Prussia
region, Europe
Alternative Titles:
Preussen, Prusy
Prussia, German Preussen, Polish Prusy, in European history, any of certain areas of eastern and central Europe, respectively (1) the land of the Prussians on the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, which came under Polish and German rule in the Middle Ages; (2) the kingdom ruled from 1701 by the German Hohenzollern dynasty, including Prussia and Brandenburg, with Berlin as its capital, which seized much of northern Germany and western Poland in the 18th and 19th centuries and united Germany under its leadership in 1871; and (3) the Land (state) created after the fall of the Hohenzollerns in 1918, …(100 of 3168 words)