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Europe · High and late Middle Ages

Principality of Orange

1163–1713

Principauté d'Orange; Dutch Vorstendom Oranje. A small sovereign principality on the Rhône, raised to an imperial principality in 1163, which passed through the houses of Baux and Chalon to the House of Nassau in 1544, when William "the Silent" inherited it with the title "Prince of Orange" — a title that became inseparable from the Dutch stadtholder-dynasty of Orange-Nassau (and, via William III, the British/Protestant "Orange" tradition).

Existed
1163–1713
Shown on the map
1260–1271
Peak area
234 km²
Region
Europe

Overview

Principauté d'Orange; Dutch Vorstendom Oranje. A small sovereign principality on the Rhône, raised to an imperial principality in 1163, which passed through the houses of Baux and Chalon to the House of Nassau in 1544, when William "the Silent" inherited it with the title "Prince of Orange" — a title that became inseparable from the Dutch stadtholder-dynasty of Orange-Nassau (and, via William III, the British/Protestant "Orange" tradition). Occupied by Louis XIV and formally ceded to France by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), though the House of Orange-Nassau retained the princely title.

Common questions

What was the Principality of Orange?
Principauté d'Orange; Dutch Vorstendom Oranje. A small sovereign principality on the Rhône, raised to an imperial principality in 1163, which passed through the houses of Baux and Chalon to the House of Nassau in 1544, when William "the Silent" inherited it with the title "Prince of Orange" — a title that became inseparable from the Dutch stadtholder-dynasty of Orange-Nassau (and, via William III, the British/Protestant "Orange" tradition).
When did the Principality of Orange exist?
The Principality of Orange existed 1163–1713. On this map it is drawn 1260–1271.
How large was the Principality of Orange?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Principality of Orange covered about 0,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and specialist snippets, and flags entries built on unreliable foundations — the 911 treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte known only from Dudo of Saint-Quentin, and Arnaud Amalric's alleged order at Béziers attested only decades after the fact. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

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