Bergen is in the middle of Germany's biggest island, Rügen, on the Baltic Sea coast.

South of the town is the Kiebitzmoor ("Peewit Moor") and to the northwest is the lake of Nonnensee which was reactivated a few years ago.

During the Early Middle Ages, Rügen was settled by a Slavic tribe, the Rani who established a pagan worship site on Cape Arkona, defended by a fort, the Jaromarsburg.

When the tribe was subdued by the Danes, who erected the Principality of Rügen ruled by a local dynasty, the Rugard burgh became an administrative centre.

Soon after the fall of the Jaromarsburg in 1168, construction started on St. Mary's as the palace church of the Rügen prince, Jaromar I.

Even today there is an unusual curiosity here: the clock face on the north side of the church tower shows 61 minutes.

In 1534, after a decree by the Pomeranian Landtag in Treptow an der Rega (today Trzebiatów), the Reformation was introduced to Pomerania.

When in 1898 and 1899, the waterworks and the power station came into operation, and the infrastructure that Bergen had at its disposal made it worthy of being the district seat.

After the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was founded, the new government pressed ahead with further industrialization.

An efficient food industry was set up in Bergen, supplied from the island and parts of the mainland.

Since Reunification and East Germany's accession into the Federal Republic, the town has undergone a number of marked changes.

Many prefabricated concrete structures, common in the former Warsaw Pact countries, were modernized and adapted to new demands.

In Bergen, the road further branches into the B 196, affording access to the island's eastern area, where there are bathing beaches.

Already by the time the first stretches of railway were built on Rügen in 1883, trains were reaching the island from afar.

The island's capital, Bergen, has always profited from this, as it lies right on the main transport arteries to the bathing resorts and the harbour at Mukran (Sassnitz).

Until the 1960s, Bergen was also served by a local narrow gauge railway, the Rügen Light Railway, popularly known as Rasender Roland ("Racing Roland"), but the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which owned it at the time, shut all the lines in the central and northern parts of Rügen down at that time.