South Korea
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
the Republic of Korea
Constitution
Government
President (list)
Moon Jae-in
Prime Minister (list)
Lee Nak-yeon
Deputy Prime Minister
Hong Nam-ki
Yoo Eun-hae

State Council
Presidential Secretariat
National Assembly
Speaker
Moon Hee-sang
List of members
Judiciary
Constitutional Court
President: Yoo Nam-Seok
Supreme Court
Chief Justice: Kim Myeong-soo
Elections
National Election Commission
Recent elections
Presidential: 200720122017
Legislative: 201220162020
Local: 201020142018
By-elections: 201120142018
Political parties
DemocraticLiberty Korea PartyBareunPeople'sJustice
Foreign relations
Foreign policy
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Minister: Kang Kyung-wha

Diplomatic missions of / in South Korea

Nationality law
Passport
Visa requirements
Visa policy
Related topics
Korean reunification
Korean conflict
Sunshine Policy
Administrative divisions
Human rights

 South Koreaportal
Other countries
Atlas
vt
The politics of the Republic of Korea takes place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the head of state, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises a Supreme Court, appellate courts and a Constitutional Court. Since 1948, the constitution has undergone five major revisions, each signifying a new republic. The current Sixth Republic began with the last major constitutional revision in 1987.
The Economist Intelligence Unit has rated South Korea as the 20th most democratic country in 2017, the highest ranked Asian country and above Belgium, France or the United States.[1]
National government

Executive branch

The head of state is the president, who is elected by direct popular vote for a single five-year[2] term. The president is Commander-in-Chief of the armed force of South Korea and enjoys considerable executive powers.
The president appoints the prime minister with approval of the National Assembly, as well as appointing and presiding over the State Council of chief ministers as the head of government. On 12 March 2004, the executive power of then president Roh Moo-hyun was suspended when the Assembly voted to impeach him and Prime Minister Goh Kun became an Acting President. On 14 May 2004, the Constitutional Court overturned the impeachment decision made by the Assembly and Roh was reinstated.
On 10 March 2017, Park Geun-hye became the first president to be removed by the Constitutional Court after impeachment by the National Assembly. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn temporarily served as an acting president between the suspension of Park since 9 December 2016 until the next presidential election, which was held in May 2017. On 9 May 2017, Moon Jae-in became the 19th president of South Korea, replacing acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn.
Legislative branch

The National Assembly (국회, 國會, gukhoe) has 300 members, elected for a four-year term, 253 members in single-seat constituencies and 47 members by proportional representation. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea is the largest party in the Assembly.
Judicial branch
The South Korean judiciary is independent of the other two branches. The highest judiciary body is the Supreme Court, whose justices are appointed by the president with the consent of the National Assembly. In addition, the Constitutional Court oversees questions of constitutionality. South Korea has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction.
Political parties and elections

South Korea elects on national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. The president is elected for a five-year term by the people. The National Assembly (Gukhoe) has 300 members, elected for a four-year term, 246 members in single-seat constituencies and 54 members by proportional representation.
The main two political parties in South Korea are the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (lit. "Together Democratic Party", DPK) and the conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP). The liberal camp and the conservative camp are the dominant forces of South Korean politics at present.

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Political nature
South Korea's political history has always been prone to splits from and merges with other parties. One reason is that there is greater empathise around the 'politics of the person' and rather than party, therefore party loyalty is not strong when disagreements occur. The graph below illustrates the extent of the political volatility within the last 10 years alone. These splits were intensified after the 2016 South Korean political scandal.

Latest elections

Seat changes are compared to previous election, not the outgoing Assembly

1 Comparison based on 2012 Democratic United Party result

2 Comparison includes members elected in 2012 for the Liberty Forward Party

3 Non-parliamentary grouping: not to be confused with the larger Democratic Party of Korea, more usually referred to as the Minjoo Party

Political pressure groups and leaders
Federation of Korean Industries
Federation of Korean Trade Unions
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
Korean National Council of Churches
Korean Traders Association
Korean Veterans' Association
National Council of Labor Unions
National Democratic Alliance of Korea
National Federation of Farmers' Associations
National Federation of Student Associations
Administrative divisions

One Special City (Teukbyeolsi, Capital City), six Metropolitan Cities (Gwangyeoksi, singular and plural), nine Provinces (Do, singular and plural) and one Special Autonomous City (Sejong City).
Seoul Teukbyeolsi (서울특별시)
Busan Gwangyeoksi (부산광역시)
Daegu Gwangyeoksi (대구광역시)
Incheon Gwangyeoksi (인천광역시)
Daejeon Gwangyeoksi (대전광역시)
Gwangju Gwangyeoksi (광주광역시)
Ulsan Gwangyeoksi (울산광역시)
Gyeonggi-do (경기도)
Gangwon-do (강원도)
Chungcheongbuk-do (충청북도)
Chungcheongnam-do (충청남도)
Jeollabuk-do (전라북도)
Jeollanam-do (전라남도)
Gyeongsangbuk-do (경상북도)
Gyeongsangnam-do (경상남도)
Jeju Teukbyeoljachi-do (제주특별자치도)
Sejong Teukbyeol-jachisi (세종특별자치시)
International organization participation
AfDB, APEC, AsDB, BIS, CP, EBRD, ESCAP, FAO, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt, ICC, ICRM, IDA, IEA (observer), IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, ITUC, MINURSO, NAM (guest), NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OPCW, OSCE (partner), UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNMOGIP, UNOMIG, UNU, UPU, WCO, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO, Zangger Committee


Part of a series on theCulture of Peru
History
People
Languages
Traditions
Lord of Miracles
Cuisine
Religion
Art
Architecture
Literature
Writers
Music and performing arts
Music
Dances
Media
Television
Cinema
Sport
Monuments
World Heritage Sites
Symbols
Flag
Coat of arms

 Peruportalvt
Peru is a multilingual nation. Its official language is Spanish. In the zones in which they are predominant, Quechua, Aymara and other aboriginal languages also have co-official status according to Article 48 of the Constitution of Peru.[1] In addition to Spanish, Quechua and Aymara, there are many Amazonian languages such as Urarina,[2] Aguaruna and Peruvian Sign Language.
Spanish
In Peru, the most common language is Spanish, which is spoken by the majority of Peruvians (85.92% of the total population). Spanish is predominant in the media and in government.
Peruvian Coast Spanish
Andean Spanish
Amazonic Spanish
Indigenous languages

The only aboriginal Andean languages in use in the highlands today are those of the Aymara families (the latter including Jaqaru/Kawki). The Amazon region, however, is home to a wide range of family languages.
There are currently fourteen defined language families in Peruvian territory, in addition to many more isolated and unclassified languages, such as Urarina.
It is known that the number of languages that were used in Peru easily surpasses 300; some observers speak of 700. Yet from the time of European conquest, epidemics and periods of forced work (in addition to the influence of the hegemonic Spanish language), fewer than 150 can be counted today. The following is an incomplete list of languages spoken today, and a number that became extinct in the twentieth century or that are endangered.
Number of speakers
The aboriginal languages of Peru are spoken mainly in the central Andes and in the Amazon forests. A considerable number of languages were once spoken on the northern coast and in the northern Andes, but other than some in the northern highlands (Cajamarca, Inkawasi-Cañaris and Chachapoyas), all others have died out[6] - Mochica is thought to have gone extinct in the 1950s.
In the Peruvian Amazon over forty languages, which are usually grouped into 14 families and diversifying about 120 recognizable local varieties are spoken.[7]

Families and language isolates

Andoque
Aru
Jaqaru/Kawki
Arawa
Kulina (culina, madihá)
Arawak
Bora–Witoto (Witotoanas)
Bora
Bora
Witoto (Huitoto)
Harakmbut*
Amarakaeri
Huachipaeri
Huaorani
Jíbaro
Kandoshi (Candoshi)
Kawapana (Cahuapana)*
Koihoma
Munichi (muniche, otonabe)
Nonunya
Omurano
Pano–Tacanan
Pano
Tacana (takana)
Ese Exa (chama, tatinawa)
Shipibo
Peba–Yaguan
Peba
Yawa language (yagua)
Peruvian Sign Language
Quechuan
Resígaro
Shimaku (Urarina)
Taushiro
Tequiraca
Ticuna (tikuna)
Tucano
Koto (payawá, payowahe, orejón)
Secoya (piohé)
Tupí
Záparo
Andoa
Arabela (chiripunu)
Cahuaruno
Iquito (hamakore, amakakore, ikito)

