Its position as the first German emporium of the west end of the Baltic has been impaired by Hamburg and Bremen since the construction of the North Sea and Baltic Canal, and by the growth of Stettin. In order to counterbalance their rivalry, the quays have been extended, a canal was opened in 1900 between the Trave and the Elbe, and the river up to the wharves has been deepened to 25 feet. The river is kept open in winter by ice-breakers. A harbour was made in 1899-190o on the Wakenitz Canal for boats engaged in inland traffic. LUbeck trades principally with the Baltic States and Scandinavia. In 1924 the tonnage of incoming ships was 547,418 and of outgoing 543,424, the number of ships being respectively 2,665 and 2,667. The chief imports are coal, grain, timber, copper, steel and wine, and the exports are artificial manures, gypsum and manufactured goods.
Old Lubeck, which stood on the left bank of the Trave where it is joined by the river Schwartau, was destroyed in 1138. Five years later Count Adolphus II. of Holstein founded new LUbeck, a few miles farther up, on the peninsula Buku, where the Trave is joined on the right by the Wakenitz. An excellent harbour, sheltered against pirates, it became almost at once a competitor for the commerce of the Baltic. Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, who, about 1157, had forced his vassal, the count of Holstein, to give up Liibeck to him, issued the first charter to the citizens aril constituted them a free Saxon community. The population grew rapidly in wealth and influence by land and sea, so that, when Henry was attainted by Frederick I., who came in person to besiege Lubeck in 1181, the emperor, "in consideration of its revenues and its situation on the frontier of the Empire," fixed by charter (Sept. 19, I 188) the limits, and enlarged the liberties, of the free town. By the end of the next century the statutes of
Lubeck had been adopted by most Baltic towns with a German population : it was the court of appeal for nearly all these cities and even for the German settlement in Novgorod. From the be ginning of the 14th century Lubeck presided over a league of cities, including Wisbeck, Rostock, Stralsund and Greifswald. LUbeck was the leading spirit in the nominally federal armament directed against Waldemar IV., the destroyer of Visby, which cap tured Copenhagen and enforced the peace of Stralsund (May 1370) ; the burgomaster of Lubeck, Brun Warendorp, command ing the combined naval and land forces and dying on the field of battle. The seal of the city was in 1368 adopted as the common seal of the confederate towns. Though the power of the Hanse atic league was hemmed in at the end of the 15th century by the rise of the power of Burgundy, of Poland and Russia, and of Scandinavia, Liibeck was able to carry on war against Denmark (1 50I-12)and Sweden (1536-70) and under its democratic burgo master, Jurgen Wullenweber, was in 1534 and 1535 a powerful force in the north of Europe.
From this time the power of Lubeck began to decline. The herring, a great source of early wealth, had begun to forsake the Baltic as early as 1425. The last Hanseatic diet was held in 1630. Signs of some small recovery began to appear at the end of the 18th century, but the Danes occupied the town in 1801; in 1803 it was sacked by the French and in 1810 annexed to Napoleon's empire. It was declared a free and Hanse town of the German Confederation, after his fall, by the Act of Vienna (June 9, 1815). Lubeck joined the North German Confederation in 1866; its history thenceforward is merely that of a portion of uermany (see GERMANY : History).