HOHENZOLLERN, a province of Prussia, consisting of a narrow strip of land entirely surrounded by the territories of Wfirtemberg and Baden. Superficial area about 480 sq.m.; pop. '75, 66,466. The territory, whose surface is generally mountainous, is divided into the districts of Sigmaringen and Hechingen. which rank as mediatized prin cipalities. The seat of provincial government is at. Sigmaringen. Hohenzollern is watered by the Neckar and some of its affluents, and by the Danube, which crosses it; it is also traversed by the eastern offshoots of the mountain-ranges of the Black forest, the Raulie Alb, and the Hart. The mountain valleys are productive, and yield an abundance of fruit and corn, and flax in sufficient quantities for exportation; the forests abound in fine timber; there are iron mines in some, of the mountain districts, which also yield gypsum, salt, and coal. The principal brancheS of-ifidustry are agri culture and the rearing of cattle, and the manufacture of toys and other articles in wood.
The population belongs almost exclusively to the Roman Catholic religion, and is under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Freiburg. There is a Catholic college at Hechingen.
The Hohenzollern family traces its descent from count Thassilo, who lived about the beginning of the 9th c., and founded a castle near Heehingen, on the Zollern heights,
whence his descendants derived their patronymic. About 1165 the first separation look place, Frederic IN'. founding the elder or Swabian, and Konrad I. the younger or Fran conian line. The elder line was subdivided, in 1576, into the branches of Hohenzollern Hechingen and Hohenzollern Sigmaringen, Frederic VI., the representative of the younger line, in 1415 received from the emperor Sigismund the investiture of the elect orate of Brandenburg, thus founding the present reigning dynasty of Prussia. The two branches of the elder line continued unbroken till 1849, when in accordance with a family compact formed in 1821. which declared the king of Prussia chief of the joint houses, the reigning princes of Hohenzollern Ilechingen and Hohenzollern Sigmaringen ceded their respective rights and principalities to that monarch, who agreed to pay an annual pension of 15,000 thalers to the former, and one of 25,000 thalers to the latter. The princes were to retain their estates and bear the title of highness, but were to exer cise no act of sovereignty.