One of the federal states of Germany is Hesse, unlike any other state; Hesse is known to be the name of the state itself and a cultural religion as well. The state of Hesse is known in German as the Land Hessen which literally means “Country of Hesse.” The state capital is Wiesbaden with its largest city which Frankfurt is Main.
Hesse is located in west central Germany and borders other German states of Lower Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and North Rhine-Westphalia with the total area of 8,150 square miles with approximately over six million in population. With regards to it cultural region, it includes the State of Hesse and Rhenish Hesse which neighbors Rhineland-Palatinate state and has the major city of Mainz.
Geography
Most of the population of Hesse is situated in the southern part of the state particularly in the Rhine Main Area. The Rhine Area borders Hesse in the southwest but does not go though the entire state except for one old arm which is the so called Alt-Rhein. The main cities Hesse includes for the greater Rhine Main Area are Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Hanau, Gießen, Wetzlar, and Limburg, in the north is Kassel and Marburg an der Lahn and in the east is Fulda.
The rivers that are known and are important to the state are the Fulda and Eder Rivers located in the north, the Lahn which is in the central area of Hesse and the rivers in the south are Main and Rhine. Most of Hesse consists of hills and numerous mountain ranges that take up most of their countryside. Most known mountain ranges are the Knüll, Rhön, Spessart, Taunus, Vogelsberg and Westerwald,
History
Hesse, the name now used mainly for the grand duchy which was formerly known to be as Hesse – Darmstadt. It denotes to a country which experienced a lot of diversity throughout its history. The name is derived from Hessi which comes from a Frankish tribe. In the 1st century AD the first earliest inhabitants were the Chatti. The Hessi and Chatti culture were similar in factors like language and race. In the Volberwanderung period, the inhabitants started to move westward which left the state to be named Hesse around the 8th century.
The state of Hesse has really no history that is cohesive, from the first dukes of Franconia then later on to the counts Thuringia. In 1247 where Hesse became known as a landgraviate, the state was under the rule of an emperor with the branch in the House of Brabant. It was because of Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous or Philip of Hesse as he was known that the territories that were divided because of border issues and disputes were reunited during the German Reformation. In 1567 and Philip’s death the Land of Hesse was divided among his four sons with the capitals as Kassel, Marburg, Rheinfels, and Darmstadt.
After the deaths of Rheinfels in 1583 and Marburg in 1648, Hesse now had two remaining lines under Hesse-Kassel and Hesse Darmstadt. These two territories were awarded by the Congress of Vienna from 1814-1815 of territorial gains.
In 1866 in the Austro – Prussian War three cities of Electoral Hesse, the free city of Frankfurt and Nassau all have sided with Austria. They were then taken over by Prussia and was joined in 1868 as Hesse-Nassau having Kassel as its capital. In 1829 the state of Waldeck was then integrated as well into Hesse-Nassau.
Since Hesse-Darmstadt was already elevated to the rank of Grand Duchy in 1806. They too have sided against Prussia. In 1871 Hesse-Darmstadt united with the newly founded German Empire and continued on until the German Revolution in 1918 under its own dynasty. The revolution transformed this monarchy territory into a republic which was then renamed as “Volksstaat Hessen” (People’s State of Hesse).
After the World War II, the Hessian territory located left of Rhine was again taken by France while the rest of the country became part of the US occupation zone. The French and their part of Hesse were included into the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The rest of the territory taken by the United States was then proclaimed the Greater Hesse in the 19th of September 1945. On December 4 of 1946 the Greater Hesse was then officially renamed Hessen.
Politics and the Government
Among some other states in Germany, Hesse is under structure of federal parliamentary representative democratic republic. This is where the Federal Government of Germany practices sovereign rights with specific powers only reserved for the states of Germany.
Hesse has multi-party system, in the center-right is the CDU or the Christian Democratic Union and on the left is the SPD is the Social Democratic Part of Germany.
In 2008 the SPD has collapsed due to political crisis which changed a lot for 2009. There have then become five parties in the Hesse Landtag. The Prime Minister for CDU, Roland Koch lost a lot because of the crisis experienced after the 2008 Landtag election which the rival parties was unable to form a government as well. This resulted to a snap election in 2009 which helped the CDU to form a government with the Free Democratic Party (Germany) or FDP. By May 2010, Koch gave his resignation as Prime Minister having Volker Bouffier as his successor.
