Pomerania, the Baltic 'land by the sea' that Poles and Germans define differently
Stretching along the southern Baltic from near Rügen to the Vistula, Pomerania holds Germany's biggest island, Poland's biggest island and the port of Gdańsk. Its Slavic name simply means along the sea, but even its borders are argued over: German and Polish usage disagree about what 'West' and 'East' Pomerania actually cover.
The geography is mostly flat coastal plain. Inland, the Baltic Ridge of Ice Age moraines holds the Pomeranian Lake District, and the soils tend to be thin, sandy or boggy. The western shore is ragged with peninsulas, lagoons and islands such as Rügen, Usedom and Wolin, while the eastern shore runs smooth, with former bays like Łebsko now sealed off as lakes and the Hel Peninsula reaching into Gdańsk Bay. Population is sparse outside Gdańsk and Szczecin, and the countryside is farms, forests and small towns.
People moved in as the last glaciers retreated some 13,000 years ago, and later layers include Baltic, Germanic and West Slavic peoples, plus Vikings. A document of 1046 names a Duke of the Pomeranians called Zemuzil. From the 10th century Polish rulers absorbed the east, and Gdańsk grew into Poland's main harbour. In the 12th century Otto of Bamberg brought Christianity to the western duchy, which drifted toward the Holy Roman Empire under the Griffin dynasty. The Teutonic Knights seized Pomerelia, the eastern part, early in the 14th century.
Poland regained Pomerelia in 1466 after the Thirteen Years' War. The German-speaking duchy turned Protestant in 1534 while Polish and Kashubian communities stayed Catholic. The Thirty Years' War devastated the region, the Griffin line died out, and in 1648 the duchy was carved up between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia then swallowed the pieces in stages, taking Pomerelia from Poland in 1772 and 1793 and the last Swedish holdings in 1815, before everything joined the new German Empire in 1871.
That layered past explains the naming muddle. Germans traditionally mean only Hither and Farther Pomerania by the word, whereas Poles include Pomerelia, home of the Kashubians. Today's Polish voivodeships and German districts ignore the old lines, so modern maps and historical ones rarely match. Since 1995 a cross-border euroregion has linked parts of the area with Scania in Sweden.
Source: Pomerania
