Hanover

Hanover, city, Germany

Hanover, Ger. Hannover, city (1994 pop. 524,820), capital of Lower Saxony, N Germany, on the Leine River and the Midland Canal. It is a major industrial, commercial, and transshipment center, also serving as a vital rail and road junction in northern Germany. Manufactures include iron and steel, tires, machinery, and motor vehicles. The city is the site of a noted annual industrial fair, the world's largest, held every April. Hanover was chartered in 1241 and in 1369 passed to Brunswick. In 1386 it joined the Hanseatic League. In 1692 it became the capital of the electorate (from 1815 kingdom; from 1866 province) of Hanover (see separate article). Hanover was badly damaged in World War II, but after 1945 numerous old buildings were reconstructed and many modern structures were erected. Points of interest include the Gothic former city hall (15th cent.); the Marktkirche (14th cent.), a red-brick church with a high (318 ft/97 m) tower; the Leineschloss (17th cent.), a château that now houses the parliament of Lower Saxony; and the remains of Herrenhausen castle (17th cent.). Hanover is the seat of technical, medical, and veterinary universities and several museums. The city has numerous parks and gardens, including the site of Expo 2000, Germany's first international exposition. Elector Ernest Augustus, his wife Sophia, and their son, George I of England, are buried in Hanover.

---

Hanover, former kingdom and province, Germany

Hanover (hăn`ōvər), Ger. Hannover, former independent kingdom and former province of Germany; Lower Saxony, NW Germany. Very irregular in outline, Hanover stretched from the Dutch border and the North Sea in the northwest to the Harz Mts. in the southeast. The name Hanover originally applied only to the city, becoming the name of a state in 1815. Most of the territory was included in the duchy of Brunswick, which the house of the Guelphs retained after 1180. In the repeated subdivisions of Brunswick among the various branches of the family, the branch of Brunswick-Lüneburg (and its offshoots, the duchies of Lüneburg, Celle, and Lüneburg-Calenberg) emerged as the most powerful. The dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg played an important part in the Thirty Years War (1618–48) on the Protestant side, and in 1692 Duke Ernest Augustus of Calenberg was raised to the rank of elector. His lands became known as the electorate of Hanover. The marriage of Ernest Augustus to Sophia, granddaughter of James I of England, brought (1714) the English throne to his son, Elector George Louis (George I of England). Personal union of Great Britain and Hanover continued under the house of Hanover (see separate article). Napoleon I gave the electorate to Prussia in 1805, but in 1807 he assigned part of Hanover to the kingdom of Westphalia under his brother Jérôme Bonaparte, the remainder being divided in 1810 between France and Westphalia. In 1813, Great Britain regained possession, and in 1815 the Congress of Vienna raised Hanover to a kingdom, with membership in the German Confederation. At the accession (1837) of Queen Victoria in England, Hanover was separated from the British crown because of the Salic law of succession. Ernest Augustus, son of George III, became king of Hanover and began his reign by rescinding the liberal Hanoverian constitution of 1833, thus evoking the well-known protest of the seven professors at Göttingen; the Revolution of 1848 forced him to grant a liberal constitution. His son, George V, succeeded him in 1851. George V refused to support Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and, as a consequence, lost his kingdom, which was made a Prussian (from 1871 a German) province. After World War II the province was incorporated into Lower Saxony.

---

Hanover, cities, United States

Hanover.

1 Borough (1990 pop. 14,399), York co., SE Pa.; inc. 1815. Industries include food processing (especially pretzels) and the manufacture of apparel; machinery; metal, plastic, and paper products; and chemicals. Standardbred horses are raised there (many famous trotters have "Hanover" in their names). A cavalry action preceding the battle of Gettysburg was fought in Hanover in June, 1863.

2 Town (1990 pop. 9,212), Grafton co., SW N.H. on the Connecticut river across from Vt.; settled 1765, inc. 1769. The town is the seat of Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Hanover is a cultural and recreational center and has many fine colonial homes.

---

Hannover

 English Hanover

City (pop., 2002 est.: city, 516,415; metro. area, 996,586), capital of Lower Saxony state, northwestern Germany. Located on the Leine River, it is first mentioned in documents in AD 1100. It joined the Hanseatic League in 1386. From 1495 it belonged to the Welf dynasty (later the house of Hanover). It was the capital of the kingdom of Hanover (1815–66) and then was annexed by Prussia. Hannover became the capital of Lower Saxony in 1946. It suffered destruction in World War II but was rebuilt, and it is now an educational, financial, and commercial centre with highly diversified industries.

---

Hanover

1. a princely house of Germany (1692--1815), the head of which succeeded to the British throne as George I in 1714

2. the royal house of Britain (1714--1901)

---

Hanover 

Hannover, a German principality and kingdom (until 1866). The historical nucleus of Hanover was the Duchy of Braunschweig Lüneburg (in existence from 1235), whose capital after 1636 was Hanover; gradually the duchy itself was called Hanover. In 1692, Hanover became an electorate. In 1714 the elector of Hanover, Georg Ludwig, became concurrently the king of England (under the name of George I), thus creating the House of Hanover. (The union between Great Britain and Hanover existed until 1837.) At the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) Hanover was declared a kingdom. In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Hanover came out on the side of Austria. It was occupied by the Prussian armies and converted into a Prussian province (1866). After the defeat of fascist Germany in World War II (1939-45), the territory of Hanover became part of the English occupation zone; later it was incorporated into Lower Saxony (West Germany).

---

Hanover 

a city in the Federal Republic of Germany. The administrative center of Lower Saxony. Population, 522,000 (1969).

Hanover is a junction of international railway lines and highways, and it is a port (freight turnover of up to 2 million tons a year) at the intersection of the Mittelland Canal and the Leine River (basin of the Weser). An industrial and financial-commercial center, Hanover is a major producer in the transportation sector, mainly automobiles (the Volkswagen factory has around 22,000 employees), tractors, truck tractors, and armored carriers; it is also known for its machine-building, lathe-building, and electrotechnical industries. It is the most important center of the rubber industry in the Federal Republic of Germany (Continental Rubber Works and other enterprises, with more than 22,000 employees). Hanover has many food enterprises (such as sugar refining and meat and vegetable canning), textile industries, and enterprises of precision mechanics and optics. The largest region in the Federal Republic of Germany for the production of oil (about 2.4 million tons in 1969) and the production of potassium salt is found in the vicinity of Hanover.

An international industrial fair is held every year in Hanover. The city has specialized schools for technology, veterinary science, pedagogy, and the musical and theatrical arts. Construction began in 1965 on a municipal subway.

Hanover was severely damaged during World War II; the Markt Kirche (14th century) and the old Town Hall (15th century) have been restored, and the palace of the Herrenhausen (begun in 1676, reconstructed in 1704 and 1820-21) with its park (begun in 1674) has been preserved. After the war, significant work was done on the reconstruction of the center of the city and the major transportation networks; a radio center (architects F. W. Kraemer, G. Lichtenkalm, D. Oesterlen), a stadium (1954, architect R. Hillebrecht), the Kestner Museum (1961, architect W. Dierschke), and other public buildings have also been constructed.

REFERENCE

Deckert, H., and H. Roggenkamp. Das alte Hanover. Vienna-Munich, 1952.

O. V. VITKOVSKII