the Brandenburg arms.
John Sigmond (1572-1619) inherited the duchie of Prussia outside the Holy Roamn Empire on the Baltic in 1618. In 1609 John Sigmonds wife had inherited rights to Cleves (in red a silver shield, over all a golden grid), Mark (in gold a bar chequered in red and white), Gulik (black lion in gold) and Berg (red lion in white) in the Rhineland. A compromise over them with the house of Wittelsbach (branch Pfalz-Neuburg) ginving Brandenburg onlyu Cleves and Mark was reached in 1614 but the arms of the other principalities were put in neverthe-less.
The Peace of Westfalen in 1648 brought Brandenburg the former princebishophrics of Magdeburg (parted in red and white), Halberstadt (parted white and red), Minden (two keys in red) and Cam-min (a silver Anchored cross). Rügen and part of Pommerania however had to be given up to Sweden. It was around this time to that elector Frederic William III (1620-88) - called The Great Elector - adopted the Pomeranian wild man as supporters of his arms [[1]] He also took to the fancy of those days to place the outer helmets over the heads of the supporters (See also Pommern[[2]] Pfalz-Neuburg and Pfalz-Sulzbach).
When the duchy of Prussia gained full sovereignty from Poland 19th September 1657, the electoral cap which had until than crowned the smaller versions of the arms on coins, was adorned with bows as in a ducal crown. Frederic III changed the arms substantially when he took the title 'King in Prussia' 18th January 1701 (see there).
History
In late medieval and early modern times, Brandenburg was one of seven Electorships of the Holy Roman Empire, and, along with Prussia, formed the original core of the German Empire, the first unified German state. It contained the future German capital Berlin and since 1618 both Brandenburg and Prussia, then Brandenburg-Prussia, were ruled by Hohenzollern dukes and later kings of Prussia. Franconian Nuremberg and Ansbach, Swabian Hohenzollern, and the eastern European connections of Berlin and the prince-elector together were instrumental in the rise of that state.
Early Middle Ages
Brandenburg is situated entirely in territory of Germania recorded by Tacitus in 98 AD. By 600 the first groups of Slavic people arrived. In 948 Emperor Otto I the Great established German control during the Drang nach Osten over the then-largely Slavic inhabitants of the area and founded the dioceses of Havelberg and Brandenburg; he died in 983. In the great uprising in 983 the Slavs wiped out German control from the territory of present-day Brandenburg. The monasteries were burned, priests and Germans officials killed or expelled. The Slavic tribes living east of the Elbe River remained independent and pagan for the next 150 years.
12th century
By the beginning of the 12th century the Ottonian German kings and emperors conquered the Slav-inhabited lands of present-day Brandenburg. Many Slavic inhabitants survived the conquests and live there still today, such as the Sorbs in Lusatia. The church brought bishoprics which, with their walled towns, afforded protection for the townspeople from attack. With the monks and bishops, the history of the town of Brandenburg, which in time became the state of Brandenburg, began. In 1134, in the wake of a German crusade against the Wends, the German magnate Albert the Bear was granted the Northern March by the Emperor Lothar II. For some time up until the 15th century, some part of the area that would become Brandenburg was inhabited by the Slavic Wends, who still make up a part of the area's modern population.
Albert's control of the region was nominal for several decades, but he engaged in a variety of campaigns against the Wends, as well as more diplomatic efforts which saw his control become more real by the middle of the century. In 1150, he formally inherited Brandenburg from its last Wendish ruler, Pribislav. Albert, and his descendants the Ascanians, then made considerable progress in Christianizing and cultivating the lands. There was never any distinction made by any of the German rulers and the Slavic and German tribes intermarried. During the 13th century they began acquiring territory east of the Oder River, later known as the Neumark (see also Altmark).
13th century
In 1320 the Brandenburg Ascanian line came to an end, and from 1323 until 1373 Brandenburg was under the control of the Wittelsbach family, better known as the rulers of Bavaria. After a period of rule by the Luxembourg dynasty, however, the margraviate was granted in 1415 by Emperor Sigismund to the House of Hohenzollern, which would rule until the end of World War I. From the Golden Bull in 1356 until the Empire's end in 1806, the Margrave of Brandenburg was also one of the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
16th century
Brandenburg was one of the German states to convert in 1539 to Protestantism in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, and generally did quite well in the century following, as the dynasty expanded its lands to include the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 and, along the lower Rhine, the Duchy of Cleves (1614) and elsewhere. The result was a sprawling, disconnected country that was in poor shape to defend itself during the Thirty Years' War.
Towards the end of that devastating conflict and after, however, Brandenburg (and its successor states) enjoyed a string of talented rulers who gradually maneuvered their country towards the heights of power in Europe. The first of these was Frederick William, the so-called "Great Elector", who worked tirelessly to rebuild and consolidate the nation. He moved the capital from the town of Brandenburg to Potsdam.
When Frederick William died in 1688, he was followed by his son Frederick, third of that name in Brandenburg. As the lands that had been acquired in Prussia were outside the formal boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick assumed (as Frederick I) the title of "King in Prussia" (1701), basing this promotion from margrave on his title to what were, in actuality, vast but less agriculturally valuable stretches of sandy ground. Brandenburg was still the most important portion of the kingdom (and the state was often referred to informally as Brandenburg-Prussia) but for the purposes of accuracy, the continuation of this history can be found at Kingdom of Prussia.
When Prussia was subdivided into provinces in 1815, the territory of the Margraviate of Brandenburg became the Province of Brandenburg. In 1881, the City of Berlin was separated from the Province of Brandenburg. Brandenburg had an area of 39,039 km² and a population of 2.6 million (1925). After World War II, the Neumark, the part of Brandenburg east of the Oder-Neisse Line, was annexed by Poland; the remainder of the province became a state when Prussia was dissolved in 1947. The State of Brandenburg was dissolved in 1952 by the government of East Germany.
Reunification
The present State of Brandenburg was re-established after German reunification in 1990. In 1995 the governments of Berlin and Brandenburg proposed to merge the states in order to form a new state with the name of "Berlin-Brandenburg". The merger was rejected in a plebiscite in 1996: While West Berliners voted for a merger, East Berliners and Brandenburgers voted against it.