Real union

This article is about a political concept. For the Spanish football club, see Real Unión.

Real union is a union of two or more states, which share some state institutions as in contrast to personal unions; however they are not as unified as states in a political union. It has developed from personal union and usually was limited to monarchies.

Unlike the personal union, the real one almost exclusively brought about a downfall of sovereignty of the politically weaker constituent. That was the case with Lithuania and Scotland which came under the influence of much bigger and stronger neighbors, Poland and England respectively, with whom each of them had shared a personal union previously. Sometimes, however, a real union came after a period of a political one. The most notable example of such a move is the Kingdom of Hungary which achieved the status of an equal partner to Austria in the Habsburg Empire following 1867.

Historical examples:

• Kalmar Union (1397–1524)
• Lublin Union (1569)
• German Empire and Prussia between 1871 and 1918: The King of Prussia as an institution also was head of the empire, there under the title "German Emperor"
• Congress Poland and the Russian Tsardom (1832-1867)
• Austria-Hungary (1867−1918)