Thuringia

Freistaat Thüringen Free State of Thuringia
Flag	Coat of arms
Location
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Administration
Country	Germany
NUTS Region	DEG
Capital	Erfurt
Minister-President	Dieter Althaus (CDU)
Governing party	CDU
Votes in Bundesrat	4 (of 69)
Basic statistics
Area	16,171 km² (6,244 sq mi)
Population	2,293,000 (10/2007)[1]
- Density	142 /km² (367 /sq mi)
Other information
GDP/ Nominal	€ 44.8 billion (2005)
ISO region	DE-TH
Website	thueringen.de

The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat Thüringen) is located in central Germany. It has an area of 16,171 square kilometers (6,243.7 sq mi) and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen Bundesländer (federal states). The capital is Erfurt.

Geography

Thuringia borders on (from the northwest and clockwise) the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse. The ridges of the western Harz Mountains divide the region from Lower Saxony on the north-west, while the eastern Harz similarly separates Thuringia from the state of Saxony-Anhalt to the north-east. To the south and southwest, the Thuringian Forest effectively separates the ancient region of Franconia, now the northern part of Bavaria, from the rolling plains of most of Thuringia. The central Harz range extends southwards along the western side into the northwest corner of the Thuringian Forest region, making Thuringia a lowland basin of rolling plains nearly surrounded by ancient somewhat-difficult mountains. To the west across the mountains and south is the drainage basin of the Rhine River.

The most conspicuous geographical feature of Thuringia is the Thuringian Forest, a mountain chain in the southwest. The Werra River, a tributary of the Weser River, separates this mountain chain from the volcanic Rhön Mountains, which are partially in Thuringia, Bavaria, and Hesse. In the northwest, Thuringia includes a small part of the Harz. The eastern part of Thuringia is generally a plain. The Saale River runs through these lowlands from south to north.

The geographic center of the Federal Republic is located in Thuringia, near the municipality of Niederdorla.

See also List of places in Thuringia.

Thuringia is divided into 17 districts (Landkreise):

Furthermore there are six urban districts:

1. Erfurt
2. Eisenach
3. Gera
4. Jena
5. Suhl
6. Weimar

Towns

History

Herzogtum (Landgrafschaft) Thüringen Duchy (Landgraviate) of Thuringia Pagan kingdom, Frankish duchy, then State of the Holy Roman Empire 450 – 1247 →   → Capital Not specified Government Principality Historical era Middle Ages  - Thuringian kingdom     established   before 450  - Frankish invasion;     duchy established   632  - Landgraviate established 1130  - Comital line extinct 1247  - War of the Thuringian     Succession   1247–64

Named after the Thuringii tribe who occupied it ca. AD 300, Thuringia came under Frankish domination in the 6th century, forming a part of the subsequent Holy Roman Empire.

Thuringia became a landgraviate in 1130. After the extinction of the reigning Ludowingian line of counts in 1247 and the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247–64), the western half became independent under the name of Hesse, never to become a part of Thuringia again. Most of the remaining Thuringia came under the rule of the Wettin dynasty of the nearby Margraviate of Meissen, the nucleus of the later Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony. With the division of the house of Wettin in 1485, Thuringia went to the senior Ernestine branch of the family, which subsequently subdivided the area into a number of smaller states, according to the Saxon tradition of dividing inheritance amongst male heirs. These were the "Saxon duchies", consisting, among others, of the states of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Eisenach, Saxe-Jena, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg, and Saxe-Gotha; Thuringia became merely a geographical concept.

Thuringia generally accepted the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic faith was abolished as early as 1520; priests that remained loyal were driven away and churches and monasteries were largely destroyed, especially during the Peasants' War of 1525. In Mühlhausen and elsewhere, the Anabaptists found many adherents. Thomas Munzer, the founder of this sect, was active in this city. Within the borders of Thuringia the Catholic faith was maintained only in the district called Eichsfeld, which was ruled by the Archbishop of Mainz, and to a small degree in the city and vicinity of Erfurt.

