Anhalt

Anhalt, a duchy of the German empire, almost entirely surrounded by the Prussian province of Saxony, which breaks it up into two principal and five smaller portions. Area, 869 sq. m.; pop. (1875) 213,689; (1885) 247,603, nearly all Protestants. Dessau, Zerbst, Bernburg, Köthen, and Ballenstedt are the principal towns. In the eastern part the country is level and fertile, producing wheat, flax, rape-seed, hops, and tobacco; but the western part, approaching the Harz Mountains, is hilly and largely covered with wood, and possesses mineral wealth, especially in lead and silver. Anhalt began to be an independent principality in the first half of the 13th century. It has been repeatedly, in the course of its history, divided amongst branches of the reigning family. It was divided into three duchies in the beginning of the 17th century, but the first line becoming extinct in 1847 and the second in 1863, the whole territory was reunited into one duchy.