Rostock

Polabian Slavs founded a settlement called Roztoc, "fork of a river", on the Warnow in the 11th century. The Danish king Valdemar I burned it in 1161, German traders settled the site, and in 1218 Prince Heinrich Borwin granted Lübeck law. Rostock joined the Hanseatic League in 1251, bought the fishing village of Warnemünde in 1323 to secure its access to the sea, and in 1419 founded its university, the oldest in the Baltic region. In the 14th century it was the largest city in Mecklenburg.

The dukes of Mecklenburg broke the city's independence in the 15th and 16th centuries, and inheritance agreements of 1573 and 1584 bound it to them. Danes and Swedes occupied it in the Thirty Years' War and again from 1700 to 1721, and a fire in 1677 destroyed more than a third of the town. Recovery came in the 19th century with the wheat trade and then shipyards, where the first propeller-driven steamers in Germany were built.

The Heinkel and Arado aircraft works made Rostock a target, and repeated bombing, mostly by the RAF, heavily damaged the centre, destroying most of the old houses around the Neuer Markt in 1942. Soviet troops took the city on 2 May 1945. In East Germany Rostock became the country's largest seaport, with new shipyards and estates, and its population peaked at about 254,000 in 1988. After reunification it lost about a fifth of its people by 2000. In August 1992 right-wing extremists attacked asylum seekers in the Lichtenhagen riots, which shocked the nation. Since the mid-2000s the population has grown again.

Rostock's culture is maritime. The Hanse Sail, held every August, brings around 250 traditional sailing ships and more than a million visitors, and the year is packed with festivals: the Ostsee-Jazz festival in June, the Rostocker Sommer of music, folklore and literature and the Warnemünde sailing week in July, the harbour festival in September, a week of light in early November, the largest Christmas market in northern Germany and New Year fireworks over the harbour.

The university gives the city a young population, and the Academy of Music and Theatre, in the old Franciscan convent of St Catherine, holds concerts throughout the year. The Volkstheater stages drama and opera and is home to the Norddeutsche Philharmonie, and a Low German stage has performed in the city for almost ninety years. The golden griffin on blue of the city's arms, with the Hanseatic colours below, appears everywhere from bridges and fences to restaurants and ships.

Football matters greatly. FC Hansa Rostock, the last champion and cup winner of East Germany in 1991, plays at the Ostseestadion. Warnemünde has its own seaside culture of sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing, and the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch lived there in 1907–08.

About 205,000 people lived in Rostock at the end of 2025, the only large city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and some 458,000 in its wider region. Most live on the west bank of the Warnow; the east side is dominated by the overseas port, industrial estates and the Rostock Heath. The west and south-east are the most densely populated parts of the city.

The economy changed sharply after 1990. Shipbuilding declined, though shipyards remain, and new jobs came in tourism and services. The port is the largest on the German Baltic, with busy ferry routes to Denmark and Sweden, and Warnemünde is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world. AIDA Cruises, headquartered at the city harbour, was the largest employer in 2012, and wind-turbine maker Nordex, crane builder Liebherr, the university and its hospital, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis are other pillars.

Life follows the coast. On summer days the S-Bahn fills with people heading for the beach at Warnemünde, and winter brings quieter streets and the Christmas market. Since February 2023 the city has been led by Eva-Maria Kröger of The Left.

Rostock eats the food of Mecklenburg and the coast: fish from the Baltic and from the lakes and rivers inland, potatoes in many forms, and a liking for sweet-and-sour flavours from dried fruit. Near the Alter Strom in Warnemünde, a fish market offers regional specialities beside the fishing boats, and the Fischbrötchen — a bread roll filled with pickled or soused herring, rollmops, smoked mackerel or fried fish, with onions, pickles or remoulade — is the standard snack by the water.

Mecklenburg's farmhouse dishes appear on restaurant menus: Mecklenburger Rippenbraten, roast ribs; Tüffel un Plum, a soup of potatoes with plums and bacon; smoked eel, fried or baked; and in winter Grünkohl, kale. Desserts include Rote Grütze, the red-berry pudding of northern Germany and Denmark, and cakes made with Sanddorn, sea buckthorn, whose berries are also made into juice, wine and spirits.

The city's own beer is Rostocker, brewed by the Hanseatische Brauerei Rostock, whose brewery grew from the Mahn & Ohlerich works in the Kröpeliner-Tor-Vorstadt and now belongs to the Oetker group. A hot grog is the classic drink of the Baltic winter.