Hanseatic League / Hanseatic Cities

Collection of routes and places linked to the Hanseatic League. The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the League came to dominate Baltic maritime trade for three centuries along the coast of Northern Europe. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (c. 15th to 19th centuries).