Habsburg or Hapsburg
Royal dynasty of Austria-Hungary

The name comes from the castle of Habichtsburg (Hawk's Castle) on the River Aare in the Upper Rhine region (now in Switzerland), first built in the 11th century. The first Count of Habsburg was Werner I (d.1096). His descendant, Count Rudolf IV, was elected King of Germany (1273) as Rudolf I, de facto the first Habsburg emperor although he was never anointed by the pope. The first recognized emperor was Frederick III of Germany, crowned in 1452. From that time, with one interruption from 1742 to 1745, the imperial Crown was a family possession until the empire was dissolved in 1806. The zenith of Habsburg power was reached under the Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain) who presided over an empire stretching from the Danube to the Caribbean. After his death the House of Habsburg divided into two lines; the Spanish line died with Charles II of Spain (1700), but the Austrian line continued until the abdication of Charles (1887-1922), the last Habsburg-Lorraine emperor of Austria and Hungary, in 1918.