Pomerania

Pomerania, Polish Pomorze, German Pommern (from Slavic po, “along,” and morze, “sea”), historic region of northeastern Europe lying along the Baltic coastal plain between the Oder and the Vistula rivers. Politically, the name also came to include the area west of the Oder as far as Stralsund, including the island of Rügen (Rugia). Most of Pomerania is now part of Poland, but its westernmost section is in eastern Germany, as reflected in the name of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania Land (state). The region is generally flat, and there are numerous small rivers and, along the east coast, many lakes.

Pomerania was inhabited successively by Celts, Germanic tribes, and, by the 5th century ad, the Slavic Pomeranians (Pomorzanie) and Polabs. Mieszko I, prince of Poland (d. 992), mastered it, and in 1000 his successor, Bolesław I the Brave, organized a diocese in Pomerania with its seat at Kołobrzeg. A local dynasty then ruled Pomerania and also the region to the west, later called Mecklenburg. German immigration into the western and central regions of Pomerania began in the late 12th century. This resulted in the Germanization of the towns and later of the nobility and the countryside.

Until the 17th century, Polish dukes ruled western and central Pomerania (the duchies of Wolgast and Stettin) under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Empire. The elector of Brandenburg acquired these duchies in 1637, when the last Polish duke, Bogusław XIV, who had united them, died without issue. Sweden received Western Pomerania by the Peace of Westphalia (1648); part of it was returned to Brandenburg-Prussia in 1720, and the remainder (Stralsund and Rügen) was recovered by Prussia in 1815. Prussia united western and central Pomerania into one province called Pommern.

Eastern Pomerania was held by the Teutonic Knights from 1308 to 1454, when it was reconquered by Poland. In 1772 it was annexed by Prussia and made into the province of West Prussia. A small part of it was restored to Poland after World War I; the remainder, together with part of Pomerania, became Polish in 1945. The German population of eastern and central Pomerania was expelled westward and replaced by Poles. Western Pomerania was incorporated into the German Democratic Republic.