This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website
Hanseatic League and Cities (Germany, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland)
Hansa und Hansestädte
Last modified: 2002-06-14 by santiago dotor
Keywords: hanseatic league | hansa | hanseatic cities | hansestädte | germany | latvia | netherlands | poland |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
See also:
Introduction
Around 1400 there were over 160 cities members of the Hansa. I do not have an exhaustive list. From Nijhoff's Geschiedenislexicon:
- Netherlands: Deventer, Zutphen, Arnhem, Harderwijk, Elburg, Nijmegen, Kampen, Zwolle, Stavoren, Bolsward, Groningen. Oldenzaal was not a member (possibly confused with Osnabrück)
- Belgium: Dinant
- Germany: Münster, Bremen, Dortmund, Köln, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Lübeck, Wismar, Greifswald, Rostock, Magdeburg, Berlin, Berlin-Kölln, Emden, Stralsund, Anklam
- Sweden: Visby
- Denmark: Copenhagen
- Poland: Kolberg/Kolobrzeg, Stettin/Szczecin, Danzig/Gdansk, Elbing/Elblag, Marienburg/Malbork
- Russia: Königsberg/Kaliningrad, Novgorod
- Lithuania: Memel/Klaipeda
- Latvia: Riga
- Estonia: Pernau/Pärnu, Reval/Tallinn, Narva, Dorpat/Tartu
Furthermore there were offices in a lot of cities, like Brugge and Antwerpen (Belgium) and Bergen (Norway).
Jarig Bakker, 28 March 2001
Copenhagen was not a Hanseatic city, according to both the Danish Encyclopaedia and dtv-Atlas zur Weltgeschichte. The '160 cities' seem to be by a broad definition of the Hansa, probably including every city where the Hanseatic traders had their stalls.
Ole Andersen, 28 March 2001
The Hansa existed for some centuries. Originally it was an organisation of merchants, but as their guilds were connected to the towns where they lived, it soon became an organisation for towns. The towns which were members of the Hansa were not the same the whole time.
Visby is nowadays a part of the municipality of Gotland (...). Stockholm and Calmar (Kalmar) are thought to have been members of the Hansa for short periods, because in some sources they are mentioned as Hanseatic towns, but it could also be because the Hansa had offices there.
Elias Granqvist, 28 March 2001
John Ayer pointed out a list of Hanseatic cities, however this does not discriminate between Hansa-cities proper and cities with Hansa offices — Auswürtige Kontore (AK), cities where the Hansa had special privileges. The following list is based on Putzger's Historischer Schulatlas, 1936, and Westermann Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, 1972:
- Great Britain: AK: York, Hull, Yarmouth, Ipswich, London
- Belgium: Dinant, AK: Brugge, Antwerpen
- Netherlands: Deventer, Zutphen, Arnhem, Harderwijk, Elburg, Nijmegen, Kampen, Zwolle, Stavoren, Bolsward, Groningen, Venlo, Roermond; AK: Dordrecht (if Brugge could not be reached)
- Denmark: Copenhagen; AK: Aalborg
- Norway: AK: Bergen, Tönsberg, Oslo
- Sweden: AK: Malmö, Falsterbo, Skanör, Kalmar, Wisby, Stockholm
- Russia: Königsberg/Kaliningrad, AK: Naugart/Novgorod
- Estonia: Reval/Tallinn, Pernau/Pärnu, Fellin/Viljandi, Dorpat/Tartu, AK:
Narwa/Narva
- Latvia: Lemsal/Limbaz^i, Wolmar/Valmiera, Wenden/Ce^sis, Kokenhusen/?, Riga, Windau/Ventspils, Goldingen/Kuldiga
- Lithuania: Memel/Klaipéda, AK: Kauen/Kaunas
- Belarus: Polozk/Polotsk
- Poland: Braunsberg/Braniewo, Elbing/Elblag, Danzig/Gdansk, Kulm/Chelmno, Thorn/Torún, Marienburg/Malbork, Krakau/Krakow, Breslau/Wroclaw, Stolp/Slupsk, Rügenwalde/Darlowo, Kolberg/Kolobrzeg, Kammin/Kamien, Gollnow/Goleniow, Stettin/Szczecin, Stargard/Stargard Szczecinski,
- Germany: Bremen, Minden, Osnabrück, Herfdorf [Herford?], Coesfeld, Münster, Bielefeld, Lemgo, Wesel, Dortmund, Duisburg, Neuss, Köln, Paderborn, Höxter, Warburg, Soest, Stade, Buxtehude, Lüneburg, Uelzen, Seehausen, Salzwedel, Stendal, Hannover, Braunschweig, Hameln, Hildesheim, Goslar, Helmstedt, Einbeck, Erfurt, Mühlhausen, Naumburg, Merseburg, Halle, Göttingen, Nordhausen, Aschersleben, Northeim, Halberstadt, Kiel, Lübeck, Hamburg, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wolgast, Demmin, Schwerin, Anklam, Pritzwalk, Prenzlau, Kyritz, Havelberg, Berlin, (Berlin-)Kölln, Tangerm(ünde?), Brandenburg, Frankfurt an der Oder.
Actually Westermann has a lot more, but judging from the Dutch plain wrong entries I have followed mainly Putzger.
Jarig Bakker, 28 March 2001
Today, the following nine cities call themselves Hansestadt as part of their official name [even though it does not imply any special status]: Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, Greifswald, Stralsund, Anklam, Demmin.
Stefan Schwoon, 28 March 2001
Hanging Flags 13th-14th Centuries
Znamierowski 1999 shows several interesting flags of the Port Cities of northern Europe. These are derived from gonfanons, originally red in color. The flags, in a banner form [i.e. hanging flags], were flown from the stern of the vessels, the mast carrying the gonfanon of the colors. The oldest of the series that Znamierowski 1999 shows dates from the mid-13th century, that of Hamburg. It was followed by the flags of Riga, Lübeck and in the 14th century by Stralsund, Elbing, Danzig, Bremen and Rostock. The final three that Znamierowski 1999 shows for Königsberg, Wismar and Stettin in the 15th century.
Phil Nelson, 20 February 2000