Founding
country in Central Europe
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Liechtenstein (, LIK-tən-stine; German pronunciation: [ˈlɪçtn̩ʃtaɪn] ⓘ; Alemannic German: Liachtaschta), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (Fürstentum Liechtenstein [ˈfʏʁstn̩tuːm ˈlɪçtn̩ʃtaɪn] ⓘ), is a doubly landlocked country in the Central European Alps. A microstate, it is located between Austria to the east and north-east and Switzerland to the north-west, west and south.
Formed in 1719, Liechtenstein became fully independent upon the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866. Liechtenstein is a monarchy headed by the prince of Liechtenstein. Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein has reigned over Liechtenstein since 1989. Liechtenstein is Europe's fourth-smallest country, with an area of just over 160 square kilometres (62 square miles) and a population of 41,389. It is the world's smallest country to border two countries. The official language of Liechtenstein is German.
Liechtenstein is divided into 11 municipalities. Its capital is Vaduz, and its largest municipality is Schaan. It is a member of the United Nations, the European Free Trade Association, and the Council of Europe. It is not a member state of the European Union, but it participates in both the Schengen Area and the European Economic Area. It has a customs union and a monetary union with Switzerland, with its usage of the Swiss franc. It is one of the few countries with no debt. A constitutional referendum in 2003 granted the monarch greater powers, including the power to dismiss the government, nominate judges and veto legislation. This was reaffirmed in 2012. As such, the monarch is not a figurehead. This creates a semi-constitutional monarchy.
Liechtenstein has a strong financial sector centred in Vaduz. It was once known as a billionaire tax haven, culminating in a tax affair in 2008, but the principality has since made significant efforts to shed this reputation. An Alpine country, Liechtenstein is mountainous, making it a winter sport destination.
The oldest traces of human existence in the area that later became Liechtenstein date back to the Middle Paleolithic era. Neolithic farming settlements appeared in the valleys around 5300 BC.
The Hallstatt and La Tène cultures flourished during the late Iron Age, from around 450 BC—possibly under some influence of both the Greek and Etruscan civilisations. During the Iron Age and into the Roman era, the Vennones occupied the Alpine Rhine valley. In 58 BC, at the Battle of Bibracte, Julius Caesar defeated the Alpine tribes, thereby bringing the region under Roman subjugation. By 15 BC, Tiberius—later the second Roman emperor—with his brother, Drusus, conquered the entire Alpine area.
The lands that would later become known as Liechtenstein then became integrated into the Roman province of Raetia. The area was garrisoned by the Roman army, which maintained large legionary camps at Brigantium (Bregenz, Austria), near Lake Constance, and at Magia (Maienfeld, Switzerland). The Romans built and maintained a road which ran through the territory. Around 260 AD Brigantium was destroyed by the Alemanni, a Germanic people who later settled in the area around 450.
In the Early Middle Ages, the Alemanni settled the eastern Swiss Plateau by the 5th century and the valleys of the Alps by the end of the 8th century. The territory that would later be known as Liechtenstein was located at the eastern edge of Alamannia. In the 6th century, the area became part of the Frankish Empire following Clovis I's victory over the Alemanni at Tolbiac in 504.
The area that later became Liechtenstein remained under Frankish hegemony (Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties) until the Treaty of Verdun divided the Carolingian empire in 843, following the death of Charlemagne in 814. The territory that later became Liechtenstein formed part of East Francia and would later be reunified with Middle Francia under the Holy Roman Empire, around 1000. Until about 1100, the predominant language of the area was Romansch; thereafter, German began to gain ground in the territory. In 1300, another Alemannic population—the Walsers, who originated in Valais—entered the region and settled; the mountain village of Triesenberg today preserves features of the Walser dialect.
By 1200, dominions across the Alpine plateau were controlled by the Houses of Savoy, Zähringer, Habsburg, and Kyburg. Other regions were accorded the Imperial immediacy that granted the empire direct control over the mountain passes. When the Kyburg dynasty fell in 1264, the Habsburgs under King Rudolph I, the Holy Roman Emperor in 1273, extended their territory to the eastern Alpine plateau.
