Stralsund Hauptbahnhof

Stralsund (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʁaːlzʊnt] ; Swedish: Strålsund), officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German: Hansestadt Stralsund), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg and Greifswald, and the second-largest city in the Pomeranian part of the state. It is located on the southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the Pomeranian mainland.The Strelasund Crossing with its two bridges and several ferry services connects Stralsund with Rügen, the largest island of Germany and Pomerania. The Western Pomeranian city is the seat of the Vorpommern-Rügen district and, together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms one of four high-level urban centres of the region. The city's name as well as that of the Strelasund are compounds of the Slavic (Polabian) stral and strela (arrow; Polish: strzała, Czech: střela) and the Germanic sund, a strait or sound. The canting arms of the city make reference to that etymology as well as to Stralsund's Hanseatic past in featuring a silver cross pattée (a Hanseatic Cross) above a silver arrow. Stralsund was granted city rights in 1234 and is thus the oldest city in Pomerania. It was one of the most prosperous members of the medieval Hanseatic League. In 1628, during the Thirty Years' War, the city came under Swedish rule and remained so until the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars. It was the capital of Swedish Pomerania (New Western Pomerania) from 1720 to 1815. From 1815 to 1945, Stralsund was part of Prussia. Stralsund's old town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002 alongside Wismar in Mecklenburg because of its outstanding Brick Gothic buildings and importance during the Hanseatic League and Swedish rule. St Mary's Church has been the tallest church in the world from 1549 to 1569 and from 1573 to 1647. The city's other two large churches are St Nicholas' and St James'. Stralsund is the seat of the German Oceanographic Museum (Deutsches Meeresmuseum) with its satellites Ozeaneum (in Stralsund), Nautineum (on Dänholm Island), and Natureum (on the Fischland-Darß-Zingst Peninsula). The main industries of Stralsund are shipbuilding, fishing, mechanical engineering, and, to an increasing degree, tourism, life sciences, services and high tech industries, especially information technology and biotechnology.

The siege of Stralsund was a battle during the Great Northern War. The Swedish Empire defended her Swedish Pomeranian port of Stralsund against a coalition of Denmark-Norway, the Electorate of Saxony and the Tsardom of Russia, which was joined by the Kingdom of Prussia during the siege. A first attempt to take Stralsund was made in 1711, when the allies closed in on the town. Swedish relief forced the coalition to withdraw from the fortifications, whereupon the besieging armies drew a wider ring along the lines of the Recknitz and Peene rivers. Magnus Stenbock's victory at Gadebusch for a short time distracted the allies, but after Stenbock's pursuit and subsequent defeat, Prussia as well as Hanover, ruled in personal union with Great Britain, joined the anti-Swedish alliance. The allies agreed that Denmark should cede her claims to Bremen-Verden to Hanover, and in turn Denmark was promised the northern parts of Swedish Pomerania with Stralsund, while the southern parts were to become Prussian. In 1714, Charles XII of Sweden rode to Stralsund from his Turkish exile to lead the defense in person. From 12 July to 24 December 1715, the allies sieged the town and eventually forced its surrender. Charles XII escaped to Sweden. Stralsund remained under Danish control until it was returned to Sweden by the Treaty of Frederiksborg.

The siege of Stralsund was a siege laid on Stralsund by Albrecht von Wallenstein's Imperial Army during the Thirty Years' War, from 13 May 1628 to 4 August 1628. Stralsund was aided by Denmark and Sweden, with considerable Scottish participation. The lifting of the siege ended Wallenstein's series of victories, and contributed to his downfall. The Swedish garrison in Stralsund was the first on German soil in history. The battle marked the de facto entrance of Sweden into the war.

The German Oceanographic Museum (German: Deutsche Meeresmuseum), also called the Museum for Oceanography and Fisheries, Aquarium (German: Museum für Meereskunde und Fischerei, Aquarium), in the Hanseatic town of Stralsund, is a museum in which maritime and oceanographic exhibitions are displayed. It is the most visited museum in North Germany. In addition to the main museum building, the actual Oceanographic Museum, there are three other sites, the Ozeaneum, opened in July 2008, the Nautineum and the Natureum. The main house is located in the hall of the former St. Catherine's Church. The Oceanographic Museum has many exhibitions with information on fishing, the environment and marine conservation, on marine and ocean research, flora and fauna of the Baltic Sea region, and, just under 50 aquaria contain more than 600 living sea creatures, including giant tortoises and Polynesian fish. In the Ozeaneum, which opened on 11 July 2008 on Stralsund's harbour island, there are 39 large aquaria with 7,000 animals from the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, as well as the world's largest exhibition of whales. The Nautineum on the island of Dänholm has exhibitions on the topics of fishing, marine research, whale research, hydrography and sea routes. The focal point of the Natureum on the Darß peninsula is nature and the landscape of the peninsula.

