PRUSSIA (German, Preussen; Latin, Bo russia), a kingdom of Germany, and its largest, most populous and most important state, com prising two-thirds of its area. The boundaries of Prussia are on the east, Russia; on the south, Austria, Saxony, Bavaria, Hesse Darmstadt and the Thuringian states; on the north, the Baltic, Denmark, Mecklenburg and the North Sea; on the west, Belgium and the Netherlands, Alsace-Lorraine and Luxemburg. The circumference of Prussia measures 4,762 miles and except for some small enclaves, in cluding the Hohenzollern principality, which is surrounded by Wurttemberg territory, Prussia is a compact mass of land, taking up nearly the whole of northern and eastern Germany. In shape it is, roughly, an elongated oval. Its greatest length, from Memel to the borders of Alsace-Lorraine, is about 800 miles, and its greatest width something over 400. The fron tiers of Prussia, however, are political rather than natural. Tie area is 134,622 square miles. The heart of it is the province of Brandenburg, from which small core the kingdom of to-day has grown by conquest or otherwise. Prussian territory encloses, wholly or nearly so, the small German states of the two Mecklenburgs, Anhalt, Brunswick, Oldenburg, as well as the old Hansa republics of Hamburg, Bremen and Liibeck. Prussia holds some five-eighths of the popula tion of Germany. The density of population by the square mile, in 1910, the last census year, was 292.80.
Topography.— Three-fif ths of Prussia form part of the great northern European low lands. This plain is much wider in the east, only the southern border of Prussia being there mountainous, than it is in the west. Roughly, an imaginary line run from about Bonn to Wittenberg would separate the lowlands from the highlands of Prussia. The Sudetian range divides Prussia from Bohemia and Austria, and its highest peak, the Schneckoppe, lies on Prus sian soil. The Harz range runs nearly parallel with the Sudetes and might be considered a con tinuation of them. South of the Harz the Prus sian boundary cuts the Thuringian Forest, and this again is prolonged by the Weser range of hills and the Teutaburg Forest. In the south west the lower Rhine region includes the Hunsriick and Eifel, the Taunus, Westerwald, Siebengebirge, Spessart and Sauerland, nearly all of it on Prussian territory. Again the
Rhon mountains, the Vogelsberg and other small ranges interpose themselves between the Rhen ish and Thuringtian system. North of the Sauerland, in the region of the Ruhr River; are situated the most important coal-bearing lands of Prussia, while the extensive, but on the whole not so valuable, coalfields are in eastern and northern Silesia. Prussia has an ocean front OWaterIcant” of some 1,100 miles on the North Sea and the Baltic, being nearly the whole seashore that Germany can boast of. Tidal variations are not very great on the North Sea, and still less so on the Baltic, but fierce and frequently recurring northwest storms have caused great devastation along the rather flat seaboard of Prussia, so that during historical times alone thousands of square miles of coast have been swallowed up in the ocean. The Frisian chain of small islands (including Heli goland) are the remnants of a former coast line, and dikes and other costly means of pres ervation have to be kept in constant repair against the renewed inroads of the sea. Much of the coast land being marshy soil, it serves for pasturage only. The Baltic is much more shal low than the German Ocean and is not distin guished by well-defined ebb and flood, and its coasts are mostly sandy and infertile dunes. The only island along the Prussian line of the Baltic that deserves mention is Riigen, a fertile tract of great scenic beauty. However, the Baltic coast has several deep indentations, such as those near Liibeck, Danzig, Kiel and the Pom eranian bight. The so-called Haffs are semi inland bodies of water but slightly brackish and formed by the waters of the rivers emptying themselves into hollows nearly cut off from the sea proper by dunes and small tongues of pro jecting mainland. Although Prussia is in its main part rather flat, so that no serious obstacles interfere with the railroad and canal systems, that does not mean that the land is quite level. Indeed, hills and rocks rising to a height of 600 feet and more are of frequent occurrence on the long line between the mouth of the Ems River and the Russian border, these elevations dating from the Ice Age and being formed by accumulations of boulders and moraines.