WISMAR  , a seaport

town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, situated on the Bay of Wismar, one of the best harbours on the Baltic, zo m. by rail N. of Schwerin . Pop . (1905) 21,902 . The town is well and regularly built, with broad and straight streets, and contains numerous handsome and quaint buildings in the northern Gothic style . The church of St Mary, a Gothic edifice of the 13th and 14th centuries, with a tower 260 ft. high, and the church of St Nicholas (1381-1460), with very lofty vaulting, are regarded as good examples of the influence exercised in these northern provinces by the large church of St Mary in Lubeck . The elegant cruciform church of St George dates from the 14th and 15th centuries . The Furstenhof, at one time a ducal residence, but now occupied by the municipal authorities, is a richly decorated specimen of the Italian early Renaissance style . Built in 1552-1565, it was restored in 1877-1879 . The " Old School," dating from about 1300, has been restored, and is now occupied as a museum . The town hall (rebuilt in 1829) contains a collection of pictures . Among the manufactures of Wismar are iron, machinery, paper, roofing-felt and asphalt . There is a considerable trade, especially by sea, the exports including grain, oil-seeds and butter, and the imports coal, timber and iron .

The

harbour is deep enough to admit vessels of 17-ft. draught, and permits large steamers to unload along its quays . Two miles from Wismar lies the watering-place of Wendorf . Wismar is said to have received civic rights in 1229, and came into the possession of Mecklenburg in 1301 . In the 13th and 14th centuries it was a flourishing Hanse town, with important woollen factories . Though a plague carried off ro,000 of the inhabitants in 1376, the town seems to have remained tolerably prosperous until the 16th century . By the peace of Westphalia in 1648 it passed to Sweden, with a lordship to which it gives its name . In 1803 Sweden pledged both town and lordship to Mecklenburg for 1,258,000 thalers, reserving, however, the right of redemption after loo years . In view of this contingent right of Sweden, Wismar was not represented in the diet of Mecklenburg until 1897 . In 1903 Sweden finally renounced its claims . Wismar still retains a few relics of its old liberties, including the right to fly its own flag . See Burmeister, Beschreibung von Wismar (Wismar, 1857) ; Willgeroth, Geschichte der Stadt Wismar, pt. i . (Wismar, 1898) ; and Bruno Schmidt, Der Schwedisch-mecklenburgische Pfandvertrag s ber Stadt and Herrschaft Wismar (Leipzig, 1901) .