Upper Hesse
Encyclopedia
Grand Duchy of Hesse
The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine , or, between 1806 and 1816, Grand Duchy of Hesse —as it was also known after 1816—was a member state of the German Confederation from 1806, when the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was elevated to a Grand Duchy, until 1918, when all the German...
and later the People's State of Hesse. Its territory covers the area of land north of the River Main in the historic region of Upper Hesse. The provincial capital and largest town of the rural provinces was the university town of Gießen
Gießen
Gießen, also spelt Giessen is a town in the German federal state of Hesse, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative region of Gießen...
.
History
The province emerged as part of the new order in Germany after the Vienna Congress of 1815. The other two provinces in Hess were StarkenburgStarkenburg
Starkenburg is a historical region of the state of Hesse in Germany, consisting of the districts of Bergstraße, Darmstadt-Dieburg, Groß-Gerau, and Odenwaldkreis, along with the city of Darmstadt...
(capital: Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
) and Rhenish Hesse (capital: Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
).
The provinces of the Grand Duchy were wound up on 31 Juli 1848 and replaced by administrative regions (Regierungsbezirk
Regierungsbezirk
In Germany, a Government District, in German: Regierungsbezirk – is a subdivision of certain federal states .They are above the Kreise, Landkreise, and kreisfreie Städte...
e); this was reversed again on 12 May 1852.