St. Mary's Church (German: Marienkirche) is a large Lutheran church located in Stralsund, northern Germany. It was built sometime before 1380 and showcases remarkable Gothic architecture, serving as an outstanding example of the prevalent Brick Gothic style in northern Germany and the Baltic states. Standing at 151 metres (495 ft) tall, it held the title of the world's tallest building between 1549 and 1647, with the exception of the period between 1569 and 1573 when the tower of St. Pierres Cathedral in Beauvais was completed and subsequently collapsed. Recognized as part of the historic center of Stralsund, the church was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2002.The bell tower collapsed in 1382, and was rebuilt by 1478. In 1495, the steeple tower blew down during a severe storm, and was then rebuilt taller. This was subsequently struck by lightning in 1647, and burned down, and was rebuilt as a baroque dome, which, completed in 1708, can be seen today. The tower is currently 104 metres (341 ft) tall. The main organ built by Friedrich Stellwagen between 1653 and 1659 is one of the famous large baroque organs in Europe.

The Stralsund Museum (until 2015: Stralsund Museum of Cultural History, Kulturhistorisches Museum) is museum in the Hanseatic city Stralsund, Germany. It is headquartered in a former convent of the Dominicans, the St. Catherine's Monastery. The museum, which was established in 1859 as the Provincial Museum for New Pomerania and Rügen, is the oldest museum of its kind in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and presents extensive collections of folklore and cultural and art history in the region of Vorpommern. It houses both permanent exhibitions and special exhibitions on changing subject areas. The permanent exhibitions are dedicated to the prehistory and early history of the region as well as the history of the city. Special exhibitions are mainly concerned with Fine Arts.

The Stralsund Theatre (German: Stralsunder Theater) in the German town of Stralsund has a long tradition. Performances of theatre pieces on the Alter Markt are documented in the years 1553 ("Tragedie van deme Daniel") and 1584 ("De Tragedien van Susannen"). The present building was designed by Carl Moritz and opened in 1914. The tradition has continued since the merger of the theatres of the towns of Stralsund and Greifswald in 1994 into the Theatre of West Pomerania (Theater Vorpommern).

St. Nicholas Church (German: Nikolaikirche) is the oldest of the three major parish churches of the Hanseatic city of Stralsund in Germany. It was dedicated in 1279 to St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of sailors. Since 1524 it has been an Evangelical Lutheran church. It is one of the earliest examples of the introduction of the cathedral pattern of northern France into the Brick Gothic architecture of the Baltic region. As part of the historic centre of Stralsund, St. Nicholas Church was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2002.

The Stadtarchiv Stralsund (City Archives of Stralsund) is the historical Archive of the Hanseatic City of Stralsund and an important municipal archive in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The Stadtarchiv Stralsund ranks among the important communal archives in Europe, as it covers the city's role in the Hanseatic League and the history of Swedish Pomerania. This municipal archive has been taking custody of records in Stralsund since the Middle Ages. The study facilities for the archives are in the Johanniskloster (St. John's Monastery).

Ozeaneum is a public aquarium in the German city of Stralsund. It is a main attraction of the German Oceanographic Museum (Deutsches Meeresmuseum), arguably one of the three largest institutions of its kind in Europe. The Ozeaneum — located at the historical Stralsund harbour on the Baltic coast — opened its doors in July 2008. It displays primarily sea life of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The Ozeaneum was expected to be a major tourist attraction, and receive 550,000 visitors per year, but it quickly surpassed its goal and proved to be considerably more attractive than expected, and by the end of the first year had already had over 900,000 visitors. The millionth visit occurred on 27 July 2009. On 22 May 2010, the OZEANEUM Stralsund received the European Museum of the Year Award in a ceremony in the Finnish town of Tampere.

Gorch Fock I (ex Tovarishch, ex Gorch Fock) is a German three-mast barque, the first of a series built as school ships for the German Reichsmarine in 1933. She was taken as war reparations by the Soviet Union after World War II and renamed Tovarishch. The ship was acquired by sponsors, after a short period under the Ukrainian flag in the 1990s and a prolonged stay in British ports due to lack of funds for necessary repairs. Then she sailed to her original home port of Stralsund where her original name of Gorch Fock was restored on 29 November 2003. She is a museum ship, and extensive repairs were carried out in 2008. The Federal German government built a replacement training ship Gorch Fock (1958) which is still in service.

Störtebeker Braumanufaktur GmbH is a brewery in Stralsund, Germany and is the sole brewery in the city. The company produces beer under the brands "Störtebeker" and "Stralsunder", as well as mineral water and other non-alcoholic beverages. The brewery adopted its present name at the end of 2011; before this, it was known as Stralsunder Brauerei GmbH. The name is a homage to the German pirate Klaus Störtebeker.