STADE  , a

town of Germany in the Prussian province of Hanover, situated on the navigable Schwinge, 31 M. above its confluence with the Elbe, 20 M . N.W. of Hamburg on the railway to Cuxhaven . Pop . (1905), 10,837 . It carries on a number of small manufactures and has some shipping trade, chiefly with Hamburg, but the rise of Harburg has deposed it from its former position as the chief port of Hanover . In the neighbourhood are deposits of gypsum and salt . The fortifications, erected in 1755 and strengthened in 1816, were demolished in 1882 . According to the legend, Stade was the oldest town of the Saxons and was built in 321 B.C . Historically it cannot be traced farther back than the loth century, when it was the capital of a line of counts . In the 13th century it passed to the arch-bishopric of Bremen . Subsequently entering the Hanseatic League, it rose to some commercial importance.' In 1648 Stade became the capital of the principality of Bremen under the Swedes; and in 1719 it was ceded to Hanover, the fate of which it has since shared . The Prussians occupied it without resistance in 1866 .

See Jobelmann and Wittpennig, Geschichte der Stadt Stade (Stade, 1898) .