Ahrenshoop is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany on the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula of the Baltic Sea.

In 1328 Duke Heinrich II of Mecklenburg donated the area east of this border to the monastery of Ribnitz.

Until the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin joined the German Zollverein in 1868 one had to pay taxes crossing this border.

The first generation of members of the artist colony included the painters Elisabeth von Eicken, Anna Gerresheim, Friedrich Wachenhusen and, among others, as a guest Karl Rettich.

Several artists of the second generation also lived in Althagen and Niehagen, small villages on the Mecklenburg side of the border, among them Gerhard Marcks in Niehagen or Dora Koch-Stetter and her husband de:Fritz Koch-Gotha in Althagen.