Stade, a town of Germany in the Prussian province of Hanover, situated on the navigable Schwinge, 3a m. above its confluence with the Elbe, 20 m. N.W. of Hamburg on the railway to Cuxhaven. Pop. (1905), 10,837. It carries on a number of small manufactures and has some shipping trade, chiefly with Hamburg, but the rise of Harburg has deposed it from its former position as the chief port of Hanover. In the neighbourhood are deposits of gypsum and salt. The fortifications, erected in 1 755 and strengthened in 1816, were demolished in 1882.
According to the legend, Stade was the oldest town of the Saxons and was built in 321 B.C. Historically it cannot be traced farther back than the 10th century, when it was the capital of a line of counts. In the 13th century it passed to the archbishopric of Bremen. Subsequently entering the Hanseatic League, it rose to some commercial importance.' In 1648 Stade became the capital of the principality of Bremen under the Swedes; and in 1719 it was ceded to Hanover, the fate of which it has since shared. The Prussians occupied it without resistance in 1866.
See Jobelmann and Wittpennig, Geschichte der Stadt Stade (Stade, 1898).
