Visby, on the west coast of Gotland, is one of the most popular destinations for summer tourism. But it is also a remarkable combination of an idyllic, hundred-year-old small town and a big medieval town. It is a typical Hanseatic town with a ring-wall, a well-preserved street grid, and buildings from the Middle Ages onwards. Medieval church ruins and warehouses blend with the low houses of wood and stone from later periods.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Gotlandic trade and shipping played a major part in the Baltic area. As a centre of international trade and culture with a strong German element, Visby became an important town. A wall of limestone was built to enclose the town. Visby ring-wall is 3.6 kilometres long and is the best-preserved in Northern Europe. It was constructed in the thirteenth century, as were most of the 17 medieval churches and a large number of dwelling houses. The big churches were erected by different monastic orders, which also built a school and a House of the Holy Spirit for the poor, sick, and travellers.

When the Hanseatic League acquired a firm organization in the mid-fourteenth century, Visby was given the leadership of the north-eastern towns. The Hansa was a political and commercial league of German merchants and towns in the North Sea and Baltic area. Visby played a central role in Gotlandic-German trade in Novgorod and was also the starting point for German crusades against Latvia. The conditions for Baltic trade gradually changed and Visby declined in importance. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, Sweden, Denmark, and Mecklenburg all laid claim to the town, with varying success.

Visby's gradual but general decline in the subsequent centuries led to the decay of its buildings. At the same time, it meant that church ruins, the ring-wall, and merchants' houses were spared active demolition. At the start of the nineteenth century there was a growing interest, chiefly among authors and artists, in Visby as a historical monument. At the same time, cultural and economic life in Visby developed. The town expanded outside the wall, with new homes, small industries, railway installations and military barracks. In the mid-nineteenth century the first tourism began, and by 1900 it was a firmly established industry.

The Hanseatic Town of Visby was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1995. The justification of the World Heritage Committee was:

"Visby is an outstanding example of a Northern European walled Hanseatic town which has in a unique way preserved its townscape and its extremely valuable buildings, which in form and function clearly reflect this significant human settlement."

Contact:

Gotland County Administration Phone: +46-498-29 21 00. Gotland Tourist Association Phone: +46-498-20 17 00.

See also:
Gotland Municipality
Hanseatic Town of Visby - UNESCO.