Nassau , historical region Germany , and the Noble family that provided their hereditary rulers for centuries. The present-day royal heads of the Netherlands and Luxembourg descend from this family, known as the House of Nassau.
The Nassau region is located in what is now the western part of the country Hesse and West Germany circle Rhineland-Palatinate in western Germany. The Lahn roughly divides Nassau into two halves:in the south, the Taunus mountains; to the north lies the Westerwald.
By the 12th century, the local counts of Laurenburg had settled near the town of Nassau Walram (died 1198) was the first of them to adopt the title count of Nassau. His grandsons shared the inheritance:Walram II took the southern part of Nassau and Otto I. the northern part.
Walramian Nassau.
Walram II son, Adolf von Nassau was the German king from 1292 to 1298. However, Adolf's descendants divided their lands, and in the late 18th century the Valramic inheritance was divided between the Nassau-Weilburg and Nassau-Usingen branches. In 1801, Napoleonic France acquired the Walramian lands west of the Rhine; In 1803 the Nassau-Weilburg and Nassau-Usingen branches reunited and received considerable territorial additions from France as compensation. Walramian Nassau entered den Rheinbund Napoleon I a in 1806 and a cession of territory to the Grand Duchy of Berg in that year was offset by additions, mainly from Ottonian Nassau . At this time, Walramian Nassau was also made a duchy. The Usingen line died out in 1816, making Wilhelm von Weilburg the sole Duke of Nassau. By supporting the defeated Austrian team in Seven Week War (1866) Wilhelm's successor, Duke Adolf, lost the duchy to Prussia. thereafter it formed most of the Wiesbaden district of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau.
Ottonian Nassau.
Otto I's descendants also indulged in partitions and subdivisions, and one branch of the family acquired extensive Dutch territories and became known as the Nassau-Dillenburg-Breda branch. After the death of the last ruler of this branch in 1544, a cousin, William of Nassau (the future) William I. the Quiet Prince of Orange) inherited the Dutch Principality of Orange, and members of this line henceforth became Princes of Orange-Nassau called. William the Silent was the founder of the Dynasty of the hereditary stadtholders in which he played a prominent role the Netherlands in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. As William's direct male line after the death of King William III. Became extinct by England in 1702, the Ottonian possessions in the Netherlands and Nassau passed to Count John William Friso from the Ottonian branch of Nassau-Dietz via. The Nassau-Dietz settlement finally united the divided German areas of the Ottoners in the 18th century.
The Ottonian ruler Wilhelm VI. Von Oranien lost its German possessions to Napoleon in 1806, but became 1815 from Wiener Congress as compensation awarded for Luxembourg . William VI. Also succeeded the kingdom of the Netherlands as king William I this year. His descendants (including female descendants) still reign in the Netherlands today with the princely title of Orange-Nassau. When the Ottonian branch in 1890 with the death of Wilhelm III. Died out in the male line during which time his daughter Wilhelmina became Queen of the Netherlands Luxembourg passed to Duke Adolf of Nassau, a member of the Walramian branch of House Nassau. The Walramian line is still the ruling house of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.