Languages extinct prior to the twentieth century

Quignam (olmos, pescadora)
Culle (culli, kulyi)
Chocó
Sec
Múchik
Muchik (mochica)
Catacaoanas (catacaonas)
Katakao
Kolán
Cholonas
Other languages
In addition to the above, in Peru there is a large community of immigrants, some of whom maintain their native languages. These include the Japanese and the Chinese (Cantonese dialect), and in smaller numbers, the Germans (central Andes), Italian, the Arabic speakers, and the Urdu speakers. The last two are products of the recent wave of immigrants from Palestine and Pakistan. Lately, the influence of English has grown considerably due to the number of tourists and American and British residents.
See also
Demographics of Peru
Quechuan and Aymaran spelling shift
Notes

(in Spanish)  –  Aboriginal languages of Peru
(in Spanish)
(in Japanese)  – ペルー トルヒージョ 2003年12月31日(水)


A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tram [in early years][1] or trolley[2][3]) is an electric bus that draws power from overhead wires (generally suspended from roadside posts) using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit. This differs from a tram or streetcar, which normally uses the track as the return path, needing only one wire and one pole (or pantograph). They are also distinct from other kinds of electric buses, which usually rely on batteries. Power is most commonly supplied as 600-volt direct current, but there are exceptions.
Currently, around 300 trolleybus systems are in operation, in cities and towns in 43 countries.[4] Altogether, more than 800 trolleybus systems have existed, but not more than about 400 concurrently.[5]
History

The trolleybus dates back to 29 April 1882, when Dr. Ernst Werner Siemens demonstrated his "Elektromote" in a Berlin suburb. This experiment continued until 13 June 1882, after which there were few developments in Europe, although separate experiments were conducted in the U.S.[7] In 1899, another vehicle which could run either on or off rails was demonstrated in Berlin.[8] The next development was when Lombard Gerin operated an experimental line at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 after four years of trials, with a circular route around Lake Daumesnil that carried passengers. Routes followed in 6 places including Eberswalde and Fontainebleau.[9] Max Schiemann on 10 July 1901 opened the world's fourth passenger-carrying trolleybus system, which operated at Bielatal (Biela Valley, near Dresden), in Germany. Schiemann built and operated the Bielatal system, and is credited with developing the under-running trolley current collection system, with two horizontally parallel overhead wires and rigid trolleypoles spring-loaded to hold them up to the wires. Although this system operated only until 1904, Schiemann had developed what is now the standard trolleybus current collection system. In the early days there were many other methods of current collection.[7] The Cédès-Stoll (Mercédès-Électrique-Stoll) system was first operated near Dresden between 1902 and 1904, and 18 systems followed. The Lloyd-Köhler or Bremen system was tried out in Bremen with 5 further installations, and the Cantono Frigerio system was used in Italy.
Throughout the period, trackless freight systems and electric canal boats were also built.

Leeds and Bradford became the first cities to put trolleybuses into service in Great Britain on 20 June 1911.[8] Apparently, though it was opened on 20 June, the public was not admitted to the Bradford route until the 24th. Bradford was also the last to operate trolleybuses in the UK, the system closing on 26 March 1972. The last rear-entrance trolleybus in Britain was also in Bradford and is now owned by the Bradford Trolleybus Association. Birmingham was the first to replace a tram route with trolleybuses, while Wolverhampton, under the direction of Charles Owen Silvers, became world-famous for its trolleybus designs.[10] There were 50 trolleybus systems in the UK, London's being the largest. By the time trolleybuses arrived in Britain in 1911, the Schiemann system was well established and was the most common, although the Cédès-Stoll (Mercédès-Électrique-Stoll) system was tried in West Ham (in 1912) and in Keighley (in 1913).[11][12]
Smaller trackless trolley systems were built in the US early as well. The first non-experimental system was a seasonal municipal line installed near Nantasket Beach in 1904; the first year-round commercial line was built to open a hilly property to development just outside Los Angeles in 1910. The trackless trolley was often seen as an interim step, leading to streetcars. In the U.S.A., some systems subscribed to the all-four concept of using buses, trolleybuses, streetcars (trams, trolleys) and rapid transit subway and/or elevated lines (metros), as appropriate, for routes ranging from the lightly used to the heaviest trunk line. Buses and trolleybuses in particular were seen as entry systems that could later be upgraded to rail as appropriate. In a similar fashion, many cities in Britain originally viewed trolleybus routes as extensions to tram (streetcar) routes where the cost of constructing or restoring track could not be justified at the time, though this attitude changed markedly (to viewing them as outright replacements for tram routes) in the years after 1918.[13] Trackless trolleys were the dominant form of new post-war electric traction, with extensive systems in among others, Los Angeles, Chicago, Rhode Island, and Atlanta; Boston, San Francisco (California), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) still maintain an "all-four" fleet.
Some trolleybus lines in the United States (and in Britain, as noted above) came into existence when a trolley or tram route did not have sufficient ridership to warrant track maintenance or reconstruction. In a similar manner, a proposed tram scheme in Leeds, United Kingdom, was changed to a trolleybus scheme to cut costs.[14]

Trolleybuses are uncommon today in North America, but they remain common in many European countries as well as Russia and China, generally occupying a position in usage between street railways (trams) and diesel buses. Worldwide, around 300 cities or metropolitan areas are served by trolleybuses today.[4] (Further detail under Use and preservation, below.)

Trolleybuses are used extensively in large European cities, such as Athens, Belgrade, Bratislava, Bucharest, Budapest, Chisinau, Kiev, Lyon, Milan, Minsk, Moscow, Riga, Saint Petersburg, Sofia, Tallinn, Varna, Vilnius and Zurich, as well as smaller ones such as Arnhem, Bergen, Coimbra, Gdynia, Kaunas, Lausanne, Limoges, Luzern, Modena, Piatra Neamț, Plzeň, Prešov, Salzburg, Solingen, Szeged, Târgu Jiu and Yalta. See also Trolleybus usage by country.
Transit authorities in some cities have reduced or discontinued their use of trolleybuses in recent years, while others, wanting to add or expand use of zero-emission vehicles in an urban environment, have opened new systems or are planning new systems. For example, new systems opened in Lecce, Italy, in 2012 and in Malatya, Turkey, in 2015.[15]
Vehicle design

Parallel overhead lines (overhead wires)
Destination or route sign
Rear view mirror
Headlights
Boarding (entry) doors
Direction (turning) wheels
Exit doors
Traction wheels
Decorative elements
Retractors/retrievers
Pole rope
Contact shoes
Trolley poles (power collector)
Pole storage hooks
Trolley pole base and fairing/shroud
Bus number
Advantages

