Naming conventions used in the GIS

When constructing this GIS, one of the most ticklish problems was arriving at an appropriate set of names for the juristictions I would be covering. 500 of the 582 polling places that underlie this study had been part of the Prussian province of Hanover since 1867. The remainder were part of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. For that reason, I have adopted the Prussian names to all places, with the understanding that their equivalent values in Oldenburg had different names which I am not using.

Two terms do not differ: Wahlkreis and Wahlort. I have translated the former as constituency and the later as polling place. (See explanation under Building the GIS as to why village and polling place are not synonymous.)

In the Prussian system of government, the province had relatively little importance; more significant was the administrative district (Reigierungsbezirk). The administrative district governor (Regierungspräsident), reported directly to the Prussian Minister of the Interior and was responsible for all government functions in his district. There  were two such districts (Aurich and Stade) in the study area. In the rare instances where I have run correlations at the administrative district level, I have include the entirety of the Grand Duchy (exclusive of the detached parts, Lübeck and Hohenheim) as its own Regierungsbezirk.

 The basic unit of local administration in Prussia was the Kreis. I have followed the traditional practice of translating this as county. (Scott Eddie,  Landownership in Eastern Germany before the Great War, makes an excellent case for not using county, as he does other Prussian adminsitrative units, but I have decided to go with the common translation.) The equivalent administrative unit in Oldenburg as the Amt. For the purposes of this GIS, I have counted the Oldenburgish Ämter as counties.

The term Amt has a long tradition in the Hanoverian parts of Lower Saxony. In royal Hanover, the Amt was the main unit of local administration as was the case in Oldenburg. These local units were maintained by the Prussians after the Annexation until the Kreisreform of 1887, when the generally smaller  Ämter were consolidated into Prussian-style counties. I have styled the Hanoverian Ämter sub-counties and retained them as units of analysis. Frequently, the Ämter reflected deeper historical units with their own unique political culture.

The term Kirchspiel is most typically translated as parish and I have retained that usage despite the confusion it might create.  German Kirchspiele were not single churches; frequently, several congregations, worshipping in different locations, belonged to the same parish. Moreover, unlike parishes in the English-speaking world, the north German parish was a unit of local self-government. In the villages between the Elbe and the Weser, the Kirchspiele functioned as both secular and ecclesiastical units; in East Friesland, they were entirely ecclesiastic. Through a pre-modern system of property-based voting, landed proprietors in the parish would elect church functionaries (pastors, organists, etc.). I have found this an occaisionally useful unit of analysis to explain why neighboring Wahlorte vote as they do.