Usedom

This article is about the island. For the town, see Usedom (town).

Landsat satellite photo of Szczecin Lagoon - Usedom is the western of the two large islands separating the waters of the Lagoon from the Baltic Sea, the eastern island is Wolin.

Usedom (German) / Uznam (Polish) is a Baltic Sea island on the modern post-1945 border between Germany and Poland. It is situated north of the Lagoon of Szczecin (Ger: Stettiner Haff, Pol: Zalew Szczeciński) estuary of the Oder (Pol: Odra) river in Pomerania. Most of the island is a part of German Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (district Ostvorpommern) but the city of Świnoujście (Ger. Swinemünde) at the eastern end of the island has belonged to Poland since 1945. Area 445 km²; German part 373 km², Polish part 72 km². Population 76,500; German part 31,500; Polish part 45,000.

The island is separated in the east from the neighbouring island of Wolin by the Świna (Ger: Swine) strait (or river) which is the main route connecting the Szczecin Bay with the Pomeranian Bay, part of the Baltic Sea. The strait between the island and the mainland is called Peenestrom; it is an extension of the Peene river, which flows into the westernmost part of the Szczecin Bay.

Map of Usedom-Wolin area

A view of the beach on Usedom, near Ahlbeck

The main town on the island is Świnoujście (Swinemünde), which has more inhabitants than the rest of the island. Another town, giving its name to the German part of the island is called Usedom. The largest town in the German part is Dreikaiserbäder. There are many popular tourist resorts at the northern coast, including Dreikaiserbäder (Ahlbeck, Heringsdorf and Bansin), Świnoujście and Zinnowitz. The best known place on the island is probably the small village of Peenemünde, where the Luftwaffe tested their missiles and rockets, including the V-1 and V-2 during World War II.

Usedom was also used by Germany as a concentration camp for prisoners of war during World War II. From ca. 1000 until 1945 the eastern, now Polish, part of the island was German-speaking and part of the Holy Roman Empire resp. Imperial Germany too. The eastern part was assigned to the People's Republic of Poland by the Potsdam Conference in 1945 and the German inhabitants were violently expulsed.

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