Comparison to trams
Cheaper infrastructure - The initial start up cost of trams is much higher, due to rail, signals, and other infrastructure. Trolleybuses can pull over to the curb like other buses, eliminating the need of special boarding stations or boarding islands in the middle of the street, thus stations can be moved as needed.
Better hill climbing - Trolleybuses' rubber tires have better adhesion than trams' steel wheels on steel rails, giving them better hill-climbing capability and braking.
Easier traffic avoidance - Unlike trams (where side tracks are often unavailable), an out-of-service vehicle can be moved to the side of the road and its trolley poles lowered. The ability to drive a substantial distance from the power wires allows trackless vehicles to avoid obstacles, although it also means a possibility that the vehicle may steer or skid far enough that the trolley pole can no longer reach the wire, stranding the vehicle. Trackless trolleys also are able to avoid collisions by maneuver, while trams can only change speed.
Quietness - Trolleybuses are generally quieter than trams.
Easier training - The control of trolleybuses is relatively similar to motorbuses; the potential operator pool for all buses is much larger than for trams.
Comparison to motorbuses
Better hill climbing - Trolleybuses are better than motorbuses on hilly routes, as electric motors provide much higher static torque at start-up, an advantage for climbing steep hills. Unlike internal combustion engines, electric motors draw power from a central plant and can be overloaded for short periods without damage. San Francisco and Seattle, both hilly American cities, use trolleybuses partly for this reason. Given their acceleration and braking performance, trolleybuses can outperform diesel buses on flat stretches as well, which makes them better for routes that have frequent stops.
Environmentally friendly - Trolleybuses are usually more environmentally friendly in the city than fossil fuel or hydrocarbon-based vehicles (petrol/gasoline, diesel, alcohol, etc.). Power from a centralized plant, even taking into account transmission losses, is often produced more efficiently, is not bound to a specific fuel source, and is more amenable to pollution control as a point source, unlike individual vehicles with exhaust gases and particulates at street level. Trolleybuses are especially favoured where electricity is abundant, cheap, and renewable, such as hydroelectric. Systems in Seattle and in Vancouver, BC, draw hydroelectric power from the Columbia River and other Pacific river systems. San Francisco operates its system using hydro power from the city-owned Hetch Hetchy generating plant.
Trolleybuses can generate electricity from kinetic energy while braking, a process known as regenerative braking. For regenerative braking to function, there must be another bus on the same circuit needing power, an electric storage system on the vehicle or the wire system, or a method to send the excess power back to the commercial electric power system. Otherwise the braking energy must be dissipated in resistance grids on the bus; this is called "dynamic braking". For routes that have more frequent stops, the use of trolley buses eliminates pollution during idling, thus improving air quality.
Minimal noise pollution - Unlike trams or gasoline and diesel buses, trolleybuses are almost silent, lacking the noise of an engine or wheels on rails. Most noise comes from auxiliary systems such as power steering pumps and air conditioning. Early trolleybuses without these systems were even quieter and, in the UK at least, were often referred to as the "Silent Service". This however can also be seen as a disadvantage, with some pedestrians falling victim to what was known as "Silent Death" (in Britain) or "Whispering Death" (in Australia).
Usable in enclosed space - The lack of exhaust allow trolleybuses to operate underground. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, trackless trolleys survived because Harvard Station, where several bus lines terminate, is in a tunnel once used by streetcars. Although diesel buses do use the tunnel, there are limitations due to exhaust fumes. Also, the trackless trolleys continue to have popular support. The only trolleybus systems in Japan, the Tateyama Tunnel Trolleybus and Kanden Tunnel Trolleybus lines, both run in tunnels serving the Kurobe Dam and Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, and were converted from normal diesel buses specifically for their lack of exhaust.
Longevity and maintenance - Electric motors typically last longer than internal combustion motors, and cause less secondary damage from vibration, so electric buses tend to be very long-lived compared to motorbuses. As the basic construction of buses has not changed much in the last 50 plus years, they can be upgraded such as when air conditioning was retrofitted to many trolleybuses. Such upgrades are often disproportionately expensive. Wheelchair lifts are relatively simple to add; kneeling front suspension is a common feature of air suspension on the front axle in lieu of springs. In comparison to battery-powered buses, the lack of a specially designed battery or fuel cell (typically with expensive patents) decreases the price and weight, and in locations with a sufficient power delivery network, the trolleybus is cheaper and easier to maintain in comparison to charging stations

Disadvantages

Comparison to trams
Note: As there are numerous variations of tram and light-rail technology, the disadvantages listed may be applicable only with a specific technology or design.
More control required - Trolleybuses must be driven like motorbuses, requiring directional control by the driver.
Higher rolling resistance - Rubber-tired vehicles generally have more rolling resistance than steel wheels, which decreases energy efficiency.
Less efficient use of right-of-way - Lanes must be wider for unguided buses than for streetcars, since unguided buses can drift side-to-side. The use of guidance rail allows trams running in parallel lanes to pass closer together than drivers could safely steer.
Difficulties with platform loading - Implementation of level platform loading with minimal gap, either at design stage or afterwards, is easier and cheaper to implement with rail vehicles.
Comparison to motorbuses
Difficult to re-route - When compared to motorbuses, trolleybuses have greater difficulties with temporary or permanent re-routings, wiring for which is not usually readily available outside of downtown areas where the buses may be re-routed via adjacent business area streets where other trolleybus routes operate. This problem was highlighted in Vancouver in July 2008,[17] when an explosion closed several roads in the city's downtown core. Because of the closure, trolleys were forced to detour several kilometers off their route in order to stay on the wires, leaving major portions of their routes not in service and off-schedule.
Aesthetics - The jumble of overhead wires may be seen as unsightly.[18] Intersections often have a "webbed ceiling" appearance, due to multiple crossing and converging sets of trolley wires.
Dewirements — Trolley poles sometimes come off of the wire. Dewirements are relatively rare in modern systems with well-maintained overhead wires, hangers, fittings and contact shoes. Trolleybuses are equipped with special insulated pole ropes which drivers use to reconnect the trolley poles with the overhead wires. When approaching switches, trolleybuses usually must decelerate in order to avoid dewiring, and this deceleration can potentially add slightly to traffic congestion.
Unable to overtake other trolleybuses - Trolleybuses cannot overtake one another in regular service unless two separate sets of wires with a switch are provided or the vehicles are equipped with off-wire capability, with the latter an increasingly common feature of new trolleybuses.
Higher capital cost of equipment - Trolleybuses are often long-lived equipment, with limited market demand. This generally leads to higher prices relative to internal combustion buses. The long equipment life may also complicate upgrades.
More training required - Drivers must learn how to prevent dewiring, slowing down at turns and through switches in the overhead wire system, for example.[19]
Overhead Wires Create Obstruction - Trolleybus systems employ overhead wires above the roads used by the trolleybuses.  The  wires can restrict tall motor vehicles such as delivery trucks ("lorries") and double decker buses from using or crossing roads fitted with overhead wires, as such vehicles would hit the wires or pass dangerously close to them, risking damage and dangerous electrical faults.  The wires also may impede positioning of overhead signage and create a hazard to activities such as road repairs using tall excavators or piling rigs, use of scaffolding, etc.
Off-wire power developments

With the re-introduction of hybrid designs, trolleybuses are no longer tied to overhead wires. The Public Service Company of New Jersey, with Yellow Coach, developed "All Service Vehicles;" trackless trolleys capable of operating as gas-electric buses when off wire, and used them successfully between 1935 and 1948. Since the 1980s, systems such as Muni in San Francisco, TransLink in Vancouver, and Beijing, among others, have bought trolleybuses equipped with batteries to allow them to operate fairly long distances away from the wires. Supercapacitors can be also used to move buses short distances.
Trolleybuses can optionally be equipped either with limited off-wire capability—a small diesel engine or battery pack—for auxiliary or emergency use only, or full dual-mode capability. A simple auxiliary power unit can allow a trolleybus to get around a route blockage or can reduce the amount (or complexity) of overhead wiring needed at operating garages (depots). This capability has become increasingly common in newer trolleybuses, particularly in North America and Europe, where the vast majority of new trolleybuses delivered since the 1990s are fitted with at least limited off-wire capability. These have gradually replaced older trolleybuses which lacked such capability. In Philadelphia, new trackless trolleys equipped with small hybrid diesel-electric power units for operating short distances off-wire were placed in service by SEPTA in 2008 are, instead of using a conventional diesel drive train or battery-only system for their off-wire movement.[20]

King County Metro in Seattle, Washington and the MBTA in Boston use or have used dual-mode buses that run on electric power from overhead wires on a fixed right-of-way and on diesel power on city streets. Metro used special-order articulated Breda buses with the center axle driven electrically and the rear (third) axle driven by a conventional power pack, with electricity used for clean operation in the downtown transit tunnel. They were introduced in 1990 and retired in 2005, replaced by cleaner hybrid buses, although 59 of 236 had their diesel propulsion equipment removed and continue (as of 2010) in trolley bus service on non-tunnel routes. The MBTA uses dual-mode buses on its new (2004-opened) Silver Line (Waterfront).
Other considerations
With increasing diesel fuel costs and problems caused by particulate matter and NOx emissions in cities, trolleybuses can be an attractive alternative, either as the primary transit mode or as a supplement to rapid transit and commuter rail networks.
Trolleybuses are quieter than internal combustion engine vehicles. Mainly a benefit, it also provides much less warning of a trolleybus's approach. A speaker attached to the front of the vehicle can raise the noise to a desired "safe" level. This noise can be directed to pedestrians in front of the vehicle, as opposed to motor noise which typically comes from the rear of a bus and is more noticeable to bystanders than to pedestrians.
Trolleybuses can share overhead wires and other electrical infrastructure (such as substations) with tramways. This can result in cost savings when trolleybuses are added to a transport system that already has trams, though this refers only to potential savings over the cost of installing and operating trolleybuses alone.
Wire switches

