BRANDENBURG. a province of Prussia, in the center of the kingdom, in lat. 51' 30' to 53' 45' n., long. 11' 13' to 16'8' e. B. has an area of 15,350 sq.m.; pop. '71, 2,863,229; '75, 3.132,483. It formed the nucleus of the Prussian monarchy, but the modern prov ince does not quite correspond with the old Mark, of B., which included also a part of the province of Saxony and of Pomerania, while it lacked certain small portions of territory now contained in the province of Brandenburg. Almost the whole province is a plain, so low that at Potsdam the surface of the rivet-1111-cl is only 14.6 Prussian or about 15 Eng lish ft. above the level of the sea. The ground, becomes slightly hilly towards Silesia. lu general, the soil is sandy and naturally unfruitful. Without its numerous rivers and canals, B. would be one of the most barren tracts on the continent. The inhabitants are mostly Germans, mixed with French and Dutch colonists, who, however, are almost completely Germanized; and in the s. of the province. with people of extraction. With the exception of 87,000 Roman Catholics, and 41,000 Jews they belong to the Protestant church. Agriculture and the rearing of cattle afford occupation for a con
siderable number of the inhabitants. The manufactures are silk, cotton. wool, linen, sugar, leather, paper, metals, etc. There are also numerous distilleries throughout the province. B. is divided into time governments of Potsdam and Frankfurt—Berlin. which is the capital forming a separate jurisdiction. In the beginning of .the Christian era, B. was inhabited by the Suevi and afterwards by Slavonic tribes. It was sub jugated by Charlemagne in 789, but it again acquired independence under his weak suc cessors, and remained free until 928, when Henry I. possessed himself of it. After pass ing through numerous changes in connection with the general history of the German empire—of which we need here mention only the facts that Albert the hear (q.v.) became the first markgraf of B. in 1142, and Frederick of Nilrnberg the first elector in 1417—it became associated with the rise of the Prussian state into a monarchy under Frederick I., elector of Brandenburg, in 1701. See PRUSSIA.