Province of Silesia

The Province of Silesia (Provinz Schlesien; Prowincja Śląska; Prowincyjŏ Ślōnskŏ) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1919. The Silesia region was part of the Prussian realm since 1740 and established as an official province in 1815, then became part of the German Empire in 1871. In 1919, as part of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, Silesia was divided into the provinces of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia. Silesia was reunified briefly from 1 April 1938 to 27 January 1941 as a province of Nazi Germany before being divided back into Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia. Breslau (present-day Wrocław, Poland) was the provincial capital. The territory on both sides of the Oder river formed the southeastern part of the Prussian kingdom. It comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Upper and Lower Silesia as well as the adjacent County of Kladsko, which the Prussian King Frederick the Great had all conquered from the Austrian Habsburg monarchy under Empress Maria Theresa in the 18th century Silesian Wars. It furthermore included the northeastern part of Upper Lusatia around Görlitz and Lauban, ceded to Prussia by the Kingdom of Saxony according to the resolutions of the Vienna Congress in 1815. The province bordered on the Prussian heartland of Brandenburg (including the newly acquired lands of Lower Lusatia) in the northwest, and on the Grand Duchy of Posen (Province of Posen from 1848) in the north, i.e. the Greater Polish lands that before the 18th century Partitions of Poland had belonged to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the northeast, Upper Silesia bordered on Congress Poland, i.e. the Kingdom of Poland which had been reconstituted from the Duchy of Warsaw and was made up of former parts of the Prussian and Austrian partitions; Congress Poland was in a personal union with the Russian Empire until 1867 when it was formally integrated as the Vistula Land. In the east lay the Austrian share, the Lesser Polish Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria with the Free City of Kraków (until 1846), and in the south the remaining Bohemian crown lands of Austrian Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia proper.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (29)

Province of Upper Silesia

The Province of Upper Silesia (Provinz Oberschlesien; Silesian German: Provinz Oberschläsing; Prowincyjŏ Gōrny Ślōnsk; Prowincja Górny Śląsk) was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two government regions (Regierungsbezirke) called Kattowitz (1939–1945), and Oppeln (1819–1945). The provincial capital was Oppeln (1919–1938) and Kattowitz (1941–1945), while other major towns included Beuthen, Gleiwitz, Hindenburg O.

Legnica

Legnica (Polish: AUDPl-Legnica.oggleg'ńica; Liegnitz, ˈliːɡnɪts; Ligńica; Lehnice; Lignitium) is a city in southwestern Poland, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the Kaczawa River (left tributary of the Oder) and the Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 and 1998 Legnica was the capital of the Legnica Voivodeship. It is the seat of the county and since 1992 the city has been the seat of a Diocese. Legnica had a population of 97,300 inhabitants.

Görlitz

Görlitz (ˈɡœʁlɪts; Zgorzelec, Zhorjelc, Gorlice, Zhořelec, East Lusatian dialect: Gerlz, Gerltz, Gerltsch) is a town in the German state of Saxony. It is located on the Lusatian Neisse River, and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia as well as the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia, after Cottbus. Görlitz is the easternmost town in Germany (the easternmost village is Zentendorf (Šćeńc)), and lies opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was the eastern part of Görlitz until 1945.