Prussian districts (german: Kreise, literally "circles") were

administrative units Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

in the former

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire'' ...

, part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, and its

successor state Succession of states is a concept in international relations regarding a successor state that has become a sovereign state over a territory (and populace) that was previously under the sovereignty of another state. The theory has its roots in 19th- ...

, the

Free State of Prussia The Free State of Prussia (german: Freistaat Preußen, ) was one of the constituent states of Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it continued to be the domin ...

, similar to a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

or a

shire Shire is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand. It is generally synonymous with county. It was first used in Wessex from the beginn ...

. They were established in the course of the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms from 1815 to 1818 at an intermediate level, between the higher

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

and the government districts (''Regierungsbezirke''), and the lower

municipal A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

governments ('' Gemeinden''). Then part of a modern and highly effective

public administration Public Administration (a form of governance) or Public Policy and Administration (an academic discipline) is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment ( public governance), management of non-profit esta ...

structure, they served as a model for the present-day districts of Germany In the aftermath of World War I, the Prussian districts of Eupen and

Malmedy Malmedy (; german: Malmünd, ; wa, Måmdiy) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. On January 1, 2018, Malmedy had a total population of 12,654. The total area is 99.96 km2 which gives a populati ...

(Belgium) were annexed by Belgium in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.

Administration

After the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...

and the 1815

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon ...

, the Prussian lands were re-arranged into ten provinces, three of them—

East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label= Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1 ...

West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (german: Provinz Westpreußen; csb, Zôpadné Prësë; pl, Prusy Zachodnie) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1920. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 177 ...

and the

Grand Duchy of Posen The Grand Duchy of Posen (german: Großherzogtum Posen; pl, Wielkie Księstwo Poznańskie) was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, created from territories annexed by Prussia after the Partitions of Poland, and formally established following the ...

—beyond the borders of the German Confederation. The provinces were internally divided into up to six ''Regierungsbezirke'' and further into the districts on local level, headed by a ''Landrat'' administrator. The districts usually took the name of their capital (''Kreisstadt''), seat of the administrative office (''Landratsamt''). A typical district had a rough diameter of , in order to ensure that even the remotest villages could be reached by carriage within a day, though few were circular in shape. In some areas, larger districts were split into two smaller districts or were resized with neighboring ones. Larger cities usually retained their self-administration according to traditional

German town law The German town law (german: Deutsches Stadtrecht) or German municipal concerns (''Deutsches Städtewesen'') was a set of early town privileges based on the Magdeburg rights developed by Otto I. The Magdeburg Law became the inspiration for regiona ...

and formed exempt urban districts (''Stadtkreise'') comparable to independent cities. Often these cities also served as the administrative seat responsible for the smaller towns and villages incorporated into the surrounding rural districts, which then were called (''Landkreise'') for the purpose of differentiation (e.g. ''Stadtkreis'' and ''Landkreis'' Königsberg). The number of urban districts increased in the course of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

and the following

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly th ...

from the 1830s onwards.

Administration

See also