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The Branches of the House of Hohenzollern

The House of Hohenzollern divided early. The Franconian line became the Brandenburg-Prussian royal house. The Swabian line stayed at the family's ancestral seat and later gave Romania its kings [1][2]. This page sets out those branches using only the sources listed at the end. For the house's history, see our House of Hohenzollern page. For the head of the Prussian line, see our head-of-house page.

The 1214 division

The family is first recorded in 1061, in the chronicle of Berthold of Reichenau [2][3]. In 1192 Count Frederick III of Zollern gained the Burgraviate of Nuremberg by marriage. In 1214 his sons divided the inheritance, creating the two main lines that still exist today [2]:

• the Swabian line, which kept Zollern and its lands;
• the Franconian line, which held Nuremberg and later became the Brandenburg-Prussian line.

The Franconian line: Nuremberg, Brandenburg and Prussia

The Franconian Hohenzollerns first added smaller Franconian lands, including Ansbach in 1331 and Kulmbach in 1340 [1]. Burgrave Frederick VI of Nuremberg was made Margrave of Brandenburg by Emperor Sigismund in 1415 and Elector two years later [2]. Members of the line became Dukes of Prussia in 1525 [1].

The marriage of Elector John Sigismund to Anna of Prussia in 1618 brought Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia together [2]. Elector Frederick III crowned himself King in Prussia in 1701 [1][2]. From 1871 to 1918 the line's head was also German Emperor [1][2].

The Franconian line itself produced several sub-lines. Wikipedia lists among them [1]:

• the principalities of Ansbach and Kulmbach/Bayreuth (1398–1791), ruled by Franconian margraves of the house;
• the short-lived Brandenburg-Küstrin, set up as a secundogeniture;
• Brandenburg-Schwedt (1688–1788), recognised as a branch of the dynasty but subordinate to the electors and never an independent principality.

The Swabian lines

After the 1214 division, Count Frederick IV took the Swabian lands and Zollern Castle [2]. The family gained Haigerloch by exchange in 1497 and was enfeoffed with Sigmaringen and Veringen in 1535 [2]. From 1576 there were three Swabian lines [2]:

After the revolution of 1848–49, both princes abdicated in favour of King Frederick William IV of Prussia, and Hohenzollern became Prussian [2]. Until 1849 the Swabian branch had ruled the principalities of Hechingen and Sigmaringen [1]. Wikipedia's infobox gives separate princely titles for Hechingen and Sigmaringen before 1869 and a single title, "Prince of Hohenzollern", after 1869 [1].

Today the Swabian line is headed by Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzollern (born 1952), who runs Sigmaringen Castle and the Fürst von Hohenzollern group of companies [2].

The Romanian line

The Romanian royal house came from the Sigmaringen line. Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1811–1885), Prussian Minister-President from 1858, was the father of Karl (1839–1914). Karl founded the Romanian royal house as Carol I [2]. He was followed by his nephew Ferdinand, then Carol II and Michael (1921–2017) [2]. The Swabian branch ruled Romania from 1866 to 1947 [1].

On 10 May 2011, King Michael I signed a document, dated at the Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest [6], that ended "all dynastic ties" between the Royal House of Romania and the princely House of Hohenzollern [4]. Two changes followed [4]:

• the house would no longer be called "Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen", only the Royal House of Romania;
• no member of the Romanian royal family would bear any title conferred by a head of the princely House of Hohenzollern.

Michael cited the decision of King Ferdinand I in 1921 to give the dynasty a national and independent character, and the Fundamental Rules of the Royal Family adopted on 30 December 2007 [4]. Since 2011, then, the Romanian royal family no longer counts itself a branch of the Hohenzollerns, although its kings from Carol I to Michael belonged to the Sigmaringen line [2][4].

The branches today

The two German branches still share the ancestral seat in tradition. Hohenzollern Castle, near Hechingen, was owned jointly until Karl Friedrich transferred his one-third share to Georg Friedrich, who has been its sole owner since 1 January 2026 [2][5].

Licence: contains material adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). This article is released under the same licence. Primary and institutional sources are summarised or briefly quoted.