Stralsund — Hanseatic port town on the Strelasund, Germany

Regional planning

Together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms one of the four regional centres of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In the regional development programmes for the state and in the Vorpommern planning association, close cooperation is envisaged between Stralsund and its surrounding area and Greifswald. Both Hanseatic cities had a combined population of around 118,000, while the intervening administrative districts of Miltzow and Landhagen and Grimmen had a combined population of around 27,000 (2018). The nearest conurbations relevant for
 the city region are the Rostock regiopolis and the metropolitan regions of Szczecin in the east, Berlin in the southeast, Hamburg in the west and Copenhagen-Malmö in the north.

City breakdown

After the abolition of the fortress character of the old town in 1869, the surrounding areas were settled.
The area of Stralsund is divided into the following urban areas and districts:

The foundation stone for the Knieper West I residential area was laid on 26 August 1964. It followed the Knieper Nord district as the second prefabricated housing area in the city. In January 1976, construction began on the first apartment block in the Knieper West III residential area. The last residential block there for the time being was built in 1981; it was followed in 1989 by two "cube houses" for housing suitable for the elderly.

The town also owns estates in the surrounding area and on the islands of Rügen, Hiddensee and Ummanz.

Neighboring communities

Many of the formerly smaller villages in the area, such as Parow, Prohn, Wendorf (OT Neu Lüdershagen) or Negast, have grown strongly since 1990 due to the influx of people from Stralsund or those working in Stralsund.

The towns of Barth, Grimmen and Ribnitz-Damgarten are also in the immediate vicinity of Stralsund, while the city of Greifswald is a good 30 km south-east of Stralsund.

Climate

The annual precipitation is 656 mm and is thus 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: in this month 2.1 times more precipitation falls than in February. Precipitation varies moderately.

Landscapes, elevations, waters

The city is located on the Strelasund, a strait of the Baltic Sea. The geographical proximity to the island of Rügen earned Stralsund the name Gateway to the Island of Rügen. There is both a causeway and bridge connecting the city and the island - the Rügendamm across the island of Dänholm to Altefähr - and a bridge, the Rügenbrücke; both connections form the only fixed Strelasund crossings. Stralsund is close to the National Park Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft with its great biodiversity.

Stralsund's urban area 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 centre of the city, now called the Old Town, a protected island location.

The highest elevation in the city is the Galgenberg at the western entrance to the city; the hospital church of the Krankenhaus West has stood on this spot since 1912.

Name

The settlement of Strale has been known since the 10th century. Stralesund as a town name was first mentioned in a document in 1240. The Strelasund is an inlet of the Baltic Sea.
Since 1990, the city has been preceded by the name Hansestadt (Hanseatic City) before its name Stralsund.

Middle Ages until 1900

After the settlement in the course of the German settlement in the East, Stralsund received the town charter according to the Rostock and Lübeck model from the Rügen prince Wizlaw I on 31 October 1234. The area had been settled by Slavs, which also explains its Slavic name component Stral (stral means arrow or spearhead, -sund in Germanic languages stands for a separating narrowness and here means the Strelasund).

Stralsund quickly became an important trading town in the Baltic region, mainly due to settlers from Westphalia. After the extinction of the principality of Rügen in 1325, the city belonged to Pomerania-Wolgast. 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 decline of the Hanseatic League, Stralsund's importance decreased. However, the city continued to live mainly from long-distance and local trade as well as shipbuilding.

As early as 1525, the majority of Stralsund's citizens converted to the Protestant faith. The city was thus the pacemaker of the Reformation in northern Germany.

During the Thirty Years' War Stralsund withstood the siege by Wallenstein's troops with the help of Sweden and Denmark; a period of almost 200 years of belonging to the Kingdom of Sweden as part of Swedish Pomerania followed. In 1815 Stralsund came to Prussia and became the seat of a government district with five counties.

1900 until today

After the First World War Stralsund briefly experienced violent unrest until a bourgeois municipal 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 Sanatorium. The deportees became victims of infanticide at various locations, including the Piaśnica massacre. On 1 May 1945 Stralsund was occupied by the Red Army; after the Second World War Stralsund was part of the Soviet occupied zone of 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 centre fell into disrepair. Economically, the city lived mainly from shipbuilding at the Volkswerft Stralsund, the ships for the Soviet Union were partly completed in 10-day intervals.

After the political turnaround, Stralsund became a model town for urban development funding in 1990. The historic city centre with the old town harbour was thoroughly redeveloped with the help of the programmes for urban development promotion and urban monument protection. The residential environment of the prefabricated housing estates Grünhufe and Knieper was also improved within the framework of the programmes "Upgrading", "Urban Redevelopment East" and "The Socially Integrative City", and a housing deconstruction 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 has been a great surge of investment in monuments and infrastructure, which has boosted tourism.

Economically, there were major challenges after the reunification, which cause considerable problems in the structurally weak region. The resulting structural change is gradually leading to more stable population and labour market conditions. Thus, the population and employment figures in Stralsund have been rising continuously for some time.

In the course of the administrative district reform in 2011, the previously independent city of Stralsund and the administrative districts of Rügen and Nordvorpommern became part of the new administrative district of Vorpommern-Rügen with its administrative seat in Stralsund.

On 1 August 2016, Stralsund was awarded the designation of state-recognised resort. The districts Knieper West, Franken Mitte, Vogelsang and Grünthal-Viermorgen are excluded from this.

Street names and their meaning

The street names of Stralsund often reflect historical events.

Stralsund city fortifications

Stralsund had the status of a fortress until 1871, which helped the city survive 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 town gate still preserved after the defortification, the Semlow Gate, damaged in the Second World War, was blown up in 1960.

Population development

In 1989, the population of the city of Stralsund peaked at over 75,000. Afterwards, the number of inhabitants dropped again due to the strong structural changes. After the political change in the GDR in 1989/1990, the city lost well over 15,000 inhabitants until 2008. For some years, however, a turnaround has been noticeable - the decline initially slowed down, and for 2012 there was a slight increase in the number of inhabitants again for the first time. Stralsund was also able to record this in the following years, so that the population now stands at 58,241.

The following overview shows the population figures according to the respective territorial status. Up to 1833, these are mostly estimates, thereafter census results or official updates by the respective statistical offices or the city administration itself. From 1843 onwards, the data refer to the "resident population", from 1925 onwards to the resident population and since 1966 to the "population at the place of the main residence".

Until the beginning of the 17th century Stralsund was the most populous city of the Duchy of Pomerania, larger than the capital Stettin.