Trolleybus wire switches (called frogs in the UK) are used where a trolleybus line branches into two or where two lines join. A switch may be either in a "straight through" or "turnout" position; it normally remains in the "straight through" position unless it has been triggered, and reverts to it after a few seconds or after the pole shoe passes through and strikes a release lever. (In Boston, the resting or "default" position is the "leftmost" position.) Triggering is typically accomplished by a pair of contacts, one on each wire close to and before the switch assembly, which power a pair of electromagnets, one in each frog with diverging wires. ("Frog" generally refers to one fitting that guides one trolley wheel/shoe onto a desired wire or across one wire. Occasionally, "frog" has been used to refer to the entire switch assembly.)
Multiple branches may be handled by installing more than one switch assembly. For example, to provide straight-through, left-turn or right-turn branches at an intersection, one switch is installed some distance from the intersection to choose the wires over the left-turn lane, and another switch is mounted closer to or in the intersection to choose between straight through and a right turn.[21] (This would be the arrangement in countries such as the US, where traffic directionality is right-handed; in left-handed traffic countries such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, the first switch (before the intersection) would be used to access the right-turn lanes, and the second switch (usually in the intersection) would be for the left-turn.)
Three common types of switches[21] exist: power-on/power-off (the picture of a switch above is of this type), Selectric, and Fahslabend.
A power-on/power-off switch is triggered if the trolleybus is drawing considerable power from the overhead wires, usually by accelerating, at the moment the poles pass over the contacts. (The contacts are lined up on the wires in this case.) If the trolleybus "coasts" through the switch, the switch will not activate. Some trolleybuses, such as those in Philadelphia and Vancouver, have a manual "power-coast" toggle switch that turns the power on or off. This allows a switch to be triggered in situations that would otherwise be impossible, such as activating a switch while braking or accelerating through a switch without activating it. One variation of the toggle switch will simulate accelerating by causing a larger power draw (through a resistance grid), but will not simulate coasting and prevent activation of the switch by cutting the power.
A Selectric[22] switch has a similar design, but the contacts on the wires are skewed, often at a 45-degree angle, rather than being lined up. This skew means that a trolleybus going straight through will not trigger the switch, but a trolleybus making a turn will have its poles match the contacts in a matching skew (with one pole shoe ahead of the other), which will trigger the switch regardless of power draw (accelerating versus coasting).
For a Fahslabend switch, the trolleybus' turn indicator control (or a separate driver-controlled switch) causes a coded radio signal to be sent from a transmitter, often attached to a trolley pole. The receiver is attached to the switch and causes it to trigger if the correct code is received. This has the advantage that the driver does not need to be accelerating the bus (as with a power-on/power-off switch) or trying to make a sharp turn (as with a Selectric switch).
Trailing switches (where two sets of wires merge) do not require action by the operator. The frog runners are pushed into the desired position by the trolley shoe, or the frog is shaped so the shoe is guided onto the exit wire without any moving parts.
Manufacturing

Well over 200 different trolleybus makers have existed – mostly commercial manufacturers, but in some cases (particularly in communist countries), built by the publicly owned operating companies or authorities.[5]:91–125 Of the defunct or former trolleybus manufacturers, the largest producers– ones whose production totalled more than 1,000 units each– included the U.S. companies Brill (approx. 3,250 total), Pullman-Standard (2,007), and Marmon-Herrington (1,624); the English companies AEC (approx. 1,750), British United Traction (BUT) (1,573), Leyland (1,420) and Sunbeam (1,379); France's Vétra (more than 1,750); and the Italian builders Alfa Romeo (2,044) and Fiat (approx. 1,700).[5] Also, Canadian Car and Foundry built 1,114 trolleybuses based on designs by Brill.[5]
As of the 2010s, at least 30 trolleybus manufacturers exist. They include companies that have been building trolleybuses for several decades, such as Škoda since 1936, Trolza (formerly Uritsky, or ZiU) since 1951 and New Flyer, among others, along with several younger companies. Current trolleybus manufacturers in western and central Europe include Solaris, Van Hool and Hess, among others. In Russia ZiU/Trolza has historically been the world's largest trolleybus manufacturer, producing over 65,000 since 1951, mostly for Russia/FSU countries. Škoda is Western and Central Europe's largest and the second largest in the world, having produced over 14,000 trolleybuses since 1936, mostly for export, and it also supplies trolleybus electrical equipment for other bus builders such as Solaris, SOR and Breda. In Mexico, trolleybus production ended when MASA, which had built more than 860 trolleybuses since 1979, was acquired in 1998 by Volvo. However, Dina, which is now that country's largest bus and truck manufacturer, began building trolleybuses in 2013.[23]:134
Transition to low-floor designs
A significant change to trolleybus designs starting in the early 1990s was the introduction of low-floor models, which began only a few years after the first such models were introduced for motorbuses. These have gradually replaced high-floor designs, and by 2012, every existing trolleybus system in Western Europe had purchased low-floor trolleybuses, with the La Spezia (Italy) system being the last one to do so,[24] and several systems in other parts of the world have purchased low-floor vehicles.
In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 required that all new transit vehicles placed into service after 1July 1993 be accessible to persons in wheelchairs.[25] Some transit agencies had already begun to accommodate such passengers by purchasing buses with wheelchair lifts, and early examples of fleets of lift-equipped trolleybuses included 109 AM General trolleybuses built for the Seattle trolleybus system in 1979 and the retrofitting of lifts in 1983 to 64 Flyer E800s in the Dayton system's fleet.[26]:61

Trolleybuses in other countries continued to lack disabled access until the 1990s, when the first two low-floor trolleybus models were introduced, both built in 1991, a "Swisstrolley" demonstrator built by Switzerland's NAW/Hess and an N6020 demonstrator built by Neoplan.[27][28] The first production-series low-floor trolleybuses were built in 1992: 13 by NAW for the Geneva system and 10 Gräf & Stift for the Innsbruck system. By 1995, such vehicles were also being made by several other European manufacturers, including Skoda, Breda, Ikarus and Van Hool.[29] The first Solaris "Trollino" made its debut in early 2001.[30]:30 In the former Soviet Union countries, Belarus' Belkommunmash built its first low-floor trolleybus (model AKSM-333) in 1999,[31] and other manufacturers in the former Soviet countries joined the trend in the early 2000s.
However, because the lifespan of a trolleybus is typically longer than that of a motorbus, the budget allocation and purchase typically factored in the longevity; the introduction of low-floor vehicles applied pressures on operators to retire high-floor trolleybuses that were only a few years old and replace them with low-floor trolleybuses.[32] Responses varied, with some systems keeping their high-floor fleets, and others retiring them early but, in many instances, selling them secondhand for continued use in countries where there was a demand for low-cost secondhand trolleybuses, in particular in Romania and Bulgaria. The Lausanne system dealt with this dilemma in the 1990s by purchasing new low-floor passenger trailers to be towed by its high-floor trolleybuses,[32] a choice later also made by Lucerne.

Outside Europe, 14 vehicles built by, and for, the Shanghai trolleybus system in mid-1999 were the first reported low-floor trolleybuses in Southeast Asia.[33] Wellington, New Zealand, took delivery of its first low-floor trolleybus in March 2003,[34] and by the end of 2009 had renewed its entire fleet with such vehicles.[35] Unlike Europe, where low floor means "100%" low floor from front to back, most "low floor" buses on other continents are actually only low-entry or part-low floor.
In the Americas, the first low-floor trolleybus was a Busscar vehicle supplied to the São Paulo EMTU system in 2001.[36] In North America, wheelchair lifts were again chosen[32] for disabled access in new trolleybuses delivered to San Francisco in 1992–94, to Dayton in 1996–1999, and to Seattle in 2001–2002, but the first low-floor trolleybus was built in 2003, with the first of 28 Neoplan vehicles for the Boston system.[36] Subsequently, the Vancouver system and the Philadelphia system have converted entirely to low-floor vehicles, and in 2013 the Seattle and Dayton systems both placed orders for their first low-floor trolleybuses. Outside São Paulo, almost all trolleybuses currently in service in Latin America are high-floor models built before 2000. However, in 2013, the first domestically manufactured low-floor trolleybuses were introduced in both Argentina and Mexico.[23]:134
With regard to non-passenger aspects of vehicle design, the transition from high-floor to low-floor has meant that some equipment previously placed under the floor has been moved to the roof.[25] Some transit operators have needed to modify their maintenance facilities to accommodate this change, a one-time expense.
Double-decker trolleybuses

Since the end of 1997, no double-decker trolleybuses have been in service anywhere in the world, but in the past several manufacturers made such vehicles. Most builders of double-deck trolleybuses were in the United Kingdom, but there were a few, usually solitary, instances of such trolleybuses being built in other countries, including in Germany by Henschel (for Hamburg); in Italy by Lancia (for Porto, Portugal); in Russia by the Yaroslavl motor plant (for Moscow) and in Spain by Maquitrans (for Barcelona).[5] British manufacturers of double-deck trolleybuses included AEC, BUT, Crossley, Guy, Leyland, Karrier, Sunbeam and others.[5]
In 2001, Citybus (Hong Kong) converted a Dennis Dragon (#701) into a double-decker trolleybus,[37] and it was tested on a 300-metre track in Wong Chuk Hang in that year.[37] Hong Kong decided not to build a trolleybus system, and the testing of this prototype did not lead to any further production of vehicles.
Use and preservation

