Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen

Schwarzburg-Sondershausen was a small principality in Germany, in the present-day state of Thuringia, with its capital at Sondershausen — one of the two Schwarzburg houses that survived as sovereign states into the twentieth century, the other being Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. Schwarzburg-Sondershausen was a county until 1697; in that year it became a principality, which lasted until the fall of the German monarchies in 1918, during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Its counts, counted from the line of John Günther I from 1552, ruled a compact territory of 862 square kilometres, with towns placed in the state including Arnstadt, Sondershausen, Gehren, Langewiesen, Großbreitenbach, Ebeleben, Großenehrich, Greußen and Plaue, and a population of 85,000 in 1905. Through the 1500–1945 window shown on the map the little principality stood among the Thuringian states of the German Empire, its court at Sondershausen's palace. After the German Revolution the state became the Free State of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and joined the Weimar Republic as a constituent state; in 1920 it joined with other small states of the area to form the new state of Thuringia, closing its record.