Greifswald in the context of "Bay of Pomerania"

This is a list of major cities and towns around the Baltic Sea, as well as some notable cities/towns with a small population. The census for Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm includes the urban area.

Caspar David Friedrich (German: [ˌkaspaʁ ˌdaːvɪt ˈfʁiːdʁɪç] ; 5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti-classical work, conveys a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings often set contemplative human figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. Art historian Christopher John Murray described their presence, in diminished perspective, amid expansive landscapes, as reducing the figures to a scale that directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".

Friedrich was born in the town of Greifswald on the Baltic Sea in what was at the time Swedish Pomerania. He studied in Copenhagen 1794–1798, before settling in Dresden. He came of age during a period when, across Europe, a growing disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise to a new appreciation of spirituality. This shift was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization".

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; German: [ˌmeːklənbʊʁkˈfoːɐ̯pɔmɐn] or [ˌmɛk-] ; Low German: Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in population; it covers an area of 23,300 km (9,000 sq mi), making it the sixth largest German state in area; and it is 16th in population density. Schwerin is the state capital and Rostock is the largest city. Other major cities include Neubrandenburg, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wismar, and Güstrow. It was named after the two regions of Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania (German: Vorpommern).

The state was established in 1945 after World War II through the merger of the historic regions of Mecklenburg and Prussian Western Pomerania by the Soviet military administration in Allied-occupied Germany. It became part of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, but was dissolved in 1952 during administrative reforms and its territory divided into the districts of Rostock, Schwerin, and Neubrandenburg. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was re-established in 1990 following German reunification and became one of the new states of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Franz Eilhard Schulze (22 March 1840 – 2 November 1921) was a German anatomist and zoologist born in Eldena, near Greifswald.

Stralsund (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʁaːlzʊnt] ; Swedish: Strålsund), officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German: Hansestadt Stralsund), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg and Greifswald, and the second-largest city in the Pomeranian part of the state. It is located on the southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the Pomeranian mainland.

The Strelasund Crossing with its two bridges and several ferry services connects Stralsund with Rügen, the largest island of Germany and Pomerania. The Western Pomeranian city is the seat of the Vorpommern-Rügen district and, together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms one of four high-level urban centres of the region.

Eldena Abbey (German: Kloster Eldena), originally Hilda Abbey (German: Kloster Hilda) is a former Cistercian monastery near the present town of Greifswald in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Only ruins survive, which are well known as a frequent subject of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings, including the famous Abtei im Eichwald ("Abbey in the Oak Forest").