Western Pomeranian

Western Pomeranian Low German country covers the Baltic coast from Lübeck to the Oder, with lagoons and islands such as Rügen. Early in the twelfth century Slavic tribes held it: Obotrites in Mecklenburg, Lutici and Rani farther east; the Danes destroyed the Rani temple at Arkona in 1168. Henry the Lion's conquests, Otto of Bamberg's missions and the Ostsiedlung turned the region German: native princes kept thrones but took German speech and customs, while Rostock, Wismar and Stralsund took Lübeck law, joined the Hanseatic League and grew rich on herring, beer and Baltic trade.

The Griffins ruled the often-partitioned Duchy of Pomerania, absorbing Danish Rügen in 1325, Mecklenburg apart under its Obotrite dynasty. The Reformation made coastal cities Lutheran.

The Griffin line died out in 1637 during the Thirty Years' War, and Sweden and Brandenburg partitioned the duchy; Swedish Pomerania passed to Sweden until the Great Northern War and the 1815 Congress of Vienna, when the western coast joined the Prussian Province of Pomerania, apart from the Mecklenburg grand duchies.