Palatinate-Neuburg

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Castle of Neuburg.

Palatinate-Neuburg (German: Herzogtum Pfalz-Neuburg) is a former state of the Holy Roman Empire, founded in 1505. Its capital was Neuburg an der Donau. Its area was about 2,750 km², with a population of some 100,000.

[edit] History

The Duchy of Pfalz-Neuburg was created in 1505 as the result of the Landshut War of Succession and existed till 1799 or 1808. After the so-called Kölner Spruch (Vedict of Cologne) the Duchy was created from the territories north of the Danube for Otto Henry and Philipp, the sons of Ruprecht, Bishop of Freising. While they were minors, first their grandfather, Philipp, ruled the Duchy until his death in 1508, and then Frederick II. In 1557 Otto Henry ceded his duchy (the so-called Young Palatinate) to Wolfgang of Pfalz-Zweibrücken. The eldest son of Wolfgang, Philipp Louis, founded in 1569 the elder line of Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Neuburg, from which the Palatinate-Sulzbach lineage was separated in 1614. Pfalz-Neuburg joined the Protestant Union in 1608.

The Duchy of Pfalz-Neuburg was abolished in 1808. In the partition of Bavaria in 1837 Pfalz-Neuburg was joined with Swabia but became a part of Upper Bavaria in the 1970s.