SWINEMÜNDE, a port and seaside resort of Germany, in the Prussian province of Pomerania, situated at the east extremity of the island of Usedom, and on the left bank of the river Swine which connects the Stettiner Haff with the Baltic. Pop. (1905), 13,272. It serves as the outer port of Stettin (q.v.), 42 m. distant by water, with which, as with Heringsdorf, it has direct railway communication. Its broad unpaved streets and one-storey houses built in the Dutch style give it an almost rustic appearance, although its industries, beyond some fishing, are entirely connected with its shipping. The entrance to the harbour, the best on the Prussian Baltic coast, is protected by two long breakwaters, and is strongly fortified. The grand lighthouse, 216 ft. high, rises beside the new docks on the island of Wollin, on the other side of the narrow Swine. In 1897 the river continuation of the Kaiserfahrt was opened to navigation, and, further, the waterway between the Haff and the Baltic was deepened to 24 ft. in 1900–1901 and in other ways improved. The connexion between Swinemünde and Stettin is kept open in winter by ice breakers. Formerly ships of heavy burden bound for Stettin discharged or lightened their cargo at Swinemünde, but since the recent deepening of the river Oder they can proceed direct to the larger port.
The Swine, the central and shortest passage between the Stettiner Haff and the Baltic Sea, was formerly flanked by the fishing villages of West and East Swine. Towards the beginning of last century it was made navigable for large ships, and Swinemünde, which was founded on the site of West Swine in 1748, was fortified and raised to the dignity of a town by Frederick the Great in 1765.
See Wittenberg, Swinemünde, Ahlbeck und Heringsdorf (Linz, 1893).