Rostock

Rostock, the most important town of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and one of the busiest ports on the Baltic, stands on the Warnow, 7 miles from its mouth and 60 miles by rail N.E. of Schwerin. It consists of the city proper, surrounded by promenades on the site of the old fortifications, and suburbs which have grown up beyond them. It has busy fairs for wool, horses, and cattle; imports coal, wine, herrings, petroleum, groceries, timber, &c.; exports grain, wool, flax, and cattle; owns a mercantile fleet of 750 vessels of some 150,000 tons; and is entered annually by more than 900 vessels of about 120,000 tons. Vessels above 200 tons unload in part at Warnemünde, at the mouth of the river. The industries are very varied, the most important being shipbuilding, the making of machinery, tanning, brewing, distilling, the manufacture of hats, tobacco, &c. The university, founded in 1418, but rebuilt in 1867, is the chief of the public institutions; it has 40 teachers, 360 students, a library of 140,000 volumes, an observatory, and an experimental agricultural colony. Amongst the churches are St Mary's (1398-1472), one of the finest Gothic churches of north Germany, in which is a monument of Grotius, and St Peter's, with a tower 414 feet high. The ducal palace (1702) and the 14th-century Gothic town-house also deserve mention. There is a handsome public park. The statue of Blücher, a native of the town, adorns one of the squares. Pop. (1875) 34,172; (1890) 44,388. Rostock, an ancient Slav town, was burned to the ground by Waldemar of Denmark in 1161. In 1314 it came to Mecklenburg. About this time it enjoyed great repute as a powerful member of the Hanscatic League, and secured important rights of self-government. It still possesses a thoroughly republican municipal constitution, and forms a separate estate in the Mecklenburg Assembly. See history by Koppmann (Rostock, 1887).