Provinces of Prussia - Prussia in The German Empire

Prussia in The German Empire

The outcome of the Austro-Prussian War put an end to the aspirations of a grand unified state consisting of the countries in both Germany and Austria. Instead the North German Confederation was created under Prussian leadership, and following the Franco-Prussian War the German Empire was proclaimed in 1871. The German Empire was dissolved in 1918 following World War I. From 1875 on the provinces were bodies combining regional home rule through representatives delegated from each rural and urban county (German: Landkreis and Stadtkreis), forming the provincial diet (German: Provinziallandtag with a 6 year term), which elected from its midst a head of this self-administration, the Landesdirektor (with a 6 to 12 year term), and a provincial government (German: Provinzialausschuss, provincial committee) as well as part of the superordinated overall Prussian royal administration, supervising - on a provincial range - the self-governing municipalities and counties as well as each governorate (German: Regierungsbezirk, mere supervising bodies of the Prussian government). For this purpose the respective Prussian minister of interior affairs appointed an upper president (German: Oberpräsident) to each province, who fulfilled his task with the help of a Prussian government-appointed provincial council (German: Provinzialrat).

• Berlin (On 1 April 1881 the city was disentangled from the province of Brandenburg. Consisting of the mere one city of Berlin its lord mayor (German: Oberbürgermeister) fulfilled in personal union the task of the Landesdirektor and the city council the role of the provincial committee. While the role of the upper president was taken by the Prussian government-appointed chief of police (German: Polizeipräsident in Berlin).)
• Brandenburg (from 1881 on without Berlin, but the provincial institutions continued to reside in Berlin)
• East Prussia (recreated by dividing the Province of Prussia in 1878)
• Hanover (constituted from the Kingdom of Hanover, annexed in 1866)
• Hesse-Nassau (constituted from the Free City of Frankfurt upon Main, Electorate of Hesse, and the Duchy of Nassau, annexed in 1866)
• Hohenzollern
• Pomerania
• Posen
• Rhine Province
• Saxony
• Schleswig-Holstein (Annexed in 1866, in 1876 the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, prior a German state of its own, merged in)
• Silesia
• West Prussia (recreated by dividing the Province of Prussia in 1878)
• Westphalia