Map of Europe at the Peace of Westphalia, 1648
This map illustrates the situation in Europe following the Peace of Westphalia, signed in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster between May and October 1648. The treaties brought an end to two major conflicts: the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which had begun as a religious and dynastic struggle in the Holy Roman Empire and evolved into a wider European conflict, and the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648), effectively the Dutch War of Independence. The Peace of Westphalia marked Spain’s formal recognition of Dutch independence and served to recalibrate power balances between rival European states, particularly France and the Habsburgs.
Negotiated among 109 delegations, the peace involved the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Sweden, but excluded powers such as Poland, Russia, England, and the Ottoman Empire. The resulting treaties not only redrew territorial boundaries and strengthened the autonomy of imperial Estates but also curbed the Habsburg ambition of a universal monarchy. Crucially, the Peace of Westphalia laid the groundwork for the modern international order, advancing principles of secular governance, religious tolerance, national self-determination, and sovereign statehood, chipping away at hereditary monarchies rooted in feudal patronage across a fragmented European landscape.
