page_title: West Prussia
section_title: Context
hierarchical_section_title: West Prussia / History / Context
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture taken in Malbork after Wikimania 2010 conference. Panorama of Malbork Castle, Żuławy region, Poland. Deutsch: In Malbork nach der Wikimania 2010 aufgenommenes Foto. Panorama der Marienburg. Français&#160;: La Forteresse teutonique de Marienbourg, en Poméranie (Pologne).
context_page_description: The Province of West Prussia was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1922. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth annexed in the First Partition of Poland. West Prussia was dissolved in 1829 and merged with East Prussia to form the Province of Prussia, but was re-established in 1878 when the merger was reversed and became part of the German Empire. From 1918, West Prussia was a province of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, losing most of its territory to the Second Polish Republic and the Free City of Danzig in the Treaty of Versailles. West Prussia was dissolved in 1922, and its remaining western territory was merged with Posen to form Posen-West Prussia, and its eastern territory merged with East Prussia as the Region of West Prussia district.
  West Prussia's provincial capital alternated between Marienwerder and Danzig during its existence.
  West Prussia was notable for its ethnic and religious diversity due to immigration and cultural changes, with the population becoming mixed over the centuries.
context_section_description: In the Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466), the towns of the Prussian Confederation in Pomerelia and the adjacent Prussian region east of the Vistula River rebelled against the rule of the Teutonic Knights and sought the assistance of King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland. By the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466, Pomerelia and the Prussian Culm (Chełmno) and Marienburg (Malbork) lands as well as the autonomous Prince-Bishopric of Warmia (Ermland) became the Polish province of Royal Prussia, which received special rights, especially in Danzig (Gdańsk). The province became a Land of the Polish Crown within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) by the 1569 Union of Lublin. Parts of the local population objected to the Union as being a biased and unlawful interpretation of the incorporation privilege of 1454.
  East Prussia around Königsberg, on the other hand, remained with the State of the Teutonic Knights, who were reduced to vassals of the Polish kings. Their territory was secularised to the Duchy of Prussia according to the 1525 Treaty of Kraków. Ruled in personal union with the Imperial Margraviate of Brandenburg from 1618, the Hohenzollern rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia were able to remove the Polish suzerainty by the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau. This development turned out to be fatal to the Polish monarchy, as the two parts of the rising Kingdom of Prussia were separated by Polish land.
caption: The fortress Ordensburg Marienburg in Malbork, Poland. Founded in 1274 by the Teutonic Order on the river Nogat, it is the world’s largest brick castle. After 1466 it served as one of several royal residences of the Polish kings, fulfilling this function until 1772.
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