Which 1648 agreements are commonly credited with ending the Thirty Years’ War in Europe?

The Peace of Westphalia refers to the 1648 agreements commonly credited with ending the Thirty Years’ War in Europe.

The settlement consisted chiefly of the Peace of Münster and the Peace of Osnabrück, negotiated in the Westphalian cities of Münster and Osnabrück. The Thirty Years’ War had begun in 1618 in the Holy Roman Empire and developed into a wider conflict involving major European powers and religious, dynastic, and territorial interests.

The agreements recognized important territorial changes, strengthened the independence of the Dutch Republic and Swiss Confederacy, and confirmed arrangements concerning Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism within the empire. France gained influence and Sweden received territorial concessions around the Baltic and North Sea.

Historians often connect Westphalia with the modern idea of state sovereignty, but that interpretation can oversimplify the settlement. The Holy Roman Empire continued to exist, and diplomacy did not suddenly create a world of fully modern nation-states. Still, the agreements became a landmark in the history of European international relations.