Thuringia

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State Service Flag

Civil Flag

Coat of arms
Statistics
Capital: Erfurt
Area: 16,171 km²
Inhabitants: 2,411,387
pop. density: 148 people/km²
Website: thueringen.de
ISO 3166-2: DE-TH
Politics
Minister-president: Dieter Althaus (CDU)
Ruling party: CDU
Next voting: 2009
Map

Thuringia (German Thüringen) is a Bundesland of Germany. It lies in central Germany and is with an area of 16.251 km² the sixth, and with 2.45 million inhabitants the fifth smallest state in Germany. The capital is Erfurt.


Contents

[edit] History

Main article: History of Thuringia


1920 the Grand Duchy Saxe-Weimar; the Duchies Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; the Principalities Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Greiz and Gera (Principality) united to the Free State Thuringia.
1949 Thuringia became with Erfurt a new state of the DDR
1952 It became divided in three Bezirke (Erfurt, Gera and Suhl)
1990 Thuringia became a German Bundesland

[edit] Geography

Thuringia borders on the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse. The most conspicuous geographical feature of Thuringia is the Thuringia Forest (Thüringer Wald). In the northwest Thuringia includes a small part of the Harz mountains. The Saale river runs through Jena. The biggest mountain in Thuringia is with 982m the Großer Beerberg in the Thuringia Forest.


[edit] List of Minister-Presidents of Thuringia

1945: Hermann Brill
1945 - 1947: Rudolf Paul
1947 - 1952: Werner Eggerath
1990 - 1992: Josef Duchac
1992 - 2003: Bernhard Vogel (CDU)
since 2003: Dieter Althaus (CDU)

[edit] Cities in Thuringia