Hesse ( ) ( , Hessisch: Hesse) is a state of Germany
with an area
of and just over six million inhabitants. The state capital is
Wiesbaden
. Hesse's largest city is nearby Frankfurt am
Main
.
Hesse
contributes the largest share to the Rhine Main
Area
. The locals speak a
Rhine Franconian dialect known as
Hessisch.
Geography
Situated
in west-central Germany, Hesse borders on the German states
(starting from the northwest and proceeding clockwise) of North
Rhine-Westphalia
, Lower
Saxony
, Thuringia
, Bavaria
, Baden-Württemberg
and Rhineland-Palatinate
.
The
principal cities of Hesse include Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt
, Offenbach
, Hanau
, Gießen
, Wetzlar
and Limburg
in the greater Rhine Main
Area, Fulda
in the east,
and Kassel
and Marburg an der
Lahn
in the north.
The most
important rivers in Hesse are the Fulda
and Eder rivers in the north, the Lahn
in the central part of Hesse, and the Main
and Rhine
in the
south. The countryside is hilly and there are
numerous mountain ranges, like the Rhön
, the
Westerwald
, the Taunus
, the
Vogelsberg
, the Knüll
or the
Spessart
.
Most of
the population of Hesse is in the southern part of Hesse in the
Rhine Main
Area. The Rhine borders Hesse on the southwest
without running through the state, only one old arm – the so-called
Alt-Rhein – runs through Hesse.
The mountain range between the Main and the
Neckar river is called the Odenwald
. The plain in between the rivers Main, Rhine
and Neckar, and the Odenwald mountains is called the Ried.
See also
List of places in
Hesse,
List of mountains
in Hesse.
Hesse is divided into 21 districts and 5 independent cities (with
their abbreviations, as used on vehicle registration plates):
Independent cities:
.svg/320px-Map_of_Hesse_with_districts_(with_numbers).svg)
Districts (here with numbers)
Independent cities
|
The most important rivers, mountains, and cities of
Hesse
|
History
An early
Celtic presence in what is now Hesse is
indicated by a mid 5th century BC La Tène
style burial uncovered at Glauberg
. The region was later settled by the
Germanic Chatti tribe in ca. the 1st century BC, and the name
Hesse is a continuation of that tribal name.
In the early Middle
Ages, a Frankish gau comprising an area around
Fritzlar
and Kassel and a Saxon
one further north were known as Hessengau. In the 9th century the Saxon
Hessengau also came under the rule of the Franconians.
In the 12th century
it was passed to Thuringia.
In the
War of the
Thuringian Succession (1247-64), Hesse gained its independence
and became a
Landgraviate within the
Holy Roman Empire. It shortly rose
to primary importance under Landgrave
Philip the Magnanimous, who was one of
the leaders of German
Protestantism.
After
Philip's death in 1567, the territory was divided up among his four
sons from his first marriage (Philip was a bigamist) into four lines: Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Hesse-Darmstadt
, Hesse-Rheinfels and
the also previously existing Hesse-Marburg. As the latter two lines
died out quite soon (1583 and 1605, respectively), Hesse-Kassel and
Hesse-Darmstadt were the two core states within the Hessian lands.
Several collateral lines split off during the centuries, such as in
1622, when
Hesse-Homburg split off
from Hesse-Darmstadt.
In the late 16th century, Kassel adopted
Calvinism, while Darmstadt remained
Lutheran and subsequently the two lines
often found themselves on different sides of a conflict, most
notably in the disputes over Hesse-Marburg and in the Thirty Years' War, when Darmstadt fought
on the side of the Emperor, while Kassel sided with Sweden
and
France
.
During
the American Revolution,
Great
Britain
hired mercenaries from Hesse, commonly known as
Hessians, to fight the rebels in
America
. In fact, thousands of Hessians fought in
the American Revolution and other conflicts as soldiers of fortune
(though usually conscripted, the pay going to their Lord) on both
sides.
Hesse-Kassel was elevated to the rank of an Electorate in 1803, but
this remained without effect as the
Holy Roman Empire was disbanded in 1806.
The territory was annexed by the Kingdom of
Westphalia in 1806, but restored to the Elector
in 1813. While other Electors had gained other titles, becoming
either Kings or Grand-dukes, the Elector of Hesse-Kassel alone
retained the anachronistic dignity. The name survived in the term
Kurhessen, denoting the region around Kassel.
In 1866 it was
annexed by Prussia, together with the
Free City of
Frankfurt
, Hesse-Homburg and the duchy of Nassau, which established the province of
Hesse-Nassau.
Hesse-Darmstadt was elevated to the rank of a Grand Duchy in 1806.
