A Prussian-dominated federal state uniting German territories north of the river Main, formed July 1867 after Prussia's victory over Austria in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War excluded Austria from German affairs. Unlike the loose German Confederation it replaced, it had a real federal constitution, a common army under Prussian command, and a Reichstag — the direct institutional template for the German Empire.
Absorbed into the newly proclaimed German Empire on 1 January 1871 (formally reconstituted as the Empire following the Franco-Prussian War and the southern states' accession).
Clark's history of Prussia, whose 1867 leadership formed the North German Confederation.