Greifswald (German Greif=griffin, Wald=forest) is a city in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Greifswald is located at the southern end of the Baltic Sea in a bay between the islands of Rügen and Usedom called the Bay of Greifswald (or the Greifswalder Bodden in German), at the mouth of the river Ryck. The population is roughly 55,000. The city is officially known as Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, which means University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald.

Historical notes

The first settlers were Danish Cistercian monks, who founded the Brick Gothic Eldena monastery in 1199. The salt trade helped the monastery grow to a monumental religious centre. The earliest known document that refers to Greifswald was written in 1248. Enjoying a steady increase in population, Greifswald also became one of the earliest members of the Hanseatic League at the end of the 13th century, which further increased trade and wealth.

In 1456, Greifswald's mayor Heinrich Rubenow laid the foundations of the second oldest university in Northern Europe, which is one of the oldest in Germany, and was, periodically, the oldest in Sweden and Prussia respectively.

As a result of the Thirty Years' War Greifswald became part of the Kingdom of Sweden in 1631 and remained Swedish until 1815.

During the period of communist dictatorship that followed the Second World War, parts of the historic city saw little effort towards renovation. After the German reunification in 1989/1990 this situation has changed substantially.

The largest nuclear powerplant in the former East Germany was located near Greifswald. It had four reactors which were successively brought online starting in 1974. The plant was promptly shut down after the reunification of Germany due to safety concerns, particularly in regard to the near-meltdown on November 24, 1989.

Education & science

• see traditional Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald
• The Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik has its second site (after Garching) in Greifswald and is experimenting with a stellarator, Wendelstein 7-X.

People from Greifswald

• Romanticist painter Caspar David Friedrich
• German author Hans Fallada
• German author Wolfgang Koeppen
• see also list of people associated with the local university here

See also

• Swedish Pomerania
• Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald

External links

• Hansestadt Greifswald (official website)
• Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald
• Pomeranian State Museum, Greifswald
• Theater Vorpommern
• Satellite picture by Google Maps

Tourism links

• Regional Tourist Board Vorpommern (D) (English, German, Swedish, Polish, French, Russian, Spanish)
• Ost|See|Land - Tourism site (D) (English, German, Swedish, Polish)

Towns in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania | Hanseatic League

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