In the
War of
1866
, it fought on the side of Austria
against Prussia, but
retained its autonomy in defeat, because a greater part of the
country was situated south of the Main river and Prussia did not
dare to expand beyond the Main line as this might have provoked
France. But the parts of Hesse-Darmstadt north of
the Main river (the region around the town of Gießen, commonly called Oberhessen) were
incorporated in the Norddeutscher Bund
, a tight federation of German states, established
by Prussia in 1867. In 1871 the rest of the Grand Duchy joined
the German
Empire
. Around the turn of the century, Darmstadt
was one of the centres of the
Jugendstil.Until 1907, the Grand Duchy of Hesse
used only the Hessian red and white lion as its coat-of-arms
The
revolution of 1918 transformed Hesse-Darmstadt from a monarchy to a
republic, which officially renamed itself to "Volksstaat
Hessen
" (People's State of Hesse). The parts of
Hesse-Darmstadt on the western banks of the Rhine (province
Rheinhessen) were occupied by French troops until 1930 under the
terms of the Versailles peace treaty that officially ended WWI in
1919.
After
World War II the Hessian
territory left of the Rhine was again occupied by France, whereas
the rest of the country was part of the US occupation zone. The
French separated their part of Hesse from the rest of the country
and incorporated it into the newly founded state of
Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz). The United States, on the
other side, proclaimed the state of
Greater Hesse (
Groß-Hessen) on 19
September 1945, out of Hesse-Darmstadt and most of the former
Prussian province of
Hesse-Nassau. On December 4, 1946
Groß-Hessen was officially renamed Hessen.
Name
The state is called
Hessen in
German and
Hesse in
English; the English name for the
state was taken from
French. An
inhabitant of the state is a
Hesse (masculine) or
Hessin (feminine) in German and a
Hessian in
English (see
Hessian ).
Occasionally the German term
Hessen is also used in
English.
Hessia is another variant, although rarely
used.Hesse refers to the Germanic tribe of the
Chatti, who settled in the region in the first
centuries B.C.
Politics
The Politics of Hesse takes place within a framework of a federal
parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the
Federal Government of
Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved
to the states of Germany including Hesse. The state has a
multi-party system where the two main parties were long the
center-right
Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) and the leftist
Social Democratic Party of
Germany (SPD). However, this changed in 2009, when support for
the SPD collapsed after a political crisis in 2008. There are now
five parties in the Hesse Landtag.
Although
the outgoing Prime Minister, Roland Koch
(CDU), lost his majority in the state diet (Landtag of
Hesse
in the 2008
Landtag election, his rivals were unable to form a
government. See Hesse state election, 2008.
A
new election was held in
2009, after which the CDU was again able to form a
government.
The party strengths in the 2009 election were as follows:
State anthem
The official state song of Hesse is called "Hessenlied" (Song of
Hesse), and was written by Carl Preser.
TV and radio stations
Hessischer
Rundfunk
(HR) is the main ARD broadcaster in Hesse, providing a
third TV programme as well as its local radio stations (HR 1,
HR 2, HR 3, HR 4, you fm and
HR info). Other than HR, ZDF
and other
privately run TV stations flourish. Among the commercial
radio stations that are active in Hesse are Hit Radio FFH, Planet
Radio, Harmony FM, SKY Radio and Main FM.
Traffic and public transportation
Hesse has one of the best transportation infrastructures in Europe.
Many trans-European and German motorways cross Hesse as well as
high-speed train lines and many important trans-European waterways.
Frankfurt
International Airport
is Germany's biggest airport and the third largest
in Europe (after London and Paris). Near the airport is
the Frankfurter
Kreuz
, Germany's busiest motorway intersection, where the
motorways A3 (Arnhem-Cologne-Frankfurt-Nuremberg-Passau) and A5
(Hattenbach-Frankfurt-Karlsruhe-Basel) meet. Frankfurt
Hauptbahnhof
is Germany's busiest railway station by
passengers.
Motorways
Hesse has a dense highway network with a total of 24 motorways. The
internationally important motorway routes through Hesse are the A3,
A5 and A7. The A5 becomes as large as 5 lanes in each direction
near the city of Frankfurt am Main.
Death penalty
The
death penalty is still mentioned
in the
constitution of Hesse, as
the Hessian constitution was ratified in 1946, when the death
penalty was still part of the German penal code (and carried out as
well). Because the
1949 federal
constitution provides for the abolition of the death penalty
(Art. 102) and because of the supremacy of the federal constitution
(Art. 31, incidentally the two shortest articles in the whole
constitution), the Hessian constitutional articles still mentioning
the death penalty are
de facto
obsolete. Nonetheless, no politician has yet proposed to formally
abolish the death penalty in Hesse because that would require a
plebiscite.
See also
References
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