Thuringia

A historic area of Germany, including the Harz Mts and Thuringian Forest, a march or frontier region against the Slavs. Controlled by various dynasties, from the 10th-c Dukes of Saxony to the House of Wettin (1265), it was divided between Saxony, Hesse-Kassel, and others 1485–1920, and is now a province within united Germany.

State Service Flag
Civil Flag
Coat of arms
Statistics
Capital:	Erfurt
Area:	16,171 km²
Inhabitants:	2,411,387
pop. density:	148 people/km²
Website:	thueringen.de
ISO 3166-2:	DE-TH
Politics
Minister-president:	Dieter Althaus (CDU)
Ruling party:	CDU
Next voting:	2009
Map

The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat Thüringen) lies in central Germany and is among the smaller of the country's sixteen Bundesländer (federal states), being eleventh in size with an area of 16,200 km² and twelfth most populous with 2.45 million inhabitants.

Thuringia is divided into 17 districts (Landkreise):

Altenburger Land Eichsfeld Gotha Greiz Hildburghausen Ilm-Kreis

Kyffhäuserkreis Nordhausen Saale-Holzland Saale-Orla Saalfeld-Rudolstadt Schmalkalden-Meiningen

Sömmerda Sonneberg Unstrut-Hainich Wartburgkreis Weimarer Land

Furthermore there are six urban districts:

Erfurt Eisenach Gera Jena Suhl Weimar

Towns

Towns in Thuringia
position	town	inhabitants			district
		31 December 1970	31 December 2000	30 June 2005
1.	Erfurt	192.679	200.564	202.590	independent city
2.	Gera	106.841	112.835	104.737	independent city
3.	Jena	85.169	99.893	102.201	independent city
4.	Weimar	63.985	62.425	64.361	independent city
5.	Gotha	57.256	48.376	47.045	Gotha
6.	Eisenach	50.059	44.442	43.858	independent city
7.	Nordhausen	42.018	45.633	43.781	Nordhausen
8.	Suhl	28.177	48.025	43.202	independent city
9.	Altenburg	47.497	41.290	38.203	Altenburger Land
10.	Greiz	39.424	26.177	24.007	Greiz
17.	Sonneberg	29.811	24.837	23.928	Sonneberg
18.	Leinefelde-Worbis (formed on 16 March 2004)	4.315 (LF) 3.401 (WO)	15.056 (LF) 5.497 (WO)	20.816	Eichsfeld
22.	Zeulenroda-Triebes (formed on 1 March 2006)	13.549 (ZR) 4.790 (TR)	14.600 (ZR) 4.230 (TR)	17.702	Greiz
25.	Schmölln	13.968	13.193	12.693	Altenburger Land
29.	Zella-Mehlis (formed on 1 April 1919)	17.136	13.036	12.355	Schmalkalden-Meiningen
30. Politics List of Minister-presidents of Thuringia 1920 - 1921: Arnold Paulssen (DDP) 1921 - 1923: August Frölich (SPD) 1924 - 1928: Richard Leutheußer (DVP) 1928 - 1929: Karl Riedel (DVP) 1929 : Arnold Paulssen (DDP) 1930 - 1932: Erwin Baum (Landbund) 1932 - 1933: Fritz Sauckel (NSDAP) 1933 - 1945: Willy Marschler (NSDAP) 1945: Hermann Brill (SPD) 1945 - 1947: Rudolf Paul (no party, then LDPD) 1947 - 1952: Werner Eggerath (SED) 1990 - 1992: Josef Duchac (CDU) 1992 - 2003: Bernhard Vogel (CDU) since 2003: Dieter Althaus (CDU) June 13, 2004 state election See also: Thuringia state election, 2004 Party Party List votes Vote percentage Total Seats Seat percentage Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 434,088 43.0% 45 51.1% Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) 263,717 26.1% 28 31.8% Social Democratic Party (SPD) 146,297 14.5% 15 17.0% Alliance '90/The Greens 45,649 4.5% 0 0.0% Free Democratic Party (FDP) 36,483 3.6% 0 0.0% Free Voters in Thuringia 26,302 2.6% 0 0.0% The Republicans 19,797 2.0% 0 0.0% National Democratic Party (NPD) 15,695 1.6% 0 0.0% All Others 22,549 2.2% 0 0.0% Totals 1,010,578 100.0% 88 100.0%