Stralsund is a city in northeast Germany. It belongs to the
Western Pomerania part of the German state Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania and is a district town in the district of Western
Pomerania-Rügen. According to state law, Stralsund is known as a
Hanseatic city and a large district city.
In 1234 Stralsund
was granted city rights. As a founding member of the Hanseatic
League, the city prospered through international trade. The old town
with its numerous architectural monuments and particularly valuable
evidence of brick Gothic has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since
2002 with the title Old Towns of Stralsund and Wismar. Stralsund is
also known as a resort and major tourist center in the southern
Baltic Sea region for the German Oceanographic Museum with the
Stralsund Ocean Museum, the Stralsund Museum and for events such as
the annual Wallenstein Days and the Rügenbrücken Marathon. Tourism
dominates economically. Other branches of industry are public
administration, shipbuilding and mechanical engineering, service
companies, logistics, the health industry and companies in the field
of information technology and biomedical technology. The Mittelstadt
has been the seat of the Stralsund University of Applied Sciences
since 1991, and the neighboring Parow has housed the German Naval
Technology School since 1996.
Due to its location on the
Strelasund, a strait in the Baltic Sea between the mainland and the
island of Rügen, Stralsund is known as the "gateway to the island of
Rügen".
The Strale settlement has been known since the 10th
century. Stralesund as a city name was first mentioned in a document
in 1240. The Strelasund is an arm of the Baltic Sea.
The city has
had the addition of Hanseatic City before its name Stralsund since
1990.
Stralsund received after the
settlement in the course of the German settlement on October 31,
1234 from the Ruegen prince Wizlaw I. the city charter according to
the Rostock or Lübeck model. The area had been settled by Slavs,
which explains the Slavic part of the name Stral (stral means arrow
or spearhead, -sund stands for a separating narrowness in Germanic
languages and means the Strelasund).
Stralsund quickly
became an important trading town in the Baltic Sea region, mainly
through settlers from Westphalia. The city belonged to
Pomerania-Wolgast after the Principality of Rügen had expired in
1325. In the 14th century it was the most important Hanseatic city
in the southern Baltic region after Lübeck. Numerous armed conflicts
with the rulers of Denmark culminated in the Peace of Stralsund in
1370. After the fall of the Hanseatic League, Stralsund's importance
decreased. However, the city continued to live mainly from
long-distance and local trade as well as from shipbuilding.
Already in 1525 the majority of the citizens of Stralsund converted
to the Protestant faith. The city set the pace for the Reformation
in northern Germany.
During the Thirty Years War Stralsund
resisted the siege by Wallenstein's troops with the help of Sweden
and Denmark; This was followed by almost 200 years of belonging to
the Kingdom of Sweden as part of Swedish Pomerania. In 1815
Stralsund became part of Prussia and became the seat of an
administrative district with five counties.
After the First World War, Stralsund briefly experienced violent
unrest until a bourgeois city government was established in 1919;
this was dissolved by the National Socialists in 1933. In 1939,
1,287 patients were deported from the Stralsund state hospital. The
deportees were victims of murders in various places, including at
the Piaśnica massacre. On May 1, 1945 Stralsund was occupied by the
Red Army; After the Second World War, Stralsund was part of the
Soviet occupation zone in Germany in 1945.
During the time of
the German Democratic Republic (GDR), numerous prefabricated housing
estates were built in the city, but the historic old town center
deteriorated. Economically, the city lived mainly from shipbuilding
at the Volkswerft Stralsund, the ships for the Soviet Union were
partially completed every 10 days.
After the political
change, Stralsund became a model town for urban development in 1990.
The historic city center with the old town harbor was thoroughly
renovated with the help of the programs for urban development and
for urban monument protection. The residential area of the
Grünhufe and Knieper prefabricated housing estates was also improved
as part of the “Upgrading”, “Urban Redevelopment East” and “Social
City” programs, and the demolition of housing was initiated.
Since 2002, Stralsund's old town, together with that of Wismar, has
been a UNESCO World Heritage Site under the name Historic Old Towns
of Stralsund and Wismar. In the course of this, there was a large
investment boost in monuments and infrastructure, which stimulated
tourism.
After the reunification, there were major economic
challenges that caused considerable problems in the structurally
weak region. The resulting structural change gradually leads to more
stable population and labor market conditions. The population and
number of employees in Stralsund has been rising continuously for
some time.
In the course of the district reform in 2011, the
previously independent city of Stralsund and the districts of Rügen
and Northern Western Pomerania became part of the new district of
Western Pomerania-Rügen with its administrative headquarters in
Stralsund.
On August 1, 2016, Stralsund was awarded the
designation of a state-recognized resort. The districts Knieper
West, Franken Mitte, Vogelsang and Grünthal-Viermorgen are excluded
from this.
Stralsund city fortifications
Stralsund had the
status of a fortress until 1871, which helped the city through many
wars. In addition to ten city gates, of which only the Kniepertor
and the Kütertor have been preserved, the city ponds and dams were
also built. The third city gate still preserved after the
demolition, the Semlow Gate, damaged in World War II, was blown up
in 1960.
Together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms one of the four
regional centers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In the regional
development programs for the state and in the Vorpommern planning
association, close cooperation between Stralsund and its surrounding
area and Greifswald is planned. Both Hanseatic cities had around
118,000 inhabitants together, the administrative areas in between
Miltzow and Landhagen as well as Grimmen had around 27,000
inhabitants (2018).
The closest metropolitan areas relevant for
the urban region are the Rostock Regiopole and the metropolitan
regions of Szczecin in the east, Berlin in the southeast, Hamburg in
the west and Copenhagen-Malmö in the north.
Neighboring
communities
Many of the formerly smaller villages in the area,
such as Parow, Prohn, Wendorf (OT Neu Lüdershagen) or Negast, grew
considerably after 1990 with the arrival of people from Stralsund or
those who worked in Stralsund.
The cities of Barth, Grimmen
and Ribnitz-Damgarten are also in the vicinity of Stralsund, while
the city of Greifswald is a good 30 km southeast of Stralsund.
The annual precipitation is 656 mm and is therefore comparatively
low; it falls into the lower third of the values recorded in
Germany. The driest month is February, the most precipitation falls
in July: This month falls 2.1 times more precipitation than in
February. The rainfall varies moderately.
Landscapes,
elevations, bodies of water
The city lies on the Strelasund, a
strait of the Baltic Sea. The geographical proximity to the island
of Rügen earned Stralsund the name “gate to the island of Rügen”.
There is both a dam with a bridge connecting the city and the island
- the Rügen dam over the island of Dänholm to Altefähr - and a
bridge, the Rügen Bridge; both connections form the only fixed
Strelasund crossings. Stralsund is close to the Vorpommersche
Boddenlandschaft National Park with its great biodiversity.
The urban area of Stralsund includes a city forest and three city
ponds (Knieperteich, Frankenteich and Moorteich). The three ponds
and the Strelasund gave the original settlement area and historical
center of the city, known today as the old town, a protected island
location.
The highest point in the city is the Galgenberg at
the western entrance to the town; The hospital church of the West
Hospital has stood here since 1912.