Gateway to Rügen — Hanseatic red brick on the Baltic lagoon
Stralsund sits on a narrow strip of land between two lakes and the Strelasund strait, its UNESCO-listed Altstadt of red-brick Gothic churches and gabled Hanseatic houses looking across to the chalk cliffs of Rügen island. The Ozeaneum — one of Germany's best marine museums — sits on the waterfront, and the old town's Marktplatz is anchored by the extraordinary late-Gothic Rathaus, whose ornamental screen facade is one of the most theatrical pieces of medieval architecture in Northern Europe.
Stralsund was founded in 1234 as a trading port and became one of the most powerful cities in the Hanseatic League, rivalling Lübeck in commerce and political influence. In 1628 it famously withstood a siege by Wallenstein during the Thirty Years War — a turning point that prevented Habsburg domination of the Baltic. Like Wismar, it was transferred to Sweden in 1648 and remained Swedish until the Napoleonic era. UNESCO inscribed it alongside Wismar in 2002.