Schaumburg-Lippe,

Schaumburg-Lippe, a sovereign German principality, lying between Westphalia and Hanover. Area, 131 sq. m.; pop. (1890) 39,183. Agriculture is the chief occupation, though some coal is extracted. The people are mostly Lutherans. The prince governs with the help of an assembly of fifteen members, ten of whom are elected by the towns and the country districts, the rest by the prince, the nobility, and the clergy and educated classes. The state sends one deputy to the German Reichstag. Capital, Bückeburg (pop. 5088). The principality was founded by a member of the Lippe (q.v.) family, as the countship of Schaumburg, in 1640. The head of this branch of the family assumed the princely title in 1807.