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The state emerged from the inheritance of the first Saxon state of Henry the Lion. Shortly after Henry's death the duchy of Saxony began to decline. Several mini-states came into being, among them Brunswick and Lüneburg.
The first duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg was Otto the child, who reigned from 1235 on. After 1267 the duchy was split into two partial states (which later became a multitude of partial states), but all of them were ruled by the Welfen dynasty and still formed a common state. The centres of power moved in the meantime from Brunswick and Lüneburg to Celle and Wolfenbüttel.
One of the collateral lines was the line of the dukes of Calenberg, who managed to gain all the territory of the former duchy except for the Wolfenbüttel line. The city of Hanover was the residence of the Calenberg line. Calenberg (sometimes also called Calenberg-Celle) was made an electorate by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1692. It was then known under many different names (Brunswick-Lüneburg, Calenberg, Hanover), but eventually became the state of Hanover.
The Wolfenbüttel line retained its independence from Hanover. The Congress of ViennaThe Congress of Vienna ( October 1, 1814 June 9, 1815) was a conference between ambassadors from the major powers in Europe that was chaired by the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and held in Vienna, Austria. Its purpose was to redraw the of 1815Events January 3 Austria, Britain, and France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia. January 8 War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans February 3 The first commercial cheese factory is founded in Switzerland February 6 New Jersey g turned it into an independent country under the name Duchy of Brunswick, with Wolfenbüttel as its capital. The Duchy of Brunswick joined the German EmpireThe term German Empire (the translation from German of Deutsches Reich commonly refers to Germany, from its consolidation as a unified nation-state in January 1871, until the abdication of Kaiser ( Emperor) Wilhelm II in November 1918. Germans, when refer in 1871Events January January 18 The member-states of the North German Confederation unite into a single nation-state known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany. January 28 France surrenders to en and, as the Free State of Brunswick, became a part of the Weimar RepublicThe period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic (in German Weimarer Republik ). It is named after the city of Weimar, where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after Germany's defeat in World War I. in 1919Events January January 1 Edsel Ford succeeds his father as head of the Ford Motor Company January 5 Spartacist uprising Socialist demonstrations in Berlin turn into attempted communist revolution with Spartacist League in the forefront January 9 Spartacus. In 1946Events January January 4 Theodore Schurch becomes the last person to be executed for offences committed under the Treachery Act of 1940 January 7 Allied recognize Austrian republic with 1937 borders the country is divided into four occupation zones Januar, it was made a part of the newly founded state of Lower SaxonyFlag Statistics Capital: Hanover Area:47,618 km² Inhabitants:7,993,415 2003 pop. density:168 inh. km² Homepage: ISO 3166-2:DE-NI Politics Minister-President: Christian Wulff ( CDU) Ruling party: CDU/ FDP Map With an area of 47,618 km² and nearly eight mil. Some small exclaves ( Blankenburg ) now belong to Saxony-Anhalt. Brunswick had an area of 3690 km² and 580,000 inhabitants (1939).
