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Prussia (/ˈprʌʃə/; German: Preußen, pronounced [ˈpʁɔʏsn̩] ( listen), Old Prussian: Prūsa or Prūsija) was a series of countries. Originally it was a historically prominent German state that originated in 1525. Mostly, the name is used for the Kingdom of Prussia, which was in northern Europe. It was part of Germany for a while, and it included land in Poland, France, and Lithuania. The name "Prussian" has had a lot of different meanings in the past and now:

• The land of the Baltic Prussians (today parts of southern Lithuania, Kaliningrad, and north-eastern Poland);
• The lands of the Teutonic Knights (a group of religious soldiers in the 12th century);
• Part of the lands of the Polish Crown, Royal Prussia;
• A fief of the Polish Crown, Ducal Prussia, later under control of the Hohenzollern family of Brandenburg;
• All Hohenzollern land, inside or outside Germany;
• An independent Kingdom, from the 17th century until 1871;
• The largest part of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and Nazi Germany from 1871 to 1945.