Kuressaare's historic name Arensburg[3] (from Middle High German a(a)r: eagle, raptor) renders the Latin denotation arx aquilae for the city's castle.

The fortress and the eagle, tetramorph symbol of Saint John the Evangelist, are also depicted on Kuressaare's coat of arms.

[6] Eventually, the town's name shortened to Kuressaare[5] and became official in 1918 after Estonia had declared its independence from Bolshevist Russia.

[citation needed] The island of Saaremaa (German, Swedish: Ösel) was conquered by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword under Volkwin of Naumburg in 1227, who merged with the Teutonic Knights shortly afterwards.

With the advance of the troops of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia in the course of the Livonian War, Münchhausen sold his lands to King Frederick II of Denmark in 1559 and returned to Germany.

In 1645, it passed to Swedish control through the Treaty of Brömsebro after the Danish defeat in the Torstenson War.

[3] Queen Christina of Sweden granted her favourite, Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, the title of Count of Arensburg, the German and Swedish name for Kuressaare at that time.

The city was burnt to the ground by Russian troops in 1710 during the Great Northern War and suffered heavily from the plague.

[9] Abandoned by the Swedes, it was incorporated into the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire through the Treaty of Nystad in 1721.

During World War I, between September and October 1917, German land and naval forces occupied Saaremaa with Operation Albion.

New sanatoriums and boarding houses were created, the order was considerably improved and the number of visitors continued to grow.

[13] The city's biggest attraction is the Kuressaare Bishop's Castle, which mainly dates from the 14th century, and currently houses the Saaremaa Museum.

Since 2001, Kuressaare Castle Days have been organized every summer with knight tournaments, theatrical tours and processions, and other medieval attractions.

[10] At the beginning of Lossi Street, in the former fish market, there is a monument to those who fell in the Estonian War of Independence.

The original wooden castle was constructed between 1338 and 1380, although other sources claim a fortress was built in Kuressaare as early as 1260.

An attempt to revive the railway in the beginning of the 1950s, during the Soviet period, was unsuccessful, and ended up with rails fully removed from the streets.