Crown prince

A crown prince or crown princess is the heir apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The wife of a crown prince is also titled crown princess.

Description

The term is now borne as a title mainly in Asia, Scandinavia, and the Middle East; but it may also be used generically to refer to the person or position of the heir apparent in other kingdoms. However, heirs apparent to non-imperial and non-royal monarchies (i.e., wherein the hereditary sovereign holds a title below that of king/queen, e.g., grand duke or prince), crown prince is not used as a title, although it is sometimes used as a synonym for heir apparent.

In Europe, where primogeniture governs succession to all monarchies except those of the Papacy and Andorra, the eldest son (Spain) or eldest child (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) of the current monarch fills the role of crown prince or princess, depending upon whether females of the dynasty enjoy personal succession rights. The eldest living child of a monarch is sometimes not the heir apparent or crown prince, because that position can be held by a descendant of a deceased older child who, by "right of representation", inherits the same place in the line of succession that would be held by the ancestor if he or she were still living (e.g., Carl Gustaf, Duke of Jämtland, was Crown Prince of Sweden from 1950 to 1973, as the senior grandson by male primogeniture of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, although the former Prince Sigvard, Duke of Uppland, was Gustaf VI Adolf's eldest living son, and Prince Bertil, Duke of Halland, his eldest living dynastic son during those years).

Taizi

Taizi (Chinese: 太子, p tàizǐ, lit. "Supreme Son") was the title of the crown prince of imperial China.

Succession

Traditional Confucian political theory favored strict agnatic primogeniture, with younger sons displaying filial obedience to the eldest upon the passing of the father. This rather straightforward system was somewhat complicated by polygamy: since later wives were subordinated to the first, their children – even when born first – were likewise subordinated to hers.

Following Lu Gu's conversion of Liu Bang to Confucianism in the early 1st century BC, Chinese dynasties have observed it in theory though not always in practice. Liu Bang himself began to favor a later concubine to his primary empress and doubt the competence of his heir Liu Ying. Even worse conflicts could occur when invaders – previously observing their own rules of inheritance – began to Sinify, as happened to the 10th-century Liao dynasty.

Under the Ming Dynasty, the traditional Confucian principles of succession were upheld by the Hongwu Emperor's Instructions of the Ancestor of the August Ming. These presented a grave problem when his eldest son died early, leaving a power struggle between a sheltered teenage grandson and his many experienced and well-armed uncles. One of these, the Prince of Yan, eventually overthrew his nephew under the pretense of saving him from ill counsel. His own legitimacy was precariously established: a charred body was procured from the ruins of Nanjing and proclaimed to be the accidentally-killed emperor; the nephew's reign was then condemned and delegitimized and the surviving son kept imprisoned and single; and imperial records were falsified to establish the Prince of Yan as his father's favorite and as a son of the primary wife, giving him primacy over his other brothers.

List of heirs to the Swedish throne

This page is a list of heirs to the Swedish throne. The list includes all individuals who were considered to inherit the throne of the Kingdom of Sweden, either as heir apparent or as heir presumptive, since the accession of the House of Holstein-Gottorp on 25 March 1751. Those who succeeded as King of Sweden are shown in bold.

In 1809 a coup d'état against King Gustav IV replaced him with his uncle Karl XIII. As the new king was childless, he and the ruling government arranged for the adoption of an heir from another royal house to succeed him.

See also

References

Sweden

Coordinates: 62°N 15°E / 62°N 15°E / 62; 15

Sweden (ⁱ/ˈswiːdən/ SWEE-dən; Swedish: Sverige [ˈsvæːrjə]  listen ), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish:  Konungariket Sverige ), is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund. At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of over 9.8 million. Sweden consequently has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre (54/sq mi), with the highest concentration in the southern half of the country. Approximately 85% of the population lives in urban areas. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia.

Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages. In the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, beginning with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union.

Å, Sweden

Å is a small village and a parish in Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden. It has a population of about 200.

There are also at least 12 other places in Sweden called Å, most of them only a farm or a few houses. Å is pronounced "Aw", or phonetically [o:].

Å, which means stream or small river, is a contender for the title of shortest place-name in the world — although other places named Å as well as Ö and Y can make the same claim. As a consequence, many tourists have ventured to the village for the sole purpose of either taking photos of or stealing the place-name sign.

The parish of Å is rich in ancient remains, of which the oldest date from the Stone Age.

Coordinates: 58°29′47″N 16°30′06″E / 58.49638°N 16.50166°E / 58.49638; 16.50166

Name of Sweden

The name of Sweden (Swedish Sverige [ˈsvær.jə]  listen ) is ultimately derived from the ethnonym of the Swedes. The English name was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland.

The Old English name of Sweden was Sweoland or Sweorice, land or realm of the Sweonas, The Germanic tribes of the Sviar (Old Norse Svíþjóð). The name of the Sviar itself is derived from a Proto-Norse *Swihoniz, presumably a self-designation containing the Germanic reflexive *swe- "one's own, self".

Sweden

The modern English name Sweden is exceptional in being loaned from Dutch. Before the gradual introduction of Sweden in the 17th century, English used Swedeland.

It is based on Middle Dutch Zweden, the Dutch name of Sweden, and in origin the dative plural of Zwede "Swede". It has been in use in English from about 1600, first recorded in Scottish Swethin, Swadne. Country names based on a dative plural in -n became productive in German and Dutch in the 15th century; compare German Italien "Italy", Spanien "Spain", Rumänien "Romania", Ungarn "Hungary".