There are currently 300 cities or metropolitan areas where trolleybuses are operated,[4] and more than 500 additional trolleybus systems have existed in the past.[5] For an overview, by country, see Trolleybus usage by country, and for complete lists of trolleybus systems by location, with dates of opening and (where applicable) closure, see List of trolleybus systems and the related lists indexed there.
Of the systems existing as of 2012, the majority are located in Europe and Asia, including 85 in Russia and 43 in Ukraine.[4] However, there are eight systems existing in North America and nine in South America.[4]

Trolleybuses have been preserved in most of the countries where they have operated. The United Kingdom has the largest number of preserved trolleybuses with more than 110, while the United States has around 70.[5] Most preserved vehicles are on static display only, but a few museums are equipped with a trolleybus line, allowing trolleybuses to operate for visitors. Museums with operational trolleybus routes include three in the UK – the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft, the East Anglia Transport Museum and the Black Country Living Museum – and three in the United States – the Illinois Railway Museum, the Seashore Trolley Museum and the Shore Line Trolley Museum[38] – but operation of trolleybuses does not necessarily occur on a regular schedule of dates at these museums.
See also

Battery electric bus
Bus rapid transit
Dual-mode transit
Electric bus
Electric-vehicle battery
Guided bus
List of trolleybus manufacturers
List of trolleybus systems
Trolleytruck
Tourist trolley

Notes

Further reading
Bruce, Ashley R. Lombard-Gerin and Inventing the Trolleybus. (2017) Trolleybooks (UK). ISBN978-0-904235-25-8
Cheape, Charles W. Moving the masses: urban public transit in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, 1880-1912 (Harvard University Press, 1980)
Dunbar, Charles S. (1967). Buses, Trolleys & Trams. Paul Hamlyn Ltd. (UK) [republished 2004 with ISBN0-7537-0970-8 or 9780753709702]
McKay, John P. Tramways and Trolleys: The Rise of Urban Mass Transport in Europe (1976)
Murray, Alan (2000). World Trolleybus Encyclopaedia. Trolleybooks (UK). ISBN0-904235-18-1
Porter, Harry; and Worris, Stanley F.X. (1979). Trolleybus Bulletin No. 109: Databook II. North American Trackless Trolley Association (defunct)
Sebree, Mac; and Ward, Paul (1973). Transit's Stepchild, The Trolley Coach (Interurbans Special 58). Los Angeles: Interurbans. LCCN 73-84356
Sebree, Mac; and Ward, Paul (1974). The Trolley Coach in North America (Interurbans Special 59). Los Angeles: Interurbans. LCCN 74-20367
Periodicals
Trolleybus Magazine (ISSN). National Trolleybus Association (UK), bi-monthly
Trackless, Bradford Trolleybus Association, quarterly
Trolleybus, British Trolleybus Society (UK), monthly

, accessed 30 January 2004

(in Russian)

How many double-decker buses occupy London?


