Editing East Prussia (section)

=== German Empire ===
[[File:Krönungszug Königsberg (1861).JPG|thumb|left|Coronation of [[William I, German Emperor|William I]] as [[King of Prussia]] at [[Königsberg Castle]] in 1861]]
From 1824 to 1878, East Prussia was combined with West Prussia to form the [[Province of Prussia]], after which they were reestablished as separate provinces. Along with the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, East Prussia became part of the [[German Empire]] during the [[unification of Germany]] in 1871.

From 1885 to 1890 [[Berlin]]'s population grew by 20%, [[Brandenburg]] and the [[Rhineland]] gained 8.5%, [[Westphalia]] 10%, while East Prussia lost 0.07% and West Prussia 0.86%. This stagnancy in population despite a high birth surplus in eastern Germany was because many people from the East Prussian countryside moved westward to seek work in the expanding industrial centres of the [[Ruhr Area]] and Berlin (see ''[[Ostflucht]]'').
[[File:Ostpreussen 1890.jpg|thumb|upright|Map of the province of East Prussia in 1890]]

The population of the province in 1900 was 1,996,626 people, with a religious makeup of 1,698,465 [[Protestants]], 269,196 [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholics]], and 13,877 Jews. The [[Low Prussian]] dialect predominated in East Prussia, although [[High Prussian]] was spoken in [[Warmia]]. The numbers of [[Masurians]], [[Kursenieki]] and [[Prussian Lithuanians]] decreased over time due to the process of [[Germanization]]. The Polish-speaking population concentrated in the south of the province ([[Masuria]] and Warmia) and all German geographic atlases at the start of 20th century showed the southern part of East Prussia as Polish with the number of Polish-speakers estimated at the time to be 300,000.<ref>Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-Century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, and Analysis. Piotr Eberhardt,page 166, 2003 M E Sharpe Inc</ref> [[Kursenieki]] inhabited the areas around the Curonian lagoon, while Lithuanian-speaking Prussians concentrated in the northeast in ([[Lithuania Minor]]). The [[Old Prussians|Old Prussian ethnic group]] became completely Germanized over time and the [[Old Prussian language]] died out in the 18th century.