States of the German Confederation

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The States of the German Confederation were those member states that from June 20, 1815 were part of the German Confederation, which lasted, with some changes in the member states, until August 24, 1866, under the presidency of the Austrian imperial House of Habsburg, which was represented by an Austrian presidential envoy to the Federal diet in Frankfurt.

[edit] Explanation

On the whole, its territory nearly coincided with that remaining in the Holy Roman Empire at the outbreak of the French Revolution, with the notable exception of Belgium. Except for the two rival major powers, Habsburg and Prussia, and the western left bank of the Rhine (which France had annexed, with tiny Katzenellenbogen), the other member states or their precursors, making up most of present Germany, had been within Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine.

1. The Austrian Empire (without the Kingdom of Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia (all of which which became parts of the apostolic kingdom of Hungary within the Danubian Dual Monarchy), the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (constituting parts lost to Italy in 1859- viz. 1866), Bukovina, the kingdoms of Dalmatia and Galicia)
   1. Austria (split into Upper Austria and Lower Austria in 1849)
   2. Kingdom of Bohemia
   3. Duchy of Carinthia
   4. Duchy of Carniola
   5. Littoral (consisting of Gorizia and Gradisca, Istria and Trieste)
   6. March of Moravia
   7. Grand Duchy of Salzburg
   8. Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia
   9. Duchy of Styria
   10. County of Tyrol
   11. Vorarlberg
2. The Kingdom of Prussia (without Posen, East Prussia and West Prussia)
   1. Brandenburg
   2. Pomerania
   3. Rhine Province (until 1822, Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg)
   4. Saxony
   5. Silesia
   6. Westphalia
3. The Kingdom of Bavaria (the third largest member)
4. The Kingdom of Hanover
5. The Kingdom of Saxony
6. The Kingdom of Württemberg
7. The Electorate of Hesse
8. The Grand Duchy of Baden
9. The Grand Duchy of Hesse
10. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (lost over half of its territory in the west to Belgium in the breakup of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1839, and thereby causing Duchy of Limburg to become a member.)
11. The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
12. The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
13. The Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
14. The Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau (Duchy of Anhalt from 1863)
15. The Duchy of Anhalt-Bernburg (to 1863)
16. The Duchy of Anhalt-Köthen (to 1847)
17. The Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, or Brunswick for short
18. The Duchy of Holstein (in personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark, was not a former member of the Confederation of the Rhine)
    1. The Duchy of Schleswig (in personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark, was not a former member of either the Holy Roman Empire or the Confederation of the Rhine. The secessionist (pro-German) government of Schleswig-Holstein (1848–51) joined Schleswig to the Confederation. This was not recognized by the Danish government, and the peace settlement in 1851 specified that Schleswig was not a member.
19. The Duchy of Lauenburg
20. The Duchy of Limburg (became a member in 1839 as a compensation for territorial losses in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg that were caused by the breakup of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.)
21. The Duchy of Nassau
22. The Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (to 1825)
23. The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha from 1826)
24. The Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen
25. The Duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen (Saxe-Altenburg from 1826)
26. The Duchy of Oldenburg (Grand Duchy from 1829)
27. The Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg (from 1817)
28. The Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen
29. The Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt
30. The Principality of Hohenzollern-Hechingen (to 1850)
31. The Principality of Liechtenstein
32. The Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (to 1850)
33. The Principality of Waldeck
34. The Principality of Reuss Senior Line
35. The Principality of Reuss Junior Line
36. The Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe
37. The Principality of Lippe
38. The Free City of Lübeck
39. The Free City of Frankfurt
40. The Free City of Bremen (still a constitutive state of federal Germany)
41. The Free City of Hamburg (still a constitutive state of federal Germany)

[edit] Sources and references

• Westermann, Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte (in German, detailed maps)
• WorldStatesmen