Koszalin

Koszalin, known in German as Köslin, lies south of the Baltic near Chełmska Hill. A village here was granted to a monastery in 1214 and later passed to the bishops of Kamień. Bishop Hermann von Gleichen gave it Lübeck law in 1266. The bishops administered their diocese from Koszalin, and a Cistercian house founded in 1278 cared for the parish church and the chapel on the hill.

In the fourteenth century the town acquired land around Lake Jamno and an outlet to the Baltic. It joined the Hanseatic League in 1386, but rivalry with Kołobrzeg and Darłowo accompanied its maritime trade. Religious conflict erupted in 1531, and by 1534 the town had largely become Lutheran. Swedish troops occupied it in 1637; the postwar settlements assigned it to Brandenburg. A great fire in 1718 destroyed much of the town, which was rebuilt in the years that followed.