It is located on the southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the Pomeranian mainland.

[4] The Strelasund Crossing with its two bridges and several ferry services connects Stralsund with Rügen, the largest island of Germany and Pomerania.

[4] The Western Pomeranian city is the seat of the Vorpommern-Rügen district and, together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms one of four high-level urban centres of the region.

The city's name as well as that of the Strelasund are compounds of the Slavic (Polabian) stral and strela (arrow; Polish: strzała, Czech: střela) and the Germanic sund, a strait or sound.

Stralsund's old town is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Historic Centres of Stralsund and Wismar" alongside the old town of Wismar in Mecklenburg because of its outstanding Brick Gothic buildings and its importance during the time of the Hanseatic League and when the city belonged to Sweden.

The three ponds and the Strelasund lend the Old Town, the original settlement site and historic centre of the city, a protected island ambience.

Many of the smaller villages in the vicinity, like Prohn or Negast, have grown sharply after 1990 as a result of the influx of those living or working in Stralsund.

Schadegard, a nearby twin city to Stralsund also founded by Wizlaw I, though not granted German law, served as the principal stronghold and enclosed a fort.

In the Battle of Stralsund (1628), the Imperial (Catholic) forces commanded by Albrecht von Wallenstein besieged the city after the council refused to accept the Capitulation of Franzburg[10] of November 1627.

In the Great Northern War in 1715 Charles XII led the defence of Stralsund for a year against the united European armies.

During the Nazi period (1933–1945), Stralsund's military installations expanded, and a naval training base opened on the nearby island of Dänholm.

The 354th Rifle Division of the Red Army occupied Stralsund on April 28, 1945 – 10 days before the end of the war in Europe.

During the period of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Stralsund saw the construction of numerous Plattenbau prefabricated apartment blocks.

Its economic life centered on the now state-owned shipyard, which largely focussed on building ships for the Soviet Union.

After German reunification in 1990, the city's historic old town was thoroughly restored, and Communist-era apartment blocks were renovated and upgraded.

The Old Town in particular offers a rich variety of historic buildings, with many former merchants' houses, churches, streets and squares.

In twenty years, from the Wende (turning point) in 1990 to November 2010, 588 of the more than 1,000 old buildings were completely refurbished, including 363 individual monuments.

[5]On the Alter Markt Square there is the main landmark of Stralsund: the Brick Gothic city hall from Hanseatic times.

This building from 1278 features a remarkable "show façade" that serves the sole purpose of displaying wealth of the city.

The ensemble of buildings on the Alter Markt Square includes the St. Nicholas Church, the Artushof, the Wulflamhaus, the Commandantenhus, the Gewerkschaftshaus and a new apartment complex.

The historic houses with their distinctive gables, often renovated at a high financial cost, dominate the scene in the streets of the Old Town.

Today St. James' is used purely as a cultural venue, its parish being served now by the Church of the Holy Spirit, which also dates from the 14th century.

In 1743 a new building, the Kleines St. Jürgen Kloster, was built at Kniepertor and the site was extended in 1754 to create old people's flats and in 1841 for widow's apartments.

Architecturally the pilot station and the harbor warehouse (Hafenspeicher), as well as the silhouette of the Old Town, form a unique tableau of different historical eras.

The Paul Greifzu Stadium built in 1957, off the Barther Straße,[19] hosts the speedway team MC Nordstern Stralsund e.V.