Brandenburg: margravate, or mark, then an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the northeastern lowlands of Germany; it was the nucleus of the dynastic power on which the kingdom of Prussia was founded. After World War I it was a province of the Land (state) of Prussia in Germany.

After World War II Brandenburg west of the Oder River was constituted as a separate Land on the dissolution of Prussia. In 1952 Brandenburg's old administrative identity was lost when the East German Länder were dissolved into new Bezirke (districts), but the Land of Brandenburg was re-created in 1990 prior to the reunification of East with West Germany.