Lubeck, a free city of Germany, the former head of the Hanseatic League, and now an important shipping town, stands on the river Trave, 12 miles from the Baltic, and 40 by rail NE. of Hamburg. This city was founded 1143; Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, gave it a charter, and built the cathedral. Frederick Barbarossa greatly enlarged its privileges, and Frederick II. made it a free city of the empire. The city became the commercial metropolis of the Baltic and northern Europe, but decayed with the other Hanseatic cities. Full administrative rights were not conferred upon the burghers until 1848 ; now the constitution, embracing a senate (14 members) and a representative assembly (120 members), is thoroughly democratic. The French held Lubeck almost uninterruptedly from 1806 to 1815. In 1866 it joined the North German Confederation. Lubeck possesses 115 sq. m. of territory, including the port of Travemunde, near the river's mouth. The industries include the manufacture of cigars and vinegar, brewing, brandy-distilling, soap-boiling, and iron-founding. Lubeck is the great centre for trade between Hamburg, Germany, and the Baltic countries. The imports reach an annual value of about 9 1/2 millions, and the exports of 8 millions - mostly transit business. The port is entered annually by some 2300 vessels of 443,000 tons. The Trave was deepened to 15 feet in 1878-82. The churches include St Mary's (1170 ; rebuilt 1276-1310), with two towers 407 feet high ; the cathedral (1173 - 14th c), with a tower 394 feet high ; St James's, built before 1227, and St Peter's, before 1163. The town-house is the most notable secular building. There are a school of navigation, a library of 98,000 vols., ethnographic, antiquarian, zoological, and art collections, etc. Pop. (1875) 44,799; (1900) 82,089, besides 15,000 outside the city.