19 Facts About Brandenburg

Brandenburg is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland.

From 1815 to 1947, Brandenburg was a province of Prussia.

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.

Brandenburg is situated in territory known in antiquity as Magna Germania, which reached to the Vistula river.

Under the Luxembourgs, the Margrave of Brandenburg gained the status of a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire.

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In 1415, the Electorate of Brandenburg was granted by Emperor Sigismund to the House of Hohenzollern, which would rule until the end of World War I The Hohenzollerns established their capital in Berlin, by then the economic center of Brandenburg.

Brandenburg converted to Protestantism in 1539 in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, and generally did quite well in the 16th century, with the expansion of trade along the Elbe, Havel, and Spree rivers.

Brandenburg remained the core of the Kingdom of Prussia, and it was the site of the kingdom's capitals, Berlin and Potsdam.

When Prussia was subdivided into provinces in 1815, the territory of the Margraviate of Brandenburg became the Province of Brandenburg, again subdivided into the government region of Frankfurt and Potsdam.

The State of Brandenburg was completely dissolved in 1952 by the Socialist government of East Germany, doing away with all component states.

Present State of Brandenburg was re-established on 3 October 1990 upon German reunification.

Brandenburg is bordered by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the north, Poland in the east, the Freistaat Sachsen in the south, Saxony-Anhalt in the west, and Lower Saxony in the northwest.

Brandenburg is known for its well-preserved natural environment and its ambitious natural protection policies which began in the 1990s.

Brandenburg has the second lowest population density among the German states, after Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Politically, Brandenburg is a stronghold of the Social Democratic Party, which won the largest share of the vote and seats in every state election.

All three Minister-Presidents of Brandenburg have come from the Social Democratic Party and they even won an absolute majority of seats and every single-member constituency in the 1994 state election.

Prominent politicians from Brandenburg include Social Democrats Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who served in the Bundestag for Brandenburg before being elected President of Germany, and likely Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, who sits in the Bundestag for Potsdam.

Brandenburg is divided into 14 rural districts and four urban districts, shown with their population in 2011:.

In 2019 the state of Brandenburg adopted an Open Access strategy calling on universities to develop transformation strategies to make knowledge from Brandenburg freely accessible to all.