Neither Holy, Nor Roman, Nor an Empire?
The Holy Roman Empire is hard to draw. For most of its history it was not one state but a framework holding together hundreds of duchies, counties, margraviates, prince-bishoprics, abbeys and free cities, each with its own ruler. Its borders reached at different times from the North Sea to Rome and from Burgundy to Bohemia. Most maps show it at a single moment; this one follows it, territory by territory, for over a thousand years.
The map starts with the coronation of Otto I in Rome in 962 and does not stop when the Empire was dissolved in 1806. It continues through its successors: the Confederation of the Rhine, the German Confederation, the North German Confederation, the German Empire of 1871, the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, and the German states after 1945, ending with reunification on 3 October 1990. It has 48 keyframes and around 360 markers.
Stem Duchies, Emperors and Popes (962–1250)
Otto I was crowned emperor by Pope John XII on 2 February 962. His empire was built from the great stem duchies (Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria and Lorraine) together with the Kingdom of Italy. In 976 Carinthia was split off from Bavaria and the march that became Austria appeared; in 983 a Slav rising cost the Empire its lands east of the Elbe. In 1033 Conrad II inherited the Kingdom of Burgundy, carrying the Empire to the Rhône and the Mediterranean.
The struggle between emperors and popes shaped the period, from Henry IV's penance at Canossa in 1077 to the Concordat of Worms in 1122. In 1156 the Privilegium Minus made Austria a duchy, and in 1180 the fall of Henry the Lion broke up the old duchy of Saxony. After the death of Frederick II in 1250, the central power of the emperor faded and the map dissolves into a patchwork.
The Patchwork: Electors, Habsburgs and Reformation (1250–1648)
From the late 13th century the Habsburgs held Austria, and the Golden Bull of 1356 fixed the seven electors who chose the king. In 1477 Charles the Bold of Burgundy died at Nancy, and his Burgundian lands passed to Habsburg heirs. In 1526 the Habsburgs inherited Bohemia and Hungary, and from 1438 onward the imperial crown stayed almost always in their family.
Luther's 95 Theses of 1517 split the Empire by religion; the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 let each prince choose the faith of his land. The Dutch provinces abjured Philip II in 1581. The Defenestration of Prague in 1618 began the Thirty Years' War, which ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. At Westphalia the map shows the Empire as hundreds of separate territories, each with its own colour family.
France, Prussia and the End of the Empire (1648–1806)
In the west, France pushed toward the Rhine: Louis XIV seized Strasbourg in 1681, and Lorraine fell to France in 1766. The Peace of Rastatt in 1714 gave Austria the former Spanish Netherlands and Milan. In the east, Brandenburg-Prussia grew into a great power and took Silesia from Austria in 1742.
The French Revolutionary Wars ended the old order. France reached the Rhine at the Peace of Basel in 1795, the left bank was ceded at Lunéville in 1801, and the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803 abolished almost all church states and free cities to compensate the secular princes. After Austerlitz, Francis II laid down the imperial crown on 6 August 1806.
From Confederation to Reunification (1806–1990)
Napoleonic Germany peaked around 1812 with the Kingdom of Westphalia and the Confederation of the Rhine. The Congress of Vienna created the German Confederation in 1815. Prussia took Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark in 1864, annexed Hanover, Hesse and Nassau after the war of 1866, and in 1871 the German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles and annexed Alsace-Lorraine.
The 20th century redrew the map repeatedly: the treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain in 1919, the division of Upper Silesia in 1922, the return of the Saar in 1935, the Anschluss and the Sudetenland in 1938, the occupation of Bohemia and partition of Poland in 1939, and the Greater German Reich at its height in 1942. At Potsdam in 1945 Germany was divided into zones and lost the lands east of the Oder-Neisse line. The Federal Republic and the GDR were founded in 1949, the Saarland joined the Federal Republic in 1957, the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 and fell in 1989, and Germany was reunified in 1990.
How to Read the Map
Full colour means a territory is inside the Empire or its successor (Confederation of the Rhine, German Confederation, North German Confederation, German Reich, the German states after 1945); pale means it lies outside. Colour families follow the ruling houses: gold for the Habsburgs, dark blue for the Hohenzollern, light blue for the Wittelsbach, green for the Wettin, orange for the Welf, crimson for the Bohemian crown, purple for church lands and dark red for the free cities. Land that never belonged to the Empire or to Germany is left blank. Hover over or tap a territory to see its name.
Dynastic unions are shown under the ruling house. Inside Germany the borders are accurate to about 5 to 10 km; enclaves smaller than a town's surroundings are not shown, and the smallest lordships and the Imperial Knights are grouped.
How the Map Was Made
Inside Germany's 1937 borders, the rulers for 1300 to 1918 come from the town-by-town dataset of Davide Cantoni, Cathrin Mohr and Matthias Weigand, Princes and Townspeople (Harvard Dataverse, CC0), which builds on the Deutsches Städtebuch and Gerhard Köbler's Historisches Lexikon der deutschen Länder. Each town's ruler is drawn on modern municipal boundaries (© GeoBasis-DE / BKG). Elsewhere the map uses modern districts and provinces from geoBoundaries, OpenStreetMap and Natural Earth, with ownership researched region by region from Wikipedia and the lexica it cites. Each unit is assigned an owner at every keyframe, and neighbouring units with the same owner are merged into territories.
Chronological Timeline
- 962 — Otto I crowned emperor in Rome
- 983 — Slav rising: lands east of the Elbe lost
- 1033 — Conrad II inherits the Kingdom of Burgundy
- 1077 — Henry IV at Canossa
- 1122 — Concordat of Worms
- 1156 — Privilegium Minus: Austria becomes a duchy
- 1180 — Henry the Lion falls; Saxony broken up
- 1250 — Death of Frederick II
- 1356 — Golden Bull names the seven electors
- 1477 — Charles the Bold dies at Nancy; Habsburg heirs take Burgundy
- 1517 — Luther's 95 Theses
- 1526 — Habsburgs inherit Bohemia and Hungary
- 1555 — Peace of Augsburg
- 1581 — Dutch provinces abjure Philip II
- 1618 — Defenestration of Prague
- 1648 — Peace of Westphalia
- 1681 — Louis XIV seizes Strasbourg
- 1714 — Peace of Rastatt: Austrian Netherlands and Milan
- 1742 — Prussia takes Silesia
- 1766 — Lorraine falls to France
- 1801 — Peace of Lunéville: left bank of the Rhine to France
- 1803 — Reichsdeputationshauptschluss
- 1806 — End of the Holy Roman Empire
- 1815 — Congress of Vienna: German Confederation
- 1839 — Belgium and Luxembourg divided
- 1866 — Prussia annexes Hanover, Hesse and Nassau
- 1871 — German Empire; Alsace-Lorraine annexed
- 1919 — Treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain
- 1938 — Anschluss and Sudetenland
- 1945 — Potsdam: occupation zones and the Oder-Neisse line
- 1949 — Federal Republic and GDR founded
- 1961 — Berlin Wall built
- 1989 — Fall of the Berlin Wall
- 1990 — German reunification
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