In which country is the Hanseatic City of Stralsund located?

Stralsund, officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund, is a city in the Pomeranian part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located at the southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the mainland.

Stralsund was granted city rights in 1234 and was one of the most prosperous members of the medieval Hanseatic League. In 1628, during the Thirty Years' War, the city came under Swedish rule and remained so until the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars. From 1815 to 1945, Stralsund was part of Prussia.

The main industries of Stralsund are shipbuilding, fishing, mechanical engineering, and, to an increasing degree, tourism, life sciences, services and high tech industries, especially information technology and biotechnology.

During the period of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Stralsund saw the construction of numerous Plattenbau prefabricated apartment blocks. Its economic life centered on the now state-owned shipyard, which largely focussed on building ships for the Soviet Union.

After German reunification in 1990, the city's historic old town was thoroughly restored, and Communist-era apartment blocks were renovated and upgraded. In 2002 the old towns of Stralsund and Wismar, some 120 km to the west, were listed as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Sites. Stralsund's shipyard was privatized, and thereafter specialized in constructing container ships.