Nassau Castle in the context of "Duchy of Nassau"

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⭐ Core Definition: Nassau Castle

Nassau Castle, located in Nassau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany and named after it, was a castle and the ancestrial seat of the House of Nassau and also its namesake, also it is the namesake of the historical Nassau realms of the County and Duchy of Nassau . The ruins of the castle are situated on a rock outcropping about 120 m (390 ft) above the Lahn River. The House of Nassau was an aristocratic dynasty among whose descendants are the present-day monarchy of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

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👉 Nassau Castle in the context of Duchy of Nassau

The Duchy of Nassau (German: Herzogtum Nassau) was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what became the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the German Confederation. Its ruling dynasty, later extinct, was the House of Nassau. The duchy was named after the Nassau Castle, itself after its historical core city, Nassau, although Wiesbaden rather than Nassau was its capital. In 1865, the Duchy of Nassau had 465,636 inhabitants. After being occupied and annexed into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 following the Austro-Prussian War, it was incorporated into the Province of Hesse-Nassau. The area is a geographical and historical region, Nassau, and Nassau is also the name of the Nassau Nature Park within the borders of the former duchy.

The Grand Duke of Luxembourg still uses "Duke of Nassau" as his secondary title, and "Prince" or "Princess of Nassau" is used as a title by other members of the grand ducal family. Nassau is also part of the name of the Dutch royal family, which styles itself Orange-Nassau.

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Nassau Castle in the context of County of Nassau

The County of Nassau was a German state within the Holy Roman Empire from the period of the formal recognition of the countly title in 1159 (though "de facto" sovereignty began in 1125) until the declaration of the Duchy of Nassau in 1806 with the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine. Through succession, it had many counts ruling parts of it, mostly or completely independent of one another. After many of these counts were promoted to princely status, the County was promoted and thus was known as a Princely County or as the Principality of Nassau.

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Nassau Castle in the context of House of Nassau

The House of Nassau is a European aristocratic dynasty. The name originated with a lordship associated with Nassau Castle, which is located in what is now Nassau in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in the first half of the 13th century, royal power within Franconia evaporated and the former stem duchy fragmented into separate independent states. Nassau emerged as one of those independent states as part of the Holy Roman Empire. The lords of Nassau were originally titled "Counts of Nassau", subject only to the Emperor, and then elevated to princely rank as "Princely Counts". Early on, the family divided into two main branches – the elder (Walramian) branch, which gave rise to the German king Adolf, and the younger (Ottonian) branch, which gave rise to the Princes of Orange and the monarchs of the Netherlands.

At the end of the Holy Roman Empire and the Napoleonic Wars, the Walramian branch had inherited or acquired all the Nassau ancestral lands and proclaimed themselves, with the permission of the Congress of Vienna, the "Dukes of Nassau", forming the independent state of Nassau (with its capital at Wiesbaden). This territory now mainly lies in the German Federal State of Hesse, and partially in the neighbouring State of Rhineland-Palatinate. The Duchy was annexed by Prussia in 1866 after the Austrian-Prussian War as an ally of Austria. It was subsequently incorporated into the newly created Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau.

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