The province is divided into the three governmental depart ments (Regierungsbezirke) of Minden, Miinster and Arnsberg. Miinster is the seat of government and of the provincial university.
The inhabitants are mainly of the Saxon stock and speak Low German dialects, except in the Upper Frankish district around Siegen, where the Hessian dialect is spoken.
History.—Westphalia, "the western plain" (in early records Westfalani), was originally the name of the western province of the early duchy of Saxony, including the western portion of the modern province and extending north to the borders of Friesland. When Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony fell under the ban of the empire in 1180, and his duchy was divided, the archbishop of Cologne, Philip of Heinsberg, received from the emperor Fred erick I. the Sauerland and some other districts which became the duchy of Westphalia. The duchy received a constitution of its own, and was governed for the archbishop, afterwards elector, by a marshal (Landmarschall, after 1480 Landdrost), who was also stadtholder, and presided over the Westphalian chancellery. This system lasted till 1803. By the settlement of 1803 the Church lands were secularized, and Prussia received the bishopric of Paderborn and the eastern part of Miinster, while the electoral duchy of Westphalia was given to Hesse-Darmstadt.
After the peace of Tilsit, the kingdom of Westphalia was created by Napoleon I. on Aug. 18, 1807, and given to his brother Jerome (see BONAPARTE). It included the present governmental department of Minden, but by far the larger part of the kingdom lay outside and chiefly to the east of the modern province, and comprised the Hanoverian department of Hildesheim and in part that of Arensberg, Brunswick, the northern part of the province of Saxony as far as the Elbe, Halle, and most of Hesse-Cassel. The area was 14,627sq.m., and the population nearly two millions. Cassel was the capital. A constitution on the French imperial pattern granted by the king remained practically inoperative, an arbitrary bureaucratic regime was instituted, the finances were from the beginning in a hopeless condition, and the country was drained of men and money for Napoleon's wars. In Jan. 1810 most of Hanover was added, but at the end of the same year half the latter, together with the city of Minden, was annexed to the French empire. At the congress of Vienna (1815) Hesse Darmstadt surrendered her share of Westphalia to Prussia, and the present province was constituted.