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Rostock is a town of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Germany.

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Rostock (pronounced // from Polabian Roz toc, literally "to flow apart") is the largest city in the north German state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Rostock is located on the Warnow river; the quarter of Warnemünde 12 km north of the city centre lies directly on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Geography

Rostock is located nearly centrally on Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's Baltic Sea coast. The city is crossed by the River Warnow.

The seaside part of Rostock, Rostock-Warnemünde, is about 16km to the north of the historic city centre. The west and the south-east are the most densely populated parts of town, the overseas port is in the east of Rostock. Rostock stretches 21.6 kilometres from the Baltic Sea to the south and 19.4 km from east to west.

History

Early history
In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc (which means broadening of a river); the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.

Afterwards the place was settled by German traders. At the beginning there were three separate cities:

# Altstadt (Old Town) around the Alter Markt (Old Market) with St. Petri (St. Peter's Church),
# Mittelstadt (Middle Town) around the Neuer Markt (New Market) with St. Marien (St. Mary's Church) and
# Neustadt (New Town) around the Hopfenmarkt (Hops Market, now University Square) with St. Jakobi (St. James's Church, now demolished).

Hanseatic League
The rise of the city began with its membership in the Hanseatic League. In the 14th century it was a powerful seaport town with 12,000 inhabitants and the biggest city of Mecklenburg. Ships for cruising the Baltic Sea were constructed in Rostock. In 1419 the oldest university in Northern Europe, the University of Rostock, was founded.

15th to 18th century

At the end of the 15th century the dukes of Mecklenburg succeeded in enforcing their rule over the town of Rostock, which had until then been only nominally subjugate to their rule and essentially independent. They took advantage of a riot known as Domfehde, a failed uprising of the impoverished population. Subsequent quarrels with the dukes and persistent plundering led ultimately to a loss of economic and political power.

The strategic location of Rostock provoked the envy of its rivals. Danes and Swedes occupied the city twice, first during the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) and again from 1700 to 1721. Later, the French, under Napoleon, occupied the town for about a decade until 1813. It was here that Blücher, who was actually born in Rostock and who was one of few generals to fight on after the battle of Jena, surrendered to the French in 1806. This was only after furious street fighting in which he led some of the cavalry charges himself; the exhausted Prussians had, by the time of the surrender, neither food nor ammunition.

19th century
In the first half of the 19th century Rostock regained much of its economic importance, at first...