In 1396, Vaduz, which would later become the southern region of Liechtenstein, gained imperial immediacy, i.e. it became subject to the Holy Roman Emperor alone.
The family from which Liechtenstein takes its name originally came from Liechtenstein Castle south of Vienna in Lower Austria, which they had possessed since at least 1140 until the 13th century, and again from 1807 onwards. The Liechtensteins acquired land, predominantly in Moravia, Lower Austria, Silesia, and Styria. As these territories were all held in feudal tenure from more senior feudal lords, particularly various branches of the Habsburgs, the Liechtenstein dynasty was unable to meet a primary requirement to qualify for a seat in the Imperial Diet (parliament), the Reichstag. Even though several Liechtenstein princes served several Habsburg rulers as close advisers, without any territory held directly from the Imperial throne, they held little power in the Holy Roman Empire.
For this reason, the family sought to acquire lands that would be classed as unmittelbar, or held without any intermediate feudal tenure, directly from the Holy Roman Emperor. During the early 17th century, Karl I of Liechtenstein was made a Fürst (prince) by the Holy Roman Emperor Matthias after siding with him in a political battle. Hans-Adam I was allowed to purchase the minuscule Herrschaft ('Lordship') of Schellenberg and the county of Vaduz (in 1699 and 1712, respectively) from the Hohenems. Tiny Schellenberg and Vaduz had exactly the political status required: no feudal superior (suzerain) other than the emperor.
On 23 January 1719, after the lands had been purchased, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, decreed that Vaduz and Schellenberg were united and elevated the newly formed territory to the dignity of Reichsfürstentum (imperial principality) with the name "Liechtenstein" in honour of "[his] true servant, Anton Florian of Liechtenstein". On this date, Liechtenstein became a mostly-sovereign immediate member state of the Holy Roman Empire.
By the early 19th century, as a result of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire came under the effective control of France, following the crushing defeat at Austerlitz by Napoleon in 1805. In 1806, Emperor Francis II abdicated and dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, ending more than 960 years of feudal government. Napoleon reorganized much of the Empire into the Confederation of the Rhine. This political restructuring had broad consequences for Liechtenstein: the historical imperial, legal, and political institutions had been dissolved. The state ceased to owe an obligation to any feudal lord beyond its borders.
Due to these events, the prince of Liechtenstein ceased to owe an obligation to any suzerain. From 25 July 1806, when the Confederation of the Rhine was founded, the Prince of Liechtenstein was a member, in fact a vassal, of its hegemon, styled protector, the French Emperor Napoleon I, until the dissolution of the confederation on 19 October 1813. Soon afterward, Liechtenstein joined the German Confederation (20 June 1815 – 23 August 1866), which was presided over by the Emperor of Austria.
In 1818, Prince Johann I granted the territory a limited constitution. In that same year Prince Aloys became the first member of the House of Liechtenstein to set foot in the principality that bore their name. The next visit would not occur until 1842.
In 1862, a new constitution was adopted.
Upon the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866, Liechtenstein became fully independent.
The Liechtenstein Army was abolished for financial reasons in February 1868.
Other developments during the 19th century included the following:
Until the end of World War I, Liechtenstein was closely tied first to the Austrian Empire and later to Austria-Hungary; the ruling princes continued to derive much of their wealth from estates in the Habsburg territories, and spent much of their time at their two palaces in Vienna. During World War I it did officially stay neutral, but was dependent on its neighbours and some, like Prince Heinrich of Liechtenstein got involved working for Austria-Hungary. The economic devastation caused by World War I forced the country to conclude a customs and monetary union with its other neighbour, Switzerland. In addition, popular unrest caused from economic devastation in the war directly led to the November 1918 Liechtenstein putsch, which created the process of a new constitution based on constitutional monarchy being introduced in 1921.
