Meissen (district) covered by the "Amtshauptmannschaften" Meissen, Dresden and Großenhain. In 1939, these were renamed "Landkreise" (districts). In the administrative reform of 1952, several municipalities were transferred to the districts of Freiberg and Döbeln. In 1990, the old district borders were restored, and in 1996 parts of the district Dresden-Land were added. In August 2008 the district of Riesa-Großenhain was added to the district to give it its current size. The main river of the district is the Elbe, which also flows through the city of Meissen. Meissen (district) Meissen () is a district ("Kreis") in the Free State of Saxony, Germany.
Meissen porcelain equivalents in other countries. It was a very expensive product by the time it reached European customers, and represented wealth, importance and refined taste in Europe. Local attempts to produce porcelain, such as the brief experiment that produced Medici porcelain had met with failure. At the beginning of the eighteenth century Johann Friedrich Böttger pretended he had solved the dream of the alchemists, to produce gold from worthless materials. When King Augustus II of Poland heard of it, he kept him in protective custody and requested him to produce gold. For years Johann Friedrich Böttger was unsuccessful in this effort.