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The Free State of Thuringia (German Freistaat Thüringen) lies in central Germany and is among the smaller of the country's sixteen Bundesländer (federal states), with an area of 16,200 sq. km. and 2.45 million inhabitants. The
capital is Erfurt.
Geography
Thuringia borders on (from the north and clockwise) the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse.
The major cities include Erfurt (200,000), Gera
(100,000), Jena (100,000), Weimar (60,000),
Gotha (50,000), Eisenach
(44,200) and Suhl (46,700).
The most conspicuous geographical feature of Thuringia is the Thuringian Forest (Thüringer Wald), a mountain chain in the southwest. In the northwest Thuringia
includes a small part of the Harz mountains. The eastern part of Thuringia is generally
plain. The Saale river runs through these lowlands from south to north.
See also List of places in Thuringia.
Thuringia is divided into 17 districts (Landkreise): 
Furthermore there are six independent towns, which don't belong to any district:
- Erfurt
- Eisenach
- Gera
- Jena
- Suhl
- Weimar
History
Named after the Thuringian people who occupied it around 300 AD, Thuringia
came under Frankish domination in the 6th century, forming a part (from 1130 a
landgravate) of the subsequent Holy Roman Empire. After the
extinction of the reigning Ludowing line of counts in 1247 and the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247-64), the western half
became independent under the name of Hesse, never to become a part of Thuringia again.
Most of the remaining Thuringia came under the rule of the Wettin dynasty of nearby Meissen, the nucleus of the later
duchy and kingdom of Saxony. With the division of the house of Wettin in 1485,
Thuringia went to the senior Ernestine branch of the family, which subsequently subdivided the area into a number of smaller
states, according to the Saxon tradition of dividing inheritance amongst male heirs. These were the Saxon Duchies. They
consisted of the states of Saxony-Weimar, Saxony-Meiningen, Saxony-Altenburg, Saxony-Coburg, Saxony-Gotha,
Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and the two principalities of Reuß. They now constitute the German state of
Thuringia. 'Thuringia' became merely a geographical concept.
Within the Napoleonic Confederation of the
Rhine organized in 1806, some reordering of territories began, confirmed at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) with the creation of the German Confederation.
The Thuringian states within the German Empire were Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and the two principalities of Reuß.
In the Weimar Republic that followed World War I, these dynastic
mini-states were dissolved. Thuringia re-emerged as a political entity in 1920, when the state of Thuringia was established by
merging the hereditary territories; only the southernmost parts of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha voted to join Bavaria. The city of Erfurt, although enclosed by Thuringian territory, remained a part of Prussia. Weimar became the new capital of Thuringia.
The state of Thuringia, under Soviet occupation after 1946, was broken into three districts in 1952 under an East German administrative restructuring. It was restored on Germany's reunification in 1990.
List of Minister-presidents of Thuringia
- 1945: Hermann Brill
- 1945 - 1947: Rudolf Paul
- 1947 - 1952: Werner Eggerath
- 1990 - 1992: Josef Duchac
- 1992 - 2003: Bernhard Vogel (CDU)
- since 2003: Dieter Althaus
(CDU)
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