WESTPHALIA

German Westfalen, historic region of northwestern Germany, comprising (with the former state of Lippe) the present federal Land (state) of North RhineWestphalia and parts of the Lnder (states) of Lower Saxony and Hesse. The ancient Saxons were divided into three main groups: the Westphalians, the Angrians (German: Engern), and the Eastphalians (Ostfalen). The Westphalians, who had settled in the area of the Ems and Hunte rivers about AD 700, spread south almost as far as Cologne and in 775 resisted the advance of the Franks under Charlemagne. For about three centuries, this region retained its separate identity in spite of the rise of the more powerful aggregated Saxon stem duchy. In the 12th century the old distinction between Westphalians and Angrians fell into disuse, and all Saxony west of the Weser River came to be called Westphalia. The archbishops of Cologne received Westphalia as a duchy in 1180, but the duchy was in fact confined mainly to the area just north of Cologne. Numerous other political entities grew up in the region of Westphalia, among them the bishoprics of Mnster, Paderborn, Osnabrck, and Minden; the countships of Waldeck, Schaumburg, Lippe, Ravensberg, and Mark (with Limburg); the imperial city of Dortmund; and the abbey of Essen. In 1512 the Lower RhineWestphalian circle (Kreis) of the Holy Roman Empire was formed. From the early 17th century, the Hohenzollern rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia gained territories in Westphalia and became predominant there in 1803, when they acquired Paderborn and most of Mnster. At the same time, Hesse-Darmstadt acquired Cologne's part of Westphalia. Osnabrck went to Hanover and the rest of Mnster to Oldenburg. In 1807 Napoleon assigned most of traditional Westphalia to the Grand Duchy of Berg. The Kingdom of Westphalia, which he created for his brother Jrme, was made up largely of Prussian and Hanoverian possessions between the Weser and the Elbe rivers and the greater part of electoral Hesse; its capital was Kassel. The Congress of Vienna in 181415 restored most of old Westphalia to Prussia, which then established a province of Westphalia with its capital at Mnster. Lippe and Waldeck remained under sovereign princes; Hanover and Oldenburg were awarded their former lands. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Ruhr valley became very densely populated and the single most heavily industrialized area in the world. In 1946 the province of Westphalia, together with Lippe, was incorporated in the Land of North RhineWestphalia (q.v.). The north of the ancient Westphalia (most of it Prussian since 1866) went to the Land of Lower Saxony; and Waldeck (attached to Prussian Hesse since 1929) became part of the new Land of Hesse.