Starkenburg is an historical region in the

State State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, comprising the area south of the

Main Main may refer to: Geography *Main River (disambiguation), multiple rivers with the same name *Ma'in, an ancient kingdom in modern-day Yemen * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *Spanish Main, the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territ ...

River and east of the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

, around the regional capital

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

Geography

The region is named after Starkenburg Castle, above

Heppenheim Heppenheim (Bergstraße) () is the seat of Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany, lying on the Bergstraße on the edge of the Odenwald. It is best known for being the birthplace of Sebastian Vettel, a four-time Formula One World Champion and ...

on the historic

Bergstraße Route Bergstraße or Bergstrasse can refer to: * Bergstraße Route, literally "Mountain Road", in the Odenwald of Baden-Württemberg and Hesse, Germany *Bergstraße (district) Bergstraße (, ) is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the south of Hesse, Germany. It ...

. Beside the cities of Darmstadt and Offenbach, it consists of the modern

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''): * Bergstraße *

Darmstadt-Dieburg Darmstadt-Dieburg is a Kreis (district) in the south of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Offenbach, Aschaffenburg, Miltenberg, Odenwaldkreis, Bergstraße, Groß-Gerau, and the district-free city of Darmstadt, which it surrounds. Histo ...

Groß-Gerau Groß-Gerau () is the district seat of the Groß-Gerau district, lying in the southern Frankfurt Rhein-Main Region in Hesse, Germany, and serving as a hub for the surrounding area. In 1994, the town hosted the 34th Hessentag state festival. Geo ...

Odenwaldkreis The Odenwaldkreis is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the south of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Darmstadt-Dieburg, Miltenberg, Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis, Rhein-Neckar-Kreis and Kreis Bergstraße. ''Odenwaldkreis'' belongs to the Rhine Neckar ...

* Offenbach The area comprises about , roughly equivalent to the German state of

Saarland Saarland (, ; ) is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the smallest in ...

History

Starkenburg Castle was erected about 1065 to protect the estates around

Lorsch Abbey Lorsch Abbey, otherwise the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch (; or ''Laurissa''), is a former Imperial abbey in Lorsch, Germany, about east of Worms, Germany, Worms. It was one of the most important monasteries of the Carolingian Empire. Even in its ru ...

, which itself were held by the Prince-Archbishopric of Mainz from the 13th century onwards. Upon the

German mediatisation German mediatisation (; ) was the major redistribution and reshaping of territorial holdings that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany by means of the subsumption and Secularization (church property), secularisation of a large number of ...

of 1803, the southern territories of the

Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt () was a Imperial State, State of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a younger branch of the House of Hesse. It was formed in 1567 following the division of the Landgraviate of Hesse among the four sons of Landgr ...

—including the former Mainz lands on the Bergstraße—were incorporated into the newly established Principality (from 1816: Province) of Starkenburg. Elevated to the

Grand Duchy of Hesse The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine () was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse (). It assumed the name ...

in 1806, the possessions in Starkenburg, as well as in the provinces of

Upper Hesse The term Upper Hesse () originally referred to the southern possessions of the Landgraviate of Hesse, which were initially geographically separated from the more northerly Lower Hesse by the . Later, it became the name of one of the three provinc ...

in the north and

Rhenish Hesse Rhenish Hesse or Rhine HesseDickinson, Robert E (1964). ''Germany: A regional and economic geography'' (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 542. . (, ) is a region and a former government district () in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is ...

in the west were confirmed by resolution of the 1815

Vienna Congress The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

. From 1832 the administration was subdivided into seven districts (''kreise''): *

Bensheim Bensheim () is a town in the Kreis Bergstraße, Bergstraße district in southern Hessen, Germany. Bensheim lies on the Bergstraße Route, Bergstraße and at the edge of the Odenwald mountains while at the same time having an open view over the Rhi ...

, with the

exclave An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is s ...

Wimpfen Bad Wimpfen () is a historic spa town in the Heilbronn (district), district of Heilbronn in the Baden-Württemberg region of southern Germany. It lies north of the city of Heilbronn, on the river Neckar. Geography Bad Wimpfen is located on the w ...

both districts were merged into Bergstraße in 1938 * Erbach, renamed

in 1972 *

, divided into an urban and a rural district in 1938 *

Dieburg Dieburg () is a small town in southern Hesse, Germany. It was formerly the seat of the district ("Kreis") of Dieburg, but is now part of the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg. History Early mentions of Dieburg date back to the early 13th century, with ...

, merged with the Darmstadt rural district in 1977 *

* Offenbach, from 1874 with the Upper Hessian exclave of Steinbach, divided into an urban and a rural district in 1938. With the establishment of the present State of Hesse, Wimpfen and Steinbach were separated from the Starkenburg region; in turn, the Bischofsheim and

Ginsheim-Gustavsburg The double city of Ginsheim-Gustavsburg () in the northwest of the Groß-Gerau district in the German state of Hesse, has about 16,000 inhabitants. It is part of what is called the Rhine-Main region in Germany which has the city of Frankfurt am Mai ...

quarters of the City of

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

, located east of the Rhine River, passed to the Groß-Gerau district. A former administrative union of the Starkenburg districts was dissolved in 2007. {{Coord, 49, 57, 21, N, 7, 08, 26, E, region:ES_type:city_source:kolossus-zhwiki, display=title Regions of Hesse