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Brandenburg (; Lower Sorbian: Bramborska; Upper Sorbian: Braniborska) is one of Germany's sixteen Bundesländer (federal states). It lies in the east of the country as it is one of the new states created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam. Brandenburg surrounds but excludes the national capital Berlin.
Historically Brandenburg was an independent state, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which grew to become the core of modern Germany. The state of Brandenburg was named after the town of Brandenburg an der Havel.
Brandenburg is bordered by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the north, Poland in the east, the Free State of Saxony in the south, Saxony-Anhalt in the west, and Lower Saxony in the northwest.
The Oder River forms a part of the eastern border, the Elbe River a portion of the western border. The main rivers in the state itself are the Spree and the Havel. In the southeast there is a wetlands region called the Spreewald; it is the northernmost part of Lusatia, where the Sorbs, a Slavic people, still live. These areas are bilingual, i.e., German and Sorbian are both used.
Brandenburg is known for its intact natural environment 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.
Brandenburg is divided into fourteen (rural) counties (Landkreise),
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and four urban districts (kreisfreie Städte),
In late medieval and early modern times, Brandenburg was one of seven electoral states of the Holy Roman Empire, and, along with Prussia, formed the original core of the German Empire, the first unified German state. Governed by Hohenzollern since 1415, it contained the future German capital Berlin. Since 1618 both the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia formed Brandenburg-Prussia, when they were ruled by the same branch of the House of Hohenzollern. In 1701 the state was elevated to the Kingdom of Prussia. Franconian Nuremberg and Ansbach, Swabian Hohenzollern, the eastern European connections of Berlin, and the prince-elector together were instrumental in the rise of that state.
Brandenburg is situated in territory known in antiquity as Magna Germania, which reached to the Vistula river. By 720 the first Slavic people are said to have come into the Brandenburg area, after the Avars arrival in central Europe. The Slavs came via Moravia, where they had arrived in the mid 600s. Greater Moravia had already been subject to Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia. Then the Moravian-Bohemian dukes were installed and received a bishopric at Prague, which was subject to the Archbishopric of Mainz. The Slavs, who came into Brandenburg from Moravia and Bohemia, arrived directly via the rivers Spree, Havel, and Elbe.
Beginning in the early 900s, Henry the Fowler and his successors conquered territory up to the Oder River. Slavic settlements such as Brenna[1] (Brandenburg an der Havel), Budusin[2] (Bautzen), and Chośebuz[3] (Cottbus) came under Imperial control through the installation of margraves. Their main function was to defend and protect the eastern marches. In 948 Emperor Otto I established Imperial control over the multitude of pagan people. Otto founded the Bishoprics of Brandenburg and Havelberg. The Northern March was founded as a northern border territory of the Holy Roman Empire. However, a great uprising of Wends wiped out Imperial control from the territory of present-day Brandenburg in 983.
By the beginning of the 12th century the Ottonian German kings and emperors re-established government over the mixed Slav-inhabited lands of present-day Brandenburg, although some Slavs like the Sorbs in Lusatia adapted to Germanization while retaining their distinctness. The Roman Catholic 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 an der Havel, 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. He formally inherited Brandenburg from its last Wendish ruler, Pribislav, in 1150. 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).
In 1320 the Brandenburg Ascanian line came to an end, and from 1323 until 1373 Brandenburg was under the control of the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria. After a period of rule by the Luxembourg dynasty, however, the margravate 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 (1356) until the Empire's end in 1806, the Margrave of Brandenburg was also one of the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
Brandenburg converted to Protestantism in 1539 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 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 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.
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.
For earlier rulers, see List of rulers of Brandenburg.
<br clear="all">See also Elections in Germany
The coat of arms of Brandenburg is a red eagle on white.
Brandenburg is served by the same three airports that serve Berlin. They are Tegel International Airport, Tempelhof International Airport, and Schönefeld International Airport. Schönefeld Airport will eventually become Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport, while Tegel and Tempelhof will close after BBI is established.