Hiddensee

Hiddensee
Dornbusch Lighthouse on Hiddensee Island
Coat of arms
Hiddensee
Location of Hiddensee within Vorpommern-Rügen district
Coordinates: 54°32′24″N 13°5′34″E / 54.54000°N 13.09278°E / 54.54000; 13.09278Coordinates: 54°32′24″N 13°5′34″E / 54.54000°N 13.09278°E / 54.54000; 13.09278
Country	Germany
State	Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
District	Vorpommern-Rügen
Municipal assoc.	West-Rügen
Government
• Mayor	to be elected
Area
• Total	19.02 km2 (7.34 sq mi)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	1,002
• Density	53/km2 (140/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	18565
Dialling codes	038300
Vehicle registration	RÜG
Website	Gemeinde website

Hiddensee [ˈhɪdənzeː] is a car-free island in the Baltic Sea, located west of Germany's largest island, Rügen, on the German coast.

The island is located at 54°33' north 13°07' east, and has about 1,300 inhabitants. It was a popular holiday destination for East German tourists during German Democratic Republic (GDR) times and continues to attract tourists today with its natural beauty. It is the location of the University of Greifswald's ornithological station. Gerhart Hauptmann and Walter Felsenstein are buried there.

The name Hedinsey surfaces as early as the Prose Edda and the Gesta Danorum written by Saxo Grammaticus and means "Island of Hedin". The legendary Norwegian king, Hedin, was supposed to have fought here for a woman or even just for gold. Under Danish rule the name Hedins-Oe ("Hedin's Island") was common. Even in 1880 the island was shown in German maps as Hiddensjö and, in 1929, in German holiday guides as Hiddensöe. Its full Germanization to Hiddensee is thus relatively recent.

Hiddensee is about 16.8 kilometres long, about 250 metres wide at its narrowest point and about 3.7 kilometres wide at its broadest point. It is the largest island within the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park and belongs to the district of Vorpommern-Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It lies west of the island of Rügen and is divided into an undulating, over 70-metre-high northern part (Dornbusch, whose highest point is the Bakenberg at 72 m above sea level (NN)), a dune and heath landscape in the central area (Dünenheide) and a flat, only few-metres-high southern part, the Gellen. In the northeast are the two three-kilometre-long spits of Alter Bessin and Neuer Bessin. The island is bounded by the Schaproder Bodden and Vitter Bodden to the east, the Gellenstrom (the shipping channel to Stralsund) to the south and the open Baltic Sea to the west and north.