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Rostock ) is a city in northern Germany. It is the largest city in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. 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.

table ) A 20 from Hamburg and by A 19 from Berlin. There are connecting flights via Munich to Rostock Laage Airport.

In the 11th century there was a Slavic settlement at the Warnow river called i); 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, the i (Hops Market, now Universitätsplatz) with St. Jakobi (St. James's Church, now demolished).

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.

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 i, 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 the 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.

In the first half of the 19th century Rostock regained much of its economic importance, at first due to the wheat trade, and, from the 1850s, to industry, especially to its shipyards. The first propeller-driven steamers in Germany were constructed there. The city grew in size and population, with new quarters emerging in the south and west of the ancient borders of the city. These were establisned around 1900:

1. the i Railway Station (now Hauptbahnhof). It was designed as a living quarter and consists mostly of large single houses, once inhabited by wealthy citizens.

2. the i in the west, designed to house the working population as well as smaller and larger industrial facilities such as i was just nearby at the shore of the river.

In the 20th century, important airplane manufacturing facilities were situated in the city, such as the Arado Works in Warnemünde and the Heinkel Works with facilities at various places. It was at their facilities in Marienehe where the world's first jet plane made its test flights. Airplane construction ceased at the end of the Second World War.

Large parts of the central city were destroyed in World War II by Allied bombings in 1942 and 1945. Through reconstruction and subsequent extension, the city became a major industrial centre of the German Democratic Republic with the port being developed as the primary gate to the world. In 1989, it had almost 260,000 inhabitants.

Following the reunification of Germany after 1989, Rostock lost its privleged position as the principal seaport of East Germany and became just another medium-sized city, now located in one of the poorest regions of reunited Germany. Because of this, and despite large infrastructure investments, the city's economy has declined. More importantly, its population dropped from 253,000 in 1988 to less than 200,000 today, primarily due to emigration to more prosperous western regions of Germany but also to suburbanisation.

, but extensively transformed in the 18th century, with the addition of a Baroque facade and a Banqueting Hall. The square also preserves six original, beautifully restored, gable houses from the 15th and 16th centuries. (The rest of the old houses in Hanseatic (at Große Wasserstraße, behind the Town Hall) is considered the best preserved brick Gothic house in Rostock. (St. Mary's Church), on Ziegenmarkt, an imposing Brick Gothic church. Built in the 13th century, it was enlarged and modified at the end of the 14th century into the present cross-shaped basilica. The huge tower was not completed until the end of the 18th century. Inside there is an astronomical clock built in 1472 by Hans Düringer., a former town gate. The main buildings of Rostock University, the oldest university in Northern Europe, lie at Universitätsplatz, near the middle of the street, in front of the lively fountain of i (Convent of St. Catherine), an old Franciscan monastery founded in 1243, and extended several times during the 14th and 15th centuries. Now used as the seat of the Academy of Music and Theatre (HMT-Rostock). (St. Nicholas Church), which is the oldest church in Rostock, built in mid-13th century. Heavily damaged during World war II and subsequently restored, the building is now used as a exhibition center and concert hall, due to its outstanding acoustics.