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brandenburg.de. Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg (see Names), is a state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the fifth-largest German state by area and the tenth-most populous, with 2.5 million residents.
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Brandenburg, Land (state), eastern Germany. The current territory of Brandenburg state occupies what were the east-central and eastern portions of former East Germany, extending east-west from the Oder and Neisse rivers to the Elbe region and north-south from the Mecklenburg lake district to lower Lusatia (Lausitz). Brandenburg is bounded by the Ge...
The landscape of present-day Brandenburg is very much the product of glaciation. Most of the state consists of a sandy plain that is interspersed with numerous fertile areas and stretches of pine and fir forests. Because of its sandy soils, it was formerly popularly known as the “sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire.” It is, however, traversed by tributaries of the Elbe and Oder rivers and boasts more than 3,000 lakes. About half of the state’s area is used for agriculture, and roughly another one-third of the region is covered by forests. The Lower Oder Valley National Park, established in 1995 in the northeasternmost part of Brandenburg, is part of a joint Polish-German effort to help preserve the region’s distinctive flora and fauna. Ironically, the ecology of the region benefited from decades of the relative economic neglect of the area. The state lies wholly within the North European Plain (see European Plain) and has a moderate climate, determined both by maritime influences, which predominate in areas to the west, and by continental influences, which affect the east.
Brandenburg is one of Germany’s least densely populated states. It is mostly inhabited by ethnic Germans; a small indigenous Slavic group, the Sorbs (concentrated in the southeastern part of the state); and a relatively small immigrant population. Unlike the other eastern German states, Brandenburg experienced a positive rate of population growth from 1995 to 2000, largely as the result of the suburbanization of the economic activities and population of Berlin. Since 2000, however, the population trajectory for Brandenburg has reversed, though growth has continued in suburban areas near Berlin, which were among the very few areas within eastern Germany that grew early in the century. Potsdam, Cottbus, Brandenburg city, and Frankfurt an der Oder are Brandenburg’s only significant cities, none of which is large.
While still a dominating factor on the landscape, agriculture plays a relatively small role in terms of economic output and employment in Brandenburg. Rye, wheat, barley, potatoes, sugar beets, rapeseed, and fodder crops are the principal crops grown. Livestock raising and the market gardening of fruits and vegetables, especially apples, cherries, asparagus, peas, and cucumbers, are also important. Dairying, especially for the production of butter and cheese, is another significant economic activity.
The major industrial resource in Brandenburg is lignite, which is mined in the Lusatia field, located in the southeastern part of the state and in neighbouring Saxony. Output and employment in this sector burgeoned under the autarkic economic policies of East Germany, but following unification both output and employment plummeted drastically, the latter by some nine-tenths. Still, the Lusatia field produces about one-fifth of all German lignite, which serves as a resource for producing energy, chemicals, and other products. Two positive impacts of reduced coal mining have been ongoing work to revegetate the extensive open-pit mines and greatly improved air quality, resulting from both the closing of many pollution-spewing plants and the fitting of others with filters that reduce airborne exhaust.
Brandenburg is one of Germany’s poorer states. Following unification many factories closed, employment declined, and unemployment increased dramatically, to about one-sixth of the workforce, a level that changed little in the mid- and late 1990s and the first years of the new century. Brandenburg has a varied industrial base, with engineering, steelmaking, metalworking, paper production, food processing, petroleum refining, mining, and the production of energy from lignite most well represented. The Brandenburg-Berlin region, including especially Potsdam in Brandenburg, is the site of an emerging cluster of biotechnology research-and-development activities. Urban-industrial nodes in Brandenburg include Cottbus, Frankfurt an der Oder, Schwedt, Eissenhüttenstadt, Eberswalde, Oranienburg, Potsdam, Fürstenwalde, and Brandenburg city.
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The historic principality of Brandenburg originated as a margravate, or mark, that was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire. Brandenburg was the nucleus of the dynastic power on which the kingdom of Prussia was founded, and it was merged administratively with that kingdom in 1701. It became a province of Prussia in 1815 and remained such after th...
German Empire. Brandenburg, margravate, or mark, then an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the northeastern lowlands of Germany; it was the nucleus of the dynastic power on which the kingdom of Prussia was founded. After World War I it was a province of the Land (state) of Prussia in Germany.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Brandenburg History — Holy Roman Empire. Part of the Brandenburg history is that the state was amongst the seven key states of the Holy Roman Empire. It was recognized as the unique core of the German Empire along with Prussia, which was the first united German state. The Margraviate and the Duchy of Prussia joined hands in the year 1618 to ...
The near-constant warfare and rapid change brought about by the Reformation and its Papal response, the Counter Reformation, is finally ended by the Peace of Westphalia, as is the Thirty Years' War. As part of the treaty's terms, Sweden loses Further-Pomerania to Brandenburg-Prussia. 1688 - 1701: Frederick III: Son.
Brandenburg-Prussia (German: Brandenburg-Preußen; Low German: Brannenborg-Preußen) is the historiographic denomination for the early modern realm of the Brandenburgian Royal dynasty of the House of Hohenzollern between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenzollern intermarried with the branch ...
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Mar 28, 2008 · The New Cambridge Modern History - January 1961. Until the beginning of the seventeenth century the Electorate of Brandenburg—stretching from the Old Mark (west of the Elbe) to the New Mark (east of the Oder)—was one of the largest German principalities and, as one of the seven Electorates, possessed a certain influence in German and Imperial affairs.
