Thuringia
Houses in the city of Erfurt, principal city of the state of Thuringia, Germany. Though the city was damaged by bombs during World War II, many of the historical buildings survived.
Administrative region (German Land) in central Germany, bounded to the north by Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony, to the east by Saxony, to the south by Bavaria, and to the west by Hesse; area 16,172 sq km/6,244 sq mi; population (1999 est) 2,449,100. The capital is Erfurt, and other major towns include Weimar, Gera, Jena, and Eisenach.
Physical
The region includes the Thüringer Basin in the centre; the Thüringerwald hills to the southwest and south, rising to 987 m/3,238 ft; and the river valleys of the Unstrut in the north and Saale to the east.
Economy
Major industries include machine tools, optical instruments, steel, vehicles, ceramics, electronics, glassware, and timber. Wheat, maize, and sugar beet are grown.
History The region of Thuringia derives its name from the Germanic tribe known as the Thüringer, who settled here in the 5th century; in common with many other areas of the central German region, it came under the dominion of the Franks in the 6th century, and was Christianized in the 7th and 8th centuries by missionaries from Mainz and Erfurt. |
| Thuringia was established as a landgraviate in 1130 and ruled by counts of the Ludovingian dynasty until 1247. The seat of the Ludovingians was the castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach (later famous as a place of refuge for the Protestant reformer Martin Luther). Control then passed to the house of Wettin, and the region was subject to territorial fragmentation. As the Middle Ages drew to a close, Thuringia was no longer an entity, but a term covering the many duchies and principalities that arose from the territories allotted to the Ernestine branch of the Wettin family at the division of the possessions of the house in 1485. The chief states referred to as Thuringia were: Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and the two Reuss principalities. |
| In the early 16th century, Thuringia was a hotbed of the Protestant Reformation; the radical reformer Thomas Müntzer led the ill-fated Peasants' War from here in 1525, which was bloodily suppressed by forces of the Swabian League under Philip of Hesse. |
| In the late 18th and early 19th century, the duchy of Saxe-Weimar and its principal town Weimar came to cultural prominence through the appointment by Duke Karl August of the writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe as the state's first minister; at the same time, the playwright, historian and philosopher Friedrich Schiller occupied the chair of history at the prestigious University of Jena. In 1919, the Reuss principalities were merged into one People's State of Reuss, and Coburg elected to merge with Bavaria. In the same year, the seven Thuringian states were amalgamated to form the province of Thuringia, with its capital at Weimar; this town was also the venue for the meeting of the German national assembly that established a republic (Weimar Republic) after Germany's defeat in World War I. |
| In 1945 Thuringia was occupied by US forces, but, according to the Four-Power Agreement, was ceded to the Soviet occupation zone. Consequently, it became a constituent region of East Germany on the foundation of this state in 1949, but in 1952 it was divided into the Bezirke of Erfurt, Gera, and Suhl. After German reunification in 1990, Thuringia became a unified Land of the Federal Republic. |
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