In 1929, 75-year-old Prince Franz I succeeded to the throne. He had just married Elisabeth von Gutmann, a wealthy woman from Vienna whose father was a Jewish businessman from Moravia. Although Liechtenstein had no official Nazi party, a Nazi sympathy movement arose within its National Union party. Local Liechtenstein Nazis identified Elisabeth as their Jewish "problem". Pro-Nazi agitation remained in Liechtenstein throughout the 1930s.
In March 1938, just after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, Franz named as regent his 31-year-old grandnephew and heir-presumptive, Prince Franz Joseph. After making his grandnephew regent he moved to Feldsberg, Czechoslovakia and on 25 July, he died while at one of his family's castles, Castle Feldberg, and Franz Joseph formally succeeded him as the Prince of Liechtenstein.
In March 1939 a coup was attempted while Franz Joseph II was on a state visit to Berlin.
During World War II, Liechtenstein remained officially neutral, looking to neighbouring Switzerland for assistance and guidance, while family treasures from dynastic lands and possessions in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were taken to Liechtenstein for safekeeping. Operation Tannenbaum, the Nazi plan for conquest of Switzerland, also included Liechtenstein, and the Nazi "Pan German" dream of uniting all German-speakers in the Reich would have also included the population of Liechtenstein. However in 1944, the Nazis abandoned implementing this plan after the Allied invasion of France, and Liechtenstein was spared from enduring a Nazi occupation.
At the close of the conflict, Czechoslovakia and Poland, acting to seize what they considered German possessions, expropriated all of the Liechtenstein dynasty's properties in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. The expropriations (subject to modern legal dispute at the International Court of Justice) included over 1,600 km2 (618 sq mi) of agricultural and forest land (most notably the UNESCO listed Lednice–Valtice Cultural Landscape), and several family castles and palaces.
Liechtenstein was in dire financial straits following the end of World War II. The Liechtenstein dynasty often resorted to selling family artistic treasures, including the portrait Ginevra de' Benci by Leonardo da Vinci, which was purchased by the National Gallery of Art of the United States in 1967 for US$5 million ($48 million in 2025 dollars), then a record price for a painting.
Citizens of Liechtenstein were forbidden to enter Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. The diplomatic conflict revolving around the controversial postwar Beneš decrees resulted in Liechtenstein not having international relations with the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Diplomatic relations were established between Liechtenstein and the Czech Republic on 13 July 2009, and with Slovakia on 9 December 2009.
The Constitution of Liechtenstein was amended in March 2003 to give additional powers to the monarch.
In 2004, Prince Hans-Adam II transferred day-to-day governmental duties to his eldest son Hereditary Prince Alois as regent, as his father had done to him in 1984 to prepare him for the role of Prince.
In 2005, a government-commissioned investigation revealed that Jewish slave labourers from the Strasshof concentration camp, provided by the SS, had worked on estates in Austria owned by Liechtenstein's Princely House. The report indicated that though no evidence was found of the House's knowledge of the slave labour, the House bore responsibility.
Liechtenstein is situated in the Upper Rhine valley of the European Alps and is bordered to the east by the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, to the south by the canton of Grisons (Switzerland) and to the west by the canton of St. Gallen (Switzerland). The Rhine forms the entire western border of Liechtenstein. Measured south to north the country is about 24 km (15 mi) long. New surveys using more accurate measurements of the country's borders in 2006 have set its area at 160 km2 (62 sq mi), with borders of 77.9 km (48.4 mi). As a result, Liechtenstein's area is slightly larger by 0.5 km2 (0.2 sq mi) and its borders are 1.9 km (1.2 mi) longer than previously thought.
Liechtenstein is one of the world's two doubly landlocked countries – countries wholly surrounded by other landlocked countries (the other is Uzbekistan). Liechtenstein is the sixth-smallest sovereign state in the world by area.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Liechtenstein”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.