I live in northern Germany, between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. There are prosperous towns on the Baltic coast: Flensburg, Schleswig and Lübeck. The North Sea coast is rather poorer, and the inland areas are hardly worth mentioning.

April 09, 2026 - 10:12 UTC

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It’s interesting when you know the history that causes these differences.
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It’s relatively easy to explain: the Baltic Sea was dominated by the Hanseatic League. That’s where the wealth was. On the North Sea, apart from Hamburg and Bremen, there were no Hanseatic cities of any significance. Lüneburg, perhaps, but that was about it.
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