Elbing

Elbing, a considerable trading and manufacturing town of West Prussia, is situated 48 miles by rail ESE. of Danzig, on the navigable river of the same name, which enters the Frisches Haff 5 miles to the north. The town, founded in the 13th century by colonists from Lübeck and Bremen, has a church of the 14th century, a public library with over 25,000 volumes, and a number of well-endowed hospitals. It is connected by a canal with the Dreventz, a tributary of the Vistula, and in 1877-84 a mole was constructed in the harbour, 3500 yards long and 5½ wide. Steamships and torpedo-boats are built here; and there are large iron and brass rolling-mills, and tinware, machine, and cigar factories, &c. The linen industry and the export of lampreys are also of importance. Pop. (1875) 33,572; (1885) 38,278; (1890) 41,576.