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A cropped image of Prussia from "Spread of German settlements to the Eastward, 800-1400". (Full map.)

Prussia is a region located at the south eastern coast of the Baltic sea. It was originally settled by the Old Prussians, a Baltic people. In the 13th century this "Old Prussia" was conquered by the Teutonic Knights at the request of Konrad I of Masovia.

With the Peace of Toruń (1466) the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights was parted into East and West. The western part was annexed into the Kingdom of Poland ^[1] while the eastern part of the Monastic State became a fief of Poland. The two parts were later known as Royal Prussia, a semi-autonomous province, and the Duchy of Prussia, a largely autonomous vassal state that paid homage to the Polish king until 1657.^[2]

During the reformation, endemic religious upheavals and wars occurred, and in 1525, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Brandenburg, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern, adopted the Lutheran faith, resigned his position, and assumed the title of "Duke of Prussia." In a deal partially brokered by Martin Luther, the Duchy of Prussia became the first Protestant state. In 1618 the dukedom of Prussia passed to the senior Hohenzollern branch, the ruling Margraves of Brandenburg.

The ducal capital of Königsberg ^[3] with the Albertina University established by Duke Albrecht of Prussia in 1544 became a centre of learning and printing. In 1492 a life of Dorothea of Montau, published in Marienburg, became the first printed publication in Prussia.

The second Peace of Toruń in 1466 had left eastern Prussia as a fief of the Polish Crown. In 1657, after the Northern Wars between Sweden, Poland and Brandenburg, the Treaty of Wehlau (Welawa) granted full sovereignty to Frederick William I, the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg, as Duke of Prussia. In 1618 the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg were joined under the same ruler and became known as Brandenburg-Prussia, until 1701 when it was elevated and renamed as the Kingdom of Prussia.

Though the Kingdom of Prussia was a member of the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866, the provinces of Posen and Prussia were not a part of Germany ^[4] until 1871 when the German Empire under Prussian rule was established. By the Treaty of Versailles some territories of West Prussia and the Province of Posen that had belonged to the Prussian Kingdom ^[5] and the German Empire were ceded to the Second Polish Republic. The main part of the duchy ^[6] was however retained by the German Weimar Republic under the name of East Prussia.

1. ^ Which had a personal union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Union of Krewo.
2. ^ Treaty of Wehlau
3. ^ Now the Russian city of Kaliningrad.
4. ^ However, the constitution of the shortlived Frankfurt Parliament incorporated Prussia and the western and northern parts of Posen province into Germany from 1848 to 1851.
5. ^ Since the Partitions of Poland which began in 1772.
6. ^ Without Memelland.

• Origins of Prussia

• Map of Prussia, ca. 1660 at UCLA
• Partial Map of Prussia by Gerard Mercator, Atlas sive cosmographica., Amsterdam 1594
• Partial Map of Prussia by Kasper Henneberger, Koenigsberg 1629
• Map of Old Prussia by K. Henneberger, 17th c.
• Map of Prussia by K. Henneberger in: Christoph Hartknoch, Alt- und neues Preussen..., Frankfurt 1684
• Map of Prussia and Freie Stadt Danzig from 18th c.
• Map of East Prussia K. Flemming, F. Handtke, Głogów ca. 1920, after Treaty of Versailles removed Memel area from Germany.