Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a territory in Northern Germany held by the younger line of the House of Mecklenburg, residing at Neustrelitz — the smaller of the two Mecklenburg states shown on the map. Like the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, it was a sovereign member state of the German Confederation. After Napoleon's final defeat, its ruler Charles joined the German Confederation established by the 1815 Congress of Vienna to succeed the dissolved Holy Roman Empire; he and his cousin Frederick Francis I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin both assumed the title of grand duke, and the Congress further confirmed the division of the Mecklenburg lands between the two lines. From its residence town of Neustrelitz, laid out beside the lake in the duchy's heartland, the Strelitz grand dukes ruled their compact territory through the nineteenth century, standing in the German Confederation, then the North German Confederation, and finally the German Empire. The grand duchy ended with the fall of the German monarchies in the revolution of 1918, when the grand duke's reign closed and the territory became part of the republic's free states.