Bremen-Verden, formally the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (German pronunciation:[ˈfɛːɐ̯dən]; German: Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden), were two territories and immediate fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire, which emerged and gained imperial immediacy in 1180. By their original constitution they were prince-bishoprics of the Archdiocese of Bremen and Bishopric of Verden.
In 1648, both prince-bishoprics were secularised, meaning that they were transformed into hereditary monarchies by constitution, and from then on both the Duchy of Bremen and the Duchy of Verden were always ruled in personal union, initially by the royal houses of Sweden, the House of Vasa and the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and later by the House of Hanover.
With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Bremen-Verden's status as fiefs of imperial immediacy became void; as they had been in personal union with the neighbouring Kingdom of Hanover, they were incorporated into that state.
Territory and insignia
The territory belonging to the Duchies of Bremen and Verden covered a rough triangle of land between the mouths of the rivers Elbe and Weser on the North Sea, in today's German federal states of Hamburg and Bremen (the Elbe-Weser Triangle). This area included most of the modern counties (German singular: Kreis) of Cuxhaven (southerly), Osterholz, Rotenburg upon Wümme, Stade and Verden, now in Lower Saxony; and the city of Bremerhaven, now an exclave of the State of Bremen. The city of Bremen and Cuxhaven (an exclave of Hamburg) did not belong to Bremen-Verden. The Land of Hadeln, then an exclave of Saxe-Lauenburg exclave around Otterndorf, was not part of Bremen-Verden until 1731. Stade was the capital.
Bremen-Verden's coat of arms combined the arms of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, a black cross on white ground, with those of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, two keys crossed ), the symbol of Simon Petrus, the patron saint of Bremen.
History
At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War the predominantly Lutheran Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen maintained neutrality, as did most of the Protestant territories in the Lower Saxon Circle, a fiscal and military subsection of the Holy Roman Empire. The neighbouring Prince-Bishopric of Verden also tried to maintain neutrality, but, being part of the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle, which was troubled by confrontation between Calvinist, Catholic and Lutheran rulers and their territories, Verden soon became involved in the war.
In 1623 Verden's cathedral chapter, consisting mainly of Lutheran capitulars, elected Frederick II, Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden to be the ruler of the bishopric. Since he was Lutheran, the Holy See denied him the title of bishop. Nevertheless, he and later administrators were often referred to as prince-bishops. Frederick II was a son of King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway.
In 1626, Christian IV, who was also Duke of Holstein, and thus a vassal of the Emperor, joined the anti-imperial coalition of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and the Kingdom of England under James I. After Christian IV was defeated at the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge, on 27 August 1626, by the troops of the Catholic League under Johan 't Serclaes, Count of Tilly, he and his remaining troops fled to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and set up headquarters in Stade. Administrator John Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, who was also Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck, fled to Lübeck and left the Prince-Archbishopric to be ruled by the Chapter and the Estates.
In 1626, Tilly and his Catholic League troops occupied Verden, causing the Lutheran clergy to flee. He demanded that the Chapter of Bremen allow him to enter the Prince-Archbishopric and while the Chapter declared its loyalty to the Emperor, it delayed an answer to the request, arguing that it had to consult in a diet with the Estates, which would be a lengthy procedure.
Meanwhile, Christian IV arranged for Dutch, English and French troops to land in Bremen. The Chapter's pleas for a reduction of the contributions, Christian IV commented by arguing once the Leaguists would take over, his extortions will seem little.
In 1627, Christian IV withdrew from the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, in order to fight Wallenstein's invasion of his Duchy of Holstein. Tilly then invaded Bremen and captured its southern parts. The city of Bremen shut its city gates and entrenched behind its improved fortifications. In 1628, Tilly besieged Stade with its remaining garrison of 3,500 Danish and English soldiers. On May 5, 1628 Tilly granted them safe-conduct to England and Denmark-Norway and the whole of ecclesiastical Bremen was in his hands. Now Tilly turned to the city of Bremen, which paid him a ransom of 10,000 rixdollars in order to save itself from a siege. The city remained unoccupied.
The populations in both prince-bishoprics were subjected to measures of "re-Catholicisation" within the scope the Counter-Reformation, with Lutheran services suppressed and Lutheran pastors expelled. In July 1630, Tilly and most of the Catholic occupants were withdrawn, since on June 26 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had landed with 15,000 soldiers at Peenemünde, opening a new front in the Thirty Years’ War. He had been won by French diplomacy to join a new anti-imperial coalition, soon also joined by the United Netherlands.
In February 1631 John Frederick, the exiled Lutheran Administrator of the Prince-Archbishoprics of Bremen and Lübeck conferred with Gustavus II Adolphus and a number of Lower Saxon princes in Leipzig, all of them troubled by Habsburg's growing influence wielded by virtue of the Edict of Restitution in a number of Northern German Lutheran prince-bishoprics. John Frederick speculated to regain the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and therefore in June/July 1631 officially allied himself with Sweden. For the war being John Frederick accepted Swedish overlordship, while Gustavus Adolphus promised to restitute the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen to its exiled elected Administrator.
In October, an army newly recruited by John Frederick started to reconquer the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and— supported by Swedish troops— to capture the neighboured Prince-Bishopric of Verden, de facto dismissing Verden's intermittent Catholic Prince-Bishop Francis of Wartenberg who ruled 1630–1631, and causing the flight of the Catholic clergy wherever they arrived. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden was then subjected to Swedish military administration.
The reconquest of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, helped by forces from Sweden and from the city of Bremen, was completed by May 10, 1632. John Frederick was back in his office, only to realise what Swedish supremacy meant. The Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen continuously suffered from billeting and alimenting soldiers. The relation between the Estates, who had to maintain administration under Catholic occupation, and the returned Administrator were difficult. The Estates preferred to directly negotiate with the occupants, this time the Swedes.
After John Frederick's death in 1634 Chapter and Estates regarded the dismissal of the Danish Prince Frederick as coadjutor bishop by Emperor Ferdinand II by virtue of the Edict of Restitution illegitimate. But the Swedish occupants had to be persuaded first, to accept Prince Frederick's succession. So Chapter and Estates ruled the Prince-Archbishopric until the conclusion of the negotiations with Sweden. In 1635, he succeeded as Lutheran Administrator Frederick II in the sees of Bremen and of Verden. But he had to render homage to the minor Queen Christina of Sweden.
In 1635–1636 the Estates and Frederick II agreed with Sweden upon the prince-bishoprics' neutrality. But this didn't last long, because in the Danish-Swedish Torstenson War of 1643–1645 the Swedes seized de facto rule in both prince-bishoprics. Christian IV of Denmark and Norway had to sign the Second Peace of Brömsebro on August 13, 1645, and a number of Danish territories, including the two Swedish occupied prince-bishoprics, were ceded into Swedish hands. So Frederick II had to resign as Administrator in both prince-bishoprics. He succeeded his late father on the Danish throne as Frederick III of Denmark in 1648.
With the impending enfeoffment of the military great power of Sweden with the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, as under negotiation for the Treaty of Westphalia, the city of Bremen feared falling under Swedish rule as well. Therefore, the city beseeched an imperial confirmation of its status of imperial immediacy from 1186 (Gelnhausen Privilege). In 1646 Emperor Ferdinand III granted the Free Imperial City of Bremen the requested confirmation (Diploma of Linz).
Transformation of prince-bishoprics into Bremen-Verden in 1648
The political entities of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden were transformed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 into the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden, however, colloquially the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, without changing the territories' status of imperial immediacy and imperial estate. Every imperial estate, thus Bremen and Verden separately, was represented in the Diet (German: Reichstag) of the Holy Roman Empire. The formerly Free Imperial City of Verden upon Aller was mediatised by the Peace of Westphalia and incorporated into the Duchy of Verden.
The two neighbouring territories could not unite in a real union without finding support by the Emperor and a majority among the imperial estates, which never happened. They were parts of two different imperial circles. From 1500 on the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and thus its successor Duchy of Bremen belonged to the Saxon Circle (later the Lower Saxon Circle; German: Sächsischer or later Niedersächsischer Kreis), a fiscal and military substructure of the Empire. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden and thus its successor, the Duchy of Verden, on the other hand, belonged to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle (German: Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Kreis, colloquially Westphalian Circle).
The Holy Roman Empire's taxes were collected and armies recruited and financed along the lines of the imperial circles. Bremen and Verden sent their representatives to the circle diet (Kreistag) of their respective imperial circle. The circle diet decided how to share the burden of the taxes to be levied among the member territories. Thus Bremen and Verden even conflicted on the border between each other— i.e. on who may levy taxes where— which were not solved, even though the two fiefs were ruled in personal union by Sweden.[3]
Emperor Ferdinand III at first enfeoffed the Queen regnant Christina of Sweden and her legal heirs with the duchies, as Sweden's reward from its participation in the Thirty Years' War. Bremen-Verden provided Sweden a strategic advantage, because it would participate with them in recruiting and financing armies in two imperial circles already covering all of the northern and north-western parts of the Holy Roman Empire, with Swedish Pomerania, a member in the Upper Saxon Circle, covering the Empire's North East.
Personal union with Sweden (1648–1712) and under Danish occupation (1712–1715)
The Swedes installed a new authority, Bremen-Verden's General Government (German: Brem- und verdensches Generalgouvernement), and chose Stade to be the new seat of government, with Bremervörde being the former Bremian capital, and Rotenburg upon Wümme being the former capital of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden.
The Swedish takeover in 1648 became a milestone for Bremen-Verden's interior constitution. Bremen-Verden turned from two elective monarchies into a hereditary double monarchy, with a personal rule of the prince-(arch)bishop or administrator exchanged for a viceregent government bound by Swedish instructions. The lax administrative structures were replaced with strictly hierarchic authorities with fixed competences. The co-rule of the Estates was curtailed.  Bremen and Verden declined from independent territories of imperial immediacy to a collectively governed dominion of a European great power with all the pertaining restrictions and opportunities.[4]
For her new fief, the Duchy of Bremen, the Queen regnant Christina of Sweden, ruling between 1644–1654, from 1648 on simultaneously Duchess of Bremen and Verden, sought after annexing the Free Imperial City of Bremen for it would be an important taxpayer. Earlier the city of Bremen had de facto participated in the Diets of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. The latter's successor state, the Swedish Duchy of Bremen, tried to regain the city, arguing the Treaty of Westphalia named the city of Bremen as part of the to be established Duchy.
As Duchess of Bremen and Verden Christina of Sweden installed her residence in the former Benedictine Zeven Convent. She abolished witch-burning in Bremen-Verden. In 1650 Charles Gustav, Hereditary Duke of the Palatinate of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg, since 1649 declared and 1650 recognised heir to the Swedish throne and thereby simultaneously to Bremen-Verden's dukedoms, came to Stade for interlocutions of unknown content. In 1650 the Lutheran clergy was subjected to a consistory, the new leading body after there was no Prince-Archbishop or Prince-Bishop anymore.
As to pastoring the tiny Catholic diaspora in Bremen-Verden the Holy See established apostolic vicariates (Vicariate of Nordic Missions, competent for Verden and Bremen since 1669 and 1670, respectively, until 1721, and again between 1780 and 1824, Vicariate of Upper and Lower Saxony, in charge between 1721 and 1780).
 Bremen-Verden's Swedish government tried to militarily defeat the Free Imperial City of Bremen, provoking two wars. In 1381 the city of Bremen had captured de facto rule in an area around Bederkesa and westwards thereof up to the lower Weser stream near Lehe (aka Bremerlehe). Early in 1653 Bremen-Verden's Swedish troops captured Lehe. In February 1654 the city of Bremen achieved that the Emperor granted it a seat and the vote in the Holy Roman Empire's Diet, thus accepting the city’s status as Free Imperial City.
Ferdinand III ordered Queen Christina of Sweden, who was his vassal as Duchess, to compensate the city for the damages caused and to restitute Lehe. When in March 1654, the city started to recruit soldiers in the area of Bederkesa, in order to prepare for further arbitrary acts by Swedish Bremen-Verden, the latter's Governor General, Hans Christoffer von Königsmarck enacted the First Bremian War (March to July 1654), arguing to act in self-defence. The Free Imperial City of Bremen had meanwhile urged Ferdinand III for support.

