SAGAN, a manufacturing town in Prussian Silesia, situated on the Bober, a tributary of the Oder, lies 60 miles south-south-east of Frankfort-on-the-Oder and 102 miles south-east of Berlin. It contains the handsome palace of the dukes of Sagan, several interesting churches, a Roman Catholic gymnasium, and a large Gothic hospital, named after its founder, the duchess Dorothea (1793-1862). The leading industry of the town is cloth-weaving, with wool and flax spinning; it has also some trade in wool and grain. The population in 1880 was 11,373.

The mediate principality of Sagan, formed in 1397 out of a portion of the duchy of Glogau, has several times changed hands by purchase as well as by inheritance, One of its most famous possessors was Wallenstein, who held it for seven years before his death in 1634. Bought by Prince Lobkowitz in 1646, the principality remained in his family until 1786, when it was sold to Peter, duke of Courland, whose descendant, the duke of Talleyrand-Périgord and Valençay in France, now owns it. The area of the principality is about 467 square miles, and its population is about 65,000.