Duke of Jülich-Berg

United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg
Vereinigte Herzogtümer Jülich-Kleve-Berg (de) Verenigde Hertogdommen Gulik-Kleef-Berg (nl)
State of the Holy Roman Empire
1521–1614
Coat of arms
Map of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle around 1560, United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg highlighted in red
Capital		Düsseldorf
Languages		South Guelderish, Limburgish
Government		Principality
Historical era		Middle Ages
•	Cleves and Mark     inherited by     Duke of Jülich-Berg	1521
•	Partitioned at Xanten	12 November 1614
Preceded by Succeeded by Duchy of Berg Duchy of Cleves Duchy of Jülich County of Mark County of Ravensberg Margraviate of Brandenburg Palatinate-Neuburg
Today part of		Germany  Netherlands

Coat of arms

Jülich-Cleves-Berg was the name of two former territories across the modern German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the modern Dutch province of Gelderland. From 1521 to 1666, the territory was a combination of states in personal union, all reichsfrei territories of the Holy Roman Empire. The name was resurrected after the Congress of Vienna for a short-lived province of the Kingdom of Prussia between 1815 and 1822.

The United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg was a combination of states of the Holy Roman Empire. The duchies of Jülich and Berg united in 1423. Nearly a century later, in 1521, these two duchies, along with the county of Ravensberg, fell extinct, with only the last duke's daughter Maria von Geldern left to inherit; under Salic law, women could only hold property through a husband or guardian, so the territories passed to her husband — and distant relative — John III, Duke of Cleves and Mark as a result of their strategic marriage in 1509. These united duchies controlled most of the present-day North Rhine-Westphalia that was not within the ecclesiastical territories of Electoral Cologne and Münster.