In July 1654, the Emperor ordered his vassal, as Duke, Charles X Gustav of Sweden, who had succeeded Christina after her abdication, to cease the conflict, which resulted in the First Stade Recess in November 1654. This treaty left the main issue, accepting the city of Bremen's imperial immediacy, unresolved. But the city agreed to pay tribute and levy taxes in favour of and cede its possessions around Bederkesa and Lehe to Swedish Bremen-Verden.
Sweden and Swedish Bremen-Verden protested sharply, when in December 1660 the city council of Bremen rendered homage to Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1663, the city gained seat and vote in the Imperial Diet, strongly opposed by the representatives of the Swedish Duchies of Bremen and Verden therein. In March 1664, the Swedish Diet came out in favour of waging war on the Free Imperial City of Bremen. Right after, Leopold I, busy with wars against the Ottoman Empire, had enfeoffed the minor King Charles XI of Sweden with Bremen-Verden, and with the neighbouring Brunswick and Lunenburg (Celle line) being paralysed by succession quarrels and France being not opposed, Sweden started from its Bremen-Verden the Second Bremian War (1665–1666).
The siege of the city by the Swedes under Carl Gustaf Wrangel brought Brandenburg-Prussia, Brunswick and Lunenburg (Celle), Denmark-Norway, Leopold I and the United Netherlands to the scene, all in favour of the city, with Brandenburgian, Brunswickian, Danish and Dutch troops at Bremen-Verden's borders ready to invade. So Sweden had to sign on 15 November 1666 the Treaty of Habenhausen, obliging it to destroy the fortresses built close to Bremen while banning the Free City of Bremen from sending its representative to the Diet of the Lower Saxon Circle. From Bremen-Verden, no further Swedish attempts to violently capture the city sprang out. Asked in 1700 what to do by Charles XII of Sweden, Bremen-Verden's General Government recommended to concede Bremen's status as a Free Imperial City.
 A Danish attempt to conquer Bremen-Verden during the Dano-Swedish War (1657–1658) failed. But the Danish threat to Bremen-Verden turned more virulent in 1667. In that year the local branch of the House of Oldenburg ruling in the County of Oldenburg, adjacent to Bremen-Verden's western border, died out with Anton Günther, Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. Therefore, Christian Albert, Duke of Schleswig and Holstein at Gottorp inherited the county, but ceded it to his father-in-law Frederick III, King of Denmark and Norway,[5] Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden from 1635 until he had been expelled by the Swedish occupants in 1645.
So the Danes ruled territories clung around Bremen-Verden at its northern and western border. Both powers entered into a dangerous competition for the exclusive opportunity to levy the lucrative tolls from ships heading for Hamburg and Bremen, with the former at that time being a ducal Bremian and the latter a comital Oldenburgian privilege.
After a stay in Hamburg (1666–1668) with the administrators of her Swedish estates, Diego Texeira de Sampayo and his son Manuel Teixeira, in order to reorganise her revenues, in 1668 Christina of Sweden (after her Catholic conversion in 1655 Christina Alexandra), stopped by in Stade on her way home to Rome.
The rise of Swedish centralisation and absolutism found its way partially into Bremen-Verden's practise. Bremen-Verden wasn't streamlined as to its jurisdiction and its military system, but the latter strictly subjected to Stockholms generalty. Especially in jurisdiction, Bremen-Verden's Estates maintained their stake. But Bremen-Verden's tax-levying department, almost entirely manned with Swedes and using Swedish as administrative language, was directly subordinated to the finance ministry in Stockholm.
From 1675 to 1676, troops from Brandenburg-Prussia, Lüneburg-Celle, Denmark-Norway, and the Prince-Bishopric of Münster captured Bremen-Verden in the course of a Reichsexekution during the Scanian War. The allied forces occupied Bremen-Verden, until they withdrew— under French influence— according to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 1679 and the favourable Treaty of Celle. By the latter Baron Ferdinand II of Fürstenberg, the Prince-Bishop of Münster, granted Sweden a loan amounting to 100,000 rixdollars, for which in return Swedish Bremen-Verden had to pawn its exclave of the town of Wildeshausen and the pertaining adjacence to the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. In the 1690s, the usual practise, that tax laws had a certain maturity, was abolished, so that the Swedish and Bremen-Verden's Estates had no chance any more to demand any concessions in return for a renewal of tax laws.
As in Sweden proper, the constitutional and administrative bodies in the Swedish dominions gradually lost de facto importance due to ever growing centralisation. Bremen-Verden's Estates lost more and more influence, they less and less often convened. After 1692, the estates' say had almost vanished.[6] This led to considerable unease among the Estates, so that in May 1694 reprensentatives of the General Government of Bremen-Verden and the Estates met at the former convent of Zeven to confer on the status of the Duchies.
In 1700, Bremen-Verden introduced— like all Protestant territories of imperial immediacy— the Improved Calendar, as it was called by Protestants, in order not to mention the name of Pope Gregory XIII. So Sunday, the 18 February of Old Style was followed by Monday, the 1 March New Style, while Sweden proper only followed suit in 1753.
In 1712, in the course of the Great Northern War (1700–1721) against the Swedish supremacy in the Baltic, Denmark-Norway occupied plague stricken Bremen-Verden.
Personal union with Great Britain and Hanover (1715–1803)
In 1715, Frederick IV of Denmark, still fighting in the Great Northern War, gained a new ally in the anti-Swedish coalition, George I, King of Great Britain since 1714, and Elector of Hanover. In return for George I's aid, Denmark-Norway sold to him Bremen-Verden, which it kept under occupation since 1712. So the Prince-Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg, or colloquially called after its capital, the Electorate of Hanover; (German: Kurfürstentum Braunschweig und Lüneburg, or Kurhannover) took de facto possession of Bremen-Verden and stipulated in the Treaty of Stockholm of 1719, settling the war with Sweden, to compensate the latter by 1 million rixdollars.
In 1728, Emperor Charles VI enfeoffed George II Augustus, who in 1727 had succeeded his father George I Louis, with the reverted fief of Saxe-Lauenburg. By a redeployment of Hanoverian territories in 1731, Bremen-Verden was conveyed the administration of the neighboured Land of Hadeln at the Northern tip of Bremen-Verden, since 1180 an exclave, first of the younger Duchy of Saxony and from 1296 on of the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg. It took George II until 1733 to get the Emperor to also enfeoff him with the Duchies of Bremen and Verden.
At both feoffments George II of Great Britain swore that he would respect the existing privileges and constitutions of the Estates in Bremen-Verden and in Hadeln, thus confirming 400-year-old traditions of Estate participation in their governments. Being a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and represented in its Diet by virtue of his Electorate of Hanover, George II Augustus didn't bother about Bremen-Verden's status of imperial estate.
 Since Bremen-Verden had turned Hanoverian, it never again sent its own representatives to a Diet.
In 1730, Bremen-Verden's government was reorganised and retitled as Royal British and Electoral Brunswick-Lunenburgian Privy Council for Governing the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, which colloquially turned into the "Royal Government".[7] Stade remained the capital. In Hanover, the electoral capital, the Privy Council of Hanover installed a new ministry in charge of the Imperial Estates ruled in personal union by the electors, it was called the Department of Bremen-Verden, Hadeln, Lauenburg and Bentheim.
 In the course of the Anglo-French and Indian War (1754–1763) in the North American colonies, Britain feared a French Invasion of Hanover. Thus George II formed an alliance with his cousin Frederick II of Brandenburg-Prussia, combining the North American conflict with the Austro–Brandenburg-Prussian Third Silesian or Seven Years’ War (1756–1763).
In the summer of 1757, the French invaders defeated Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, son of George II and leading the Anglo-Hanoverian army. The French troops drove him and his army into remote Bremen-Verden, where in the former convent of Zeven he had to capitulate on September 18 with the Convention of Klosterzeven. But King George II denied his recognition of the convention. In the following year, the British army, supported by troops from Brandenburg-Prussia, Hesse-Kassel and the Principality of Brunswick and Lunenburg (Wolfenbüttel) expelled again the occupants. Bremen-Verden remained unaffected for the rest of the war and after its end peace prevailed until the French Revolutionary Wars started.
The War of the First Coalition against France (1793–1797) with Britain and the Hanover Electorate and other war allies forming the coalition, didn't affect Bremen-Verden's territory, since the French First Republic was fighting on several fronts, even on its own territory. But also in Bremen-Verden men were drafted in order to recruit the 16,000 Hanoverian soldiers fighting in the Low Countries under British command against Revolutionary France. In 1795, the Holy Roman Empire declared its neutrality, which of course included the British Electorate of Hanover, and a peace treaty with France was under negotiation until it failed in 1799.
By this time the War of the Second Coalition against France (1799–1802) started and Napoléon Bonaparte urged Brandenburg-Prussia to occupy Hanover. In the Treaty of Basel of 1795 which Brandenburg-Prussia and France had stipulated, Brandenburg-Prussia would ensure the neutrality of the Holy Roman Empire in all the latter's territories north the demarcation line of the river Main, including Hanover. To this end also Hanover had to provide troops for the so-called demarcation army maintaining the armed neutrality. But in 1801, 24,000 Prussian soldiers invaded Hanover, which surrendered without a fight.
In April 1801, Brandenburg-Prussian troops arrived in Bremen-Verden's capital of Stade and stayed there until October of the same year. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland first ignored Brandenburg-Prussia's hostility, but when Brandenburg-Prussia joined the pro-French coalition of armed 'neutral' powers such as Denmark-Norway and the Russian Empire, Britain started to capture Brandenburg-Prussian sea vessels. After the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, the coalition fell apart and Brandenburg-Prussia withdrew its troops.
Napoleonic wars (1803–1813)
After Britain— without any ally— had declared war on France on May 18, 1803, French troops invaded the Electorate of Hanover on May 26 and installed— among others— two occupation companies in Bremen-Verden's capital Stade on June 18. According to the Convention of Artlenburg from July 5, 1803, confirming the military defeat of Hanover, the Hanoverian army was disarmed and its horses and ammunitions were handed over to the French. The Privy Council of Hanover, with minister Friedrich Franz Dieterich von Bremer holding up the Hanoverian stake, fled to the trans-Elbian Hanoverian territory of Saxe-Lauenburg. In the summer of 1803, the French occupants raised their first war contribution with 21,165 rixdollars alone levied in Bremen-Verden. In 1803, the Duchy of Bremen had 180,000 inhabitants and an area of 5,325.4 square kilometres, the Duchy of Verden 1,359.7 square kilometres and 20,000 inhabitants in 1806, while Hadeln comprised 311.6 square kilometres and had about 14,000 inhabitants.[8]
In the autumn of 1805, at the beginning of the War of the Third Coalition against France (1805–1806) the French occupational troops left Hanover in a campaign against the Archduchy of Austria. British, Swedish and Russian coalition forces captured Hanover, including Bremen-Verden. In December, the First French Empire, since 1804 France's new form of government, ceded Hanover, which it didn't hold anymore, to Brandenburg-Prussia, which captured it early in 1806. But when the Kingdom of Prussia,[9] after it turned against France, was defeated in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (November 11, 1806), France recaptured Hanover, including Bremen-Verden.
In 1807 Bremen-Verden was incorporated into the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia, forming its Département Nord, only to be annexed by the French Empire in 1810, forming the Arrondissement Stade in the Département Bouches-de-l'Elbe and several cantons in the Département Bouches-du-Weser.[10]
From Restitution to incorporation into Hanover in 1823
In 1813, the Duchies of Bremen and Verden were restored to the Electorate of Hanover, which transformed into the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814. Even though Bremen-Verden's status as a territory of imperial immediacy had become void with the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Duchies were not right away incorporated in a real union into the Hanoverian state. Since the Hanoverian monarchs had moved to London, Hanover had become a state of very conservative and backward rule, with a local government recruited from local aristocrats adding much to the preservation of outdated structures. The administrative union with Hanover only followed in 1823, when a local government reform united Bremen-Verden and Hadeln to form the High-Bailiwick of Stade, administered according to unitarian modern standards, thereby doing away with various traditional government forms of Bremen, Verden and Hadeln.
For the further history see Stade Region (1823–1977), which emerged by the establishment of the High-Bailiwick of Stade in 1823, comprising the territories of the former Duchies of Bremen and Verden and the Land of Hadeln.
List of rulers (1648–1823)
For the consorts see List of consorts of Bremen-Verden.

