Thuringia

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The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat Thüringen) is located in central Germany. It has an area of 16,200 square kilometers (6,254.9 sq mi) and 2.33 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.

[edit] 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 and eastern Harz similarly separates Thuringia from the state of Saxony-Anhalt to the north-east. To the south and southwest, the Thuringer Wald effectively separates the ancient region of Franconia, now the northern part of Bavaria from the rolling plains of most of Thuringia and the central Harz range extends southwards along the western side into northwest corner of the Thüringer Wald region making Thuringia a low land 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 (Thüringer Wald, or also Thuringerwald), a mountain chain in the southwest. The Werra river ("Werratal"), 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 mountains. The eastern part of Thuringia is generally a plain. The Saale river runs through these lowlands from south to north.

See also List of places in Thuringia.

Thuringia is divided into 17 districts (Landkreise):

Image:Thuringia map.png

Furthermore there are six urban districts:

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

[edit] Towns

[edit] History

Named after the Thuringian people who occupied it around AD 300, Thuringia came under Frankish domination in the 6th century, forming a part (from 1130 a landgravate) of the subsequent Holy Roman Empire.

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 Margravate of Meißen, the nucleus of the later duchy 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 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 Mulhausen 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.

Within the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine organized in 1806, some reordering of territories began, confirmed at the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) with the creation of the German Confederation. The so-called Thuringian states within the German Empire were Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and the two principalities of Reuß.

In 1920, during the Weimar Republic that followed 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 of 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 accident 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 Soviet occupation, and was expanded to include parts of the Prussian Province of 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.

[edit] Politics

[edit] List of Minister-presidents of Thuringia

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)

[edit] June 13, 2004 state election

See also: Thuringia state election, 2004

[edit] Transportation

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

[edit] See also

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] References

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