This German map shows the various states of Thuringia within the German Empire in 1905.

Map of Thuringian States 1890

Some reordering of the Thuringian states occurred during the German Mediatisation from 1795-1814, and the territory was included within the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine organized in 1806. The 1815 Congress of Vienna confirmed these changes and the Thuringian states' inclusion in the German Confederation; the Kingdom of Prussia also acquired some Thuringian territory and administered it within the Province of Saxony. The Thuringian duchies which became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany were Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and the two principalities of Reuß. In 1920, after World War I, these small states merged into one state, called Thuringia; only Saxe-Coburg voted to join Bavaria instead. Weimar became the new capital of Thuringia.

According to the 2005 book Hitlers Bombe, a nuclear device was detonated here in March 1945 by the Nazis. However, full tests on the soil at the proposed test site were released by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), revealing no abnormal background levels of radiation after taking into account the already elevated background levels as a result of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The PTB release emphasized that while it could not necessarily rule out a German test conclusively, that soil analysis of that site revealed absolutely no evidence of it.

After July 1945, the state of Thuringia came under the Soviet occupation zone, and was expanded to include parts Prussian Saxony, such as the areas around Erfurt, Mühlhausen, and Nordhausen. Erfurt became the new capital of Thuringia.

In 1952, the German Democratic Republic dissolved its states, and created districts (Bezirke) instead. The three districts that shared the territory of Thuringia were based in Erfurt, Gera and Suhl.

The State of Thuringia was restored with slightly altered borders during Germany's reunification in 1990.

Politics

List of Minister-presidents of Thüringen

The state of Thuringia (red) upon its formation in 1920

1. 1920 - 1921: Arnold Paulssen (DDP)
2. 1921 - 1923: August Frölich (SPD)
3. 1924 - 1928: Richard Leutheußer (DVP)
4. 1928 - 1929: Karl Riedel (DVP)
5. 1929 : Arnold Paulssen (DDP)
6. 1930 - 1932: Erwin Baum (Landbund)
7. 1932 - 1933: Fritz Sauckel (NSDAP)
8. 1933 - 1945: Willy Marschler (NSDAP)
9. 1945: Hermann Brill (SPD)
10. 1945 - 1947: Rudolf Paul (no party, then LDPD)
11. 1947 - 1952: Werner Eggerath (SED)
12. 1990 - 1992: Josef Duchac (CDU)
13. 1992 - 2003: Bernhard Vogel (CDU)
14. since 2003: Dieter Althaus (CDU)

June 13, 2004 state election

Seat results -- SPD in red, CDU in black, PDS in purple

See also: Thuringia state election, 2004

Transportation

• Autobahn: A4, A9, A38, A44, A71, A73
• Airports: Altenburg-Nobitz Airport, Erfurt Airport

See also

• Thüringer sausage
• Rulers of Thuringia
• 1632 a book set in Thuringia
• Thuringowa

External links

• Official government web site
• Tourist website for Thuringia (German)
• Tourist website with many pictures of thuringian landscapes (German)
• Alternative Tourist website for Thuringia (German) (English)
• Thuringia at the Open Directory Project
• Thuringian flags at [1] and [2]
• Searchengine for Thuringia with videos (German)

References

States of Germany during the Weimar Republic (1919–33) States Anhalt · Baden · Bavaria · Brunswick · Hesse · Lippe · Mecklenburg-Schwerin · Mecklenburg-Strelitz · Oldenburg · Prussia · Saxony · Schaumburg-Lippe · Thuringia (from 1920) · Waldeck (until 1929) · Württemberg City-states Bremen · Hamburg · Lübeck Until 1920 Saxony Altenburg · Coburg–Gotha · Meiningen · Weimar-Eisenach Reuss Elder · Junior Schwarzburg Rudolstadt · Sondershausen Unofficial Bavarian Soviet Republic · Bottleneck · Rhenish Republic