OSNABRUCK (generally written Osnaburg in English) is a province of the kingdom of Hanover. It is divided into the following parts :— The principality of Osnabruck, 9031 square miles ; the lower county of Liugen, 1261 square miles; the circles of Meppen and Emsbuhren, 693 square miles; and the county of Bentheim, 399 square The area of the whole is 2122 square miles, and the population accord ing to the ceusus of December 3rd, 1852, amounted to 261,965, consisting of 145,497 Catholics, S9,227 Lutherans, 26,519 Calvinists, 634 Jews, and 3S undefined Christians. The whole country is a part of the plain of northern Germany, and is generally poor and sandy. The chief produce is live stock, hemp, and flax; and the chief umuu factures woollen stockings and linen.
Osnabriick was formerly a bishopric, being the first ace that was founded in Saxony by Charlemagne. After the Reformation many of the inhabitants embraced the Lutheran faith, and it was decided by the treaty of Westphalia that it should be governed alternately by a Roman Catholic and a Protestant bishop, the latter to be always a prince of the house of Brunswick-Luneburg. Aa the Catholic bishop WAS generally an old canon and the Protestants always chose a young prince, the country remained for a long time under the electoral house of Brunswick : the last bishop of that house was the late Duke of York. In the year 1802 the country was made over to Hanover
as a hereditary temporal principality, in consideration of certain territorial cessions. It was afterwards annexed first to the kingdom of Westphalia and then to the French empire, and was recovered by its ancient sovereigns ou the fall of Napoleon.
Osnabruck, the capital, is situated in 52° 16' N. lat., 1' E. long., in a valley on the river Hasa. It is surrouuded with a wall and ditch, and has five gates. Like most of the old German towns it is irregularly built. The most remarkable publio buildings are—the palace, built in 1665, the cathedral, the Roman Catholic church of St. John, the Lutheran churches of St. Mary and St. Catherine, and the fine town hall, in which the treaty of Westphalia was concluded at the same time as at Munster. The inhabitants, amounting to about 12,000, have manufactures of wares woollens, leather, linen, and tobacco. A railway, in course of construction to connect Emden with the Cologne Minden line, poises through Osnabruck.