BrunswickLüneburg

Brunswick-Lüneburg, also Braunschweig-Lüneburg, was a historic duchy of the Holy Roman Empire located in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany. The duchy was formed in the early 13th century as a union of Welf territories around the core regions of Brunswick (Braunschweig) and Lüneburg, and it persisted in various configurations until the early 19th century. Its lands covered a broad portion of the northern German plain, with major seats at Braunschweig, Lüneburg, and Wolfenbüttel.

Because it was ruled by the House of Welf, Brunswick-Lüneburg was frequently divided among heirs into a number of collateral lines. Over the centuries it gave rise to several principalities, including Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Brunswick-Calenberg (later Hanover), Brunswick-Göttingen, and Brunswick-Dannenberg, among others. The duchy also functioned as a political umbrella for the wider Welf family, and, in the later 17th and early 18th centuries, its Hanoverian branch grew in prominence.

From the late 17th century, the House of Hanover, a cadet branch of Brunswick-Lüneburg, ruled the Electorate of Hanover; this line supplied monarchs to Great Britain and Ireland from George I onward (1714). The connection between Brunswick-Lüneburg and the British crown is one of the duchy’s most lasting legacies.

Following the fall of the Holy Roman Empire and the territorial reorganizations of the Napoleonic era, the lands of Brunswick-Lüneburg were reorganized under the Kingdom of Hanover. By 1815 the duchy had ceased to exist as a separate political entity; today, the historic region forms part of the German state of Lower Saxony, with its cultural and historical heritage preserved in its cities, architecture, and archival records.