300px, Administrative regions of West Prussia: The Danzig Region (Regierungsbezirk Danzig) was a '' government region'', within the

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n Provinces of

West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and from 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonweal ...

and

. The regional capital was Danzig (Gdańsk). Prussian government regions were not bodies of regional self-rule of the districts and cities comprised, but shear top-to-down government agencies to apply federal or state law and supervise local entities of self-rules, such as municipalities, rural and urban districts.

History

Polish westerly

Royal Prussia Royal Prussia (; or , ) or Polish PrussiaAnton Friedrich Büsching, Patrick Murdoch. ''A New System of Geography'', London 1762p. 588/ref> (Polish: ; German: ) became a province of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, which was annexed follow ...

was annexed by the easterly

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

during the late 18th century

Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...

, with the city of Danzig becoming part of the Prussian Kingdom in 1793. The territory was administered in the new province of West Prussia (1772-1829, 1878-1920) and the new

Province of Prussia The Province of Prussia (; ; ; ) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1824 to 1878. The province was established in 1824 from the provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia, and was dissolved in 1878 when the merger was reversed. König ...

(1829-1878). In 1815, after the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

, West Prussia was divided into the Regions of Marienwerder and Danzig. While the governor and provincial authorities were based in Danzig, the was in the town of Marienwerder in West Prussia (Kwidzyn). West Prussia was reorganised into

districts A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

(Kreise) within each government region from 1815–18. The Danzig Region included the urban districts (''Stadtkreise'') of Danzig and Elbing (Elbląg) (since 1874), as well as the rural districts of , , , Karthaus, Marienburg, , and . In 1887 a number of districts changed in the Danzig Region. The rural district of Danzig was divided into the rural districts of Danziger Höhe (Danzig Heights) and ; the seats of each district were in the city of Danzig. Two more new districts were formed, the southern parts of the former Danzig District became part of the new

Dirschau Tczew (, formerly ) is a city on the Vistula River in the Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland, with 59,111 inhabitants (December 2021). It is the capital of Tczew County and the largest city of the ethnocultural region of Kociewie within th ...

District. The northern areas of the Neustadt District were partitioned off to form the new . As a result of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...

allocated most of West Prussia to the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

, and the Danzig Region was dissolved in 1920. The city of Danzig and its environs became the

Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (; ) was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrou ...

. A few eastern areas of the Danzig Region remained in the

Free State of Prussia The Free State of Prussia (, ) was one of the States of the Weimar Republic, constituent states of Weimar Republic, Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it cont ...

Weimar Germany The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

, however. In 1920 the rural districts of Elbing and Marienburg in West Prussia as well as the city of Elbing were added to the truncated Marienwerder Region, which in 1922 was renamed as ''West Prussia Region'' for reason of tradition when it was transferred from the defunct Province of West Prussia to the

Province of East Prussia East Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's Free State of Prussia, ...

Districts

Urban districts

Danzig formed an urban district from the beginning, Elbing reached that status in 1874 and was thus partitioned from Elbing Rural District, and several times enlarged on the expense of the surrounding rural district. # 1818-1920: Stadtkreis Danzig (Gdańsk); thereafter persisting as urban district within Free Danzig # 1874-1920: Stadtkreis Elbing (Elbląg); thereafter persisting till 1945 as an urban district in Germany

Rural districts

The period when a district formed part of the Danzig Region is indicated by the years before the district names. # 1818-1920: Berent, seated in Berent in West Prussia (Kościerzyna); # 1818-1887: , seat: Russoschin (till 1828), Praust (till 1845), then Danzig; partitioned into the new districts of Danzig Heights, Lowlands and Dirschau # 1887-1920:

Danziger Höhe The Danziger Höhe (i.e. Danzig Heights; Kreis Danziger Höhe) was an administrative district founded in 1887 and dissolved in 1939. The district administration was based in the City of Danzig, which itself did not form part of the district but w ...

(Heights), seat: Danzig; the district persisted till 1939 as part of Free Danzig # 1887-1920: , seat: Danzig; the district persisted till 1939 as part of Free Danzig # 1772–1818, 1887-1920:

, seat: Dirschau (Tczew) # 1818-1920: , seat: Elbing; persisting till 1945 as a rural district in Germany, with its area west of the

Nogat The Nogat is a long delta branch of the Vistula River in northern Poland. Unlike the main river, it does not empty into Gdańsk Bay, but rather into the Vistula Lagoon. The Nogat has its origin near the village of Biała Góra as a distribut ...

ceded to the new in Free Danzig # 1818-1920: Karthaus, seat: Carthaus/Karthaus in West Prussia (Kartuzy) # 1818-1920: Marienburg, seat: Marienburg (Malbork); persisting till 1945 as a rural district in Germany, with its area west of the Nogat ceded to Großes Werder district in Free Danzig # 1818-1920: Neustadt, seat: Neustadt (Wejherowo) # 1772-1920:

Preußisch Stargard Preußisch is the German language adjective for "Prussian". Preußisch may refer to: ;Places in Germany * Preußisch Oldendorf, town in North Rhine-Westphalia ;Places outside of Germany *Preußisch Eylau, now Bagrationovsk, Russia *Preußisch F ...

, seat: Preußisch Stargard (Starogard Gdański) # 1887-1920: , seated in Putzig (Puck); the district was partitioned from the Neustadt District, northern part

Demographics

The Danzig region had a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

majority population with significant minorities of

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

and

Kashubians The Kashubians (; ; ), also known as Cassubians or Kashubs, are a Lechitic ( West Slavic) ethnic group native to the historical region of Pomerania, including its eastern part called Pomerelia, in north-central Poland. Their settlement area is ...

District presidents

Each of the nineteen ''Regierungsbezirke'' featured a non-

legislative A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers ...

governing body A governing body is a group of people that has the authority to exercise governance over an organization or political entity. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a taken ...

called a ''Regierungspräsidium'' or ''Bezirksregierung'' (district government) headed by a ''Regierungspräsident'' (district president), concerned mostly with administrative decisions on a local level for

within its jurisdiction.Regional Governments in France, Germany, Poland and The Netherlands (HTML version of PowerPoint presentation)
– Cachet, A (coordinator),

Erasmus University Erasmus University Rotterdam ( ; abbreviated as EUR) is a public university, public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century Christia ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

Notes

References

* Georg Hassel. ''Vollständige und neueste Erdbeschreibung der Preußischen Monarchie und des Freistaates Krakau''. Weimar, 1819, pp. 577–586
online
. * H. Oelrichs. ''Statistische Mitteilungen über den Regierungsbezirk Danzig''. Danzig, 1867
online
. {{Gdańsk 1920 disestablishments West Prussia Government regions of Prussia

Region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

States and territories established in 1815 1815 establishments in Prussia