Westphalia
Westphalia names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Westphalia the name given at different periods to (1) one
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name given at different periods to (1) one of the circles of the old German empire, (2) one of Napoleon's kingdoms (1807-1813), conferred on his brother Jerome; and (3) now to a province of Prussia. The latter is bounded by Rhenish Prussia, Holland, Hanover, Brunswick, Hesse, and Nassau. Its area is 7,803 square miles. The surface in the S. and N. E. is generally mountainous; the northwest spreads out into extensive and often marshy plains, and belongs to the basin of the Ems; the northeast and a small part of the east to the basin of the Weser; the remainder, constituting the far larger portion of the whole, belongs to the basin of the Rhine, whose chief tributaries are the Ruhr and Lippe. Besides iron and coal in abundance the minerals include copper, lead, zinc, marble, slate, sulphur, antimony, and salt; and the manufactures are varied and important. The province is divided into the three circuits of Münster, Minden, and Arnsberg. Münster is the capital. Pop. about 4,500,000.
Westphalia PEACE OF, the name given to the peace concluded in 1648 at Münster and Osnabrück
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
PEACE OF, the name given to the peace concluded in 1648 at Münster and Osnabrück, by which an end was put to the Thirty Years' War. By this peace the sovereignty of the members of the empire was acknowledged. The concessions that had been made to the Protestants since the religious peace in 1555 were confirmed. The elector-palatine had the palatinate of the Rhine and the electorate restored to him; Alsace was ceded to France; Sweden received western Pomerania, Bremen, Verden, and Brunswick were compensated by the secularization of numerous ecclesiastical foundations. The independence of the United Provinces was recognized by Spain, and that of Switzerland by the empire. See THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote in 1921, Westphalia was a Prussian province of 7,803 square miles with Münster as its capital. Prussia itself was abolished after the Second World War, and in August 1946 the British occupation authorities merged Westphalia with the northern part of the Rhine Province, adding Lippe the following year, to create the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, whose capital is Düsseldorf; Münster survives as the seat of the Westphalia-Lippe regional association. The "iron and coal in abundance" have gone: the Ruhr's last working hard-coal mine, Prosper-Haniel at Bottrop, shut in December 2018, ending centuries of German black-coal mining. The account of the Peace of 1648 still stands, though historians now argue that the treaties' role in founding the modern sovereign-state system was largely read back into them by later writers.
Written for this edition, 2026.