HESSE, GERMANY

The English name Hesse comes from French or the Hessian dialect. The variant Hessia comes from the medieval Hassia. The German term Hessen is used by the European Commission, not because it is English, but because their general policy is to leave regional names untranslated. The term Hessia ultimately derives from a Germanic tribe called the Chatti, who settled in the region in the first century B.C. The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate state. The oldest and second largest Hessian city, Mainz, is in Rhenish Hesse. The State of Hesse, Land Hessen, literally Country of Hesse, is part of the larger cultural region. It has an area of 8,150 sq mi and just over six million inhabitants. The state capital is Wiesbaden. Hesse's largest city is Frankfurt.

Darmstadt, is located in Hesse, and is the where the Ling's lived prior to their migration to America.

An inhabitant of Hesse is called a Hessian; Hesse (masculine), Hessin (feminine)

During the American Revolution, 1775 to 1783, Hessian soldiers were hired out to Great Britain to help fight the colonists. The Hessians were told they would be helping the colonists to fight the indians... yeah right!

As early as the Paleolithic period, the Central Hessian region was inhabited. Due to the favorable climate of the location, people lived there about 50,000 years ago during the last glacial period, as burial sites show from this era. Finds of paleolitical tools in southern Hesse in Rüsselsheim suggest Pleistocene hunters about 13,000 years ago.

The Züschen tomb is a prehistoric burial monument, located between Lohne and Züschen, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany. Classified as a gallery grave or a Hessian-Westphalian stone cist, it is one of the most important megalithic monuments in Central Europe. Dating to the late 4th millennium BC (and possibly remaining in use until the early 3rd), it belongs to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture.

A Famous resident of Hesse was Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm. READ MORE