KIEL, Prussia, town and chief naval port of Germany in the Baltic. It is situated in Holstein on a deep bay with finely wooded banks, 70 miles by rail north from Hamburg. It was formerly the place of meeting for the Schleswig and Holstein states, and the seat of a superior appeal court for the duchies. The church of Saint Nicholas founded in 1240, and restored 1877-84, is the most noteworthy ecclesiastical building. The university, founded in 1665, has an attendance of some 2,000 stu dents, is famed for its medical school, and con tains a library of over 320,000 volumes. There is a museum of national antiquities, and a zoological institute. Kiel is admirably situated for trade as well as for defense, the whole bay on which it stands forming a safe roadstead, and the town being provided with spacious quays. The celebrated Kieler Sprotte (smoked sprat) is caught in the bay and prepared here. Sugar, soap and machinery are manufactured; and there are woolen factories, tanning and tobacco works. It is as a naval dockyard and arsenal, however, that Kid is most widely known. The great imperial docks are on the east side facing the city, contain basins capable of accommodating the largest warships afloat, and form the focal point of the great shipbuild ing establishments, as well as of other important industries, dependent on a naval station of the first class. It is also the seat' of the largest
naval hospital in Germany. A famous regatta is held annually in June. The Kaiser-Wilhelm Ship Canal from the mouth of the Elbe joins Kid Bay at Holtenan, somewhat north of Kiel proper. Kiel became in f284 one of the cities of the Hanseatic League; in 1773 it became a part of the kingdom of Denmark; and in 1866 it passed, with the rest of Schleswig-Holstein, into the possession of Prussia. In 1814 the Peace of Kid was concluded, under which Nor way was ceded to Sweden. During the Four Years Won.; ,'var Kid/ was the headquarters of the German Imperial fleet from which it issued to defeat in the naval battle of Jutland in May 1916 and to surrender in November 1918. See WAR, EUROPEAN. The population has shown rapid expansion; in 1840 it was 43,594; in 1910, 211,627.