Heads of government (1648–1823)
Governors-General under Swedish Rule (1646/1648–1712)

1646–1663 Hans Christoffer Königsmarck (*1600–†1663)
1663–1666 Gustav Evertsson Horn (*1614–†1666)
1668–1693 Henrik Horn (*1618–†1693), de facto interrupted 1676–1679 by Brandenburg-Prussian and Danish occupation in the course of the Scanian War
1693–1693 Erik Dahlbergh (*1625–†1703)
vacancy
1696–1698 Jürgen Mellin (*1633–†1713)
1698–1710 Nils Carlsson Gyllenstierna af Fogelvik (*1648–†1720)
1711–1712 Mauritz Vellingk (*1651–†1727)
vacancy due to Danish occupation
Presidents of the government under Hanoverian Rule (1715–1807, 1813–1823)
1715–1716 Cord Plato von Schloen, called Gehle (*1661–†1723)
1716–1730 Johann Friedrich von Staffhorst (*1653–†1730)
vacancy
From 1739 on the presidents were in personal union reeves (German: Greve or Gräfe) of the Land of Hadeln:
1739–1759 Philipp Adolf von Münchhausen, ranked state minister, also appointed head of the Hanoverian Chancery (German: Deutsche Kanzlei) in London
1759–1782 Bodo Friedrich von Bodenhausen (*1719–†?), ranked state minister in 1769
1782–1798 Gotthelf Dietrich von Ende (*1726–†1798)
vacancy
1800–1810 Christian Ludwig von Hake (*1745–†1818), ranked state minister, name giving for the species Hakea
vacancy due to French annexation
1813–1823 Engelbert Johann von Marschalck (*1766–†1845), Bremen-Verden's Estates elected him president of the provisional government after the French retreat. In 1823 he became the first High-Bailiff of Stade Region, the merely administrative entity succeeding Bremen-Verden's dissolution in 1823.
Source[14]
Presidents of the government under Westphalian Rule (1807–1810)
1800–1810 Christian Ludwig von Hake (*1745–†1818)
1810, April–December Johann Julius Conrad von Schlütter (*1749–†1827)
Nobility of Bremen
Luneberg Mushard, Bremisch- und Verdischer Ritter-Sahl Oder Denckmahl Der Uhralten Berühmten Hoch-adelichen Geschlechter Insonderheit der Hochlöblichen Ritterschafft In Denen Hertzogthümern Bremen und Verden. 1720

Notable people
A list of interesting people whose birth, death, residence or activity took place in Bremen-Verden.
Heinrich Böse (*1783–†1867), Bremian and Danish and West Indian sugar manufacturer, politician, anti-Napoléonic freedom fighter
Claus von der Decken (born in Rittershausen, today part of Balje; *1742–†1826), Hanoverian administrator, active in the restitution of Bremen-Verden to the Electorate of Hanover, Hanoverian minister
Diedrich von Düring (*1611–†1668), military
Alexander Erskein (also Alexander von Esken; *1598–†1656), diplomat, president of Swedish Bremen-Verden's government
Gustav Evertsson Horn (*1614–†1666), politician, military, governor-general of Bremen-Verden
Henrik Henriksson Horn (*1618–†1693), politician, military, governor-general of Bremen-Verden
Johann Friedrich Andreas Huth (*1777–†1864), merchant and merchant banker of Frederick Andrew Huth & Co. in London, supplying Wellington's armed forces with bread, donator of the library Friedrich-Huth-Bibliothek,[15] in Harsefeld, Bremen-Verden, where he grew up
Hans Christoffer von Königsmarck, military entrepreneur, general and strategist, governor-general of Bremen-Verden, grandfather of the next
Maria Aurora von Königsmarck (born in Stade; *1662–†1728), grandchild of the former, Lutheran provostess of the Quedlinburg Abbey, mistress of Augustus the Strong
Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck (born in Stade; *1665–†1694), brother of the former, military, lover of Duchess Sophia Dorothea of Celle.
Vincent Lübeck (born in Padingbüttel, near Cuxhaven; *1654–†1740), organist, composer, organ and music pedagogue, organist at the Ss. Cosmae et Damiani Lutheran Church in Stade (1675–1702)
Christoph Meiners (born in Warstade; *1747–†1810), philosopher, historian, ethnologist
Luneberg Mushard, teacher and historian, vice-rector at the Gymnasium Athenaeum in Stade, father of the next
Martin Mushard (*1699–†1770), Lutheran pastor in Geestendorf (today a part of Bremerhaven), archeologist, prehistorian, son of the former
Daniel Nicolai (since 1664, ennobled as von Greiffencrantz; *1613–†1670), chancellor of Swedish Bremen-Verden
Carsten Niebuhr (*1733–†1815), mathematician, cartographer, and explorer in Danish service
Johann Hinrich Pratje (born in Horneburg; *1710–†1791), general superintendent of the Lutheran consistory of Bremen-Verden proper (without Land of Hadeln) in Stade, historian
Esaias von Pufendorf (*1628–†1689), diplomat, chancellor of Swedish Bremen-Verden's government
Michael Richey (*1678–†1761), polyhistor, professor of history and Greek language, poet, rector at the Gymnasium Athenaeum in Stade
Arp Schnitger (also Schnitker; *1648–†1719), organ constructor, built, among others, the organs in the Lutheran churches of St. Pancratius in Neuenfelde (Altes Land) and of Ss. Cosmae et Damiani in Stade
Johann Hieronymus Schroeter (*1745–†1816), lawyer, official astronomer, since 1781 bailiff (Amtmann) in Lilienthal, where he erected the second biggest telescope in the world at that time (1793), from 1799 on co-sponsored by George III of the United Kingdom, in personal union Duke of Bremen
Dietrich von Stade (the Elder) (*1637–†1718), Lutheran consistorial secretary, archivist, Germanist, father of the next
Dietrich von Stade (the Younger) (*1674–†1725), archivist, secretary of Swedish Bremen-Verden's government, secretary of the directorate of the Lower Saxon Circle, comitial emissary at the Reichstag in Regensburg, son of the former
Johann Hinrich Voß (*1751–†1826), philologist, teacher, translator of Homer into German, lyricist, editor, rector of the Latin School in Otterndorf (1778–1782)
Anton Christian Wedekind (*1763–†1845), administrator, jurist, historian, especially of North Western German history including the time when Bremen-Verden was annexed as the French départements Bouches-de-l'Elbe and Bouches-du-Weser.
Source: Lebensläufe zwischen Elbe und Weser: Ein biographisches Lexikon[16]
See also
Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen
Prince-Bishopric of Verden
Bremen-Verden Campaign
Gustav Gustavsson af Vasaborg
Stade Region
Swedish Pomerania
Wismar
Notes

Coordinates: