A realm (pronunciation: Brit. , Amer. ) is the dominion of a monarch: king, queen, emperor, empress, or other sovereign ruler.

The Old French word reaume, modern French royaume, was the word first adopted in English; the fixed modern spelling does not appear until the beginning of the 17th century. The word supposedly derives from medieval Latin regalimen, from regalis, of or belonging to a rex, (king).^[1]

"Realm" is particularly used for those states whose name includes the word kingdom (for example, the United Kingdom), to avoid clumsy repetition of the word in a sentence (for example, "The Queen's realm, the United Kingdom..."). It is also useful to describe those countries whose monarchs are called something other than "king" or "queen"; for example, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a realm but not a kingdom since its monarch holds the title Grand Duke rather than King.

"Realm" is also frequently used to refer to territories that are "under" a monarch, yet are not a physical part of his or her "kingdom" (for example, the various Commonwealth Realms under the British Crown, in Realm of Sweden, or to Holstein, which until the Second War of Schleswig was an important part of the Danish King's realm stretching to the border of Hamburg, although not a part of the Danish Kingdom). This Similarly, the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau are considered parts of the Realm of New Zealand, although they are not part of New Zealand proper. Likewise, the Faroe Islands and Greenland remain parts of the Danish Realm.

Realm directly translates into reich in German, though the word reich is often used as a short form for 'kingdom' (Königreich) and especially 'empire' (Kaiserreich). The German suffix -reich is only used for realms headed by a crowned monarch (or if they used to be, e.g. Frankreich for France). Territories ruled by non-crowned rulers end in the suffix -tum (engl.: -dom), i.e. Herzogtum (dukedom), Fürstentum (principality).

See also

• Reich

References

RFC2617

Footnotes

1. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article "Realm"