GREIFSWALD, grifs'walt. The capital of a circle of the same name in the Prussian Province of Pomerania, situated on the river Ryck, 18 miles by rail southeast of Stralsund, near the Baltic Sea (Map: Prussia, E 1). It is well built, equipped with modern improvements, and is surrounded by promenades laid out on the site of ancient fortifications. There are three mediae val Lutheran churches, of which the Gothic Saint Nicholas is the most conspicuous, owing to its high tower. The town hall is also an interesting old building, and there are a number of curious private houses—gabled brick structures dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The University of Greifswald was founded in 1456. It has three faculties, with an attendance of over 800 students, and a library of 140,000 volumes, together with a number of interesting manu scripts. At the university is exposed every ten
years the valuable Croy tapestry, belonging to the sixteenth century, and representing Luther preaching. There are a municipal gymnasium and a geographical and scientific museum. The chief manufacturing establishments are the royal railway shops, machine-works, chicory-factories, and ship-building yards. Sugar of lead, dried fish, and fruit preserves are exported. The trade is principally, however, in grain and wood. Popu lation, in 1890, 21,624; in 1900, 22,950.
Greifswald received its municipal rights in the thirteenth century, and became in the same century a member of the Hanseatic League. It suffered greatly from frequent sieges, but regained its prosperity under the dominion of Sweden. into whose hands it fell in 1631. It became Prus sian in 1815.