Hanseatic cities developed a common legal system governing their merchants and goods and operated their own armies for mutual defense and aid. These arrangements gradually coalesced into the Hanseatic League, whose traders enjoyed duty-free treatment, protection, and diplomatic privileges in affiliated communities and their trade routes. The League originated from various loose associations of German traders and towns formed to advance mutual commercial interests, such as protection against piracy and banditry. Growing from a few north German towns in the late 12th century, the League ultimately encompassed nearly 200 settlements across seven modern-day countries at its height, it stretched from the Netherlands in the west to Russia in the east, and reached as far north as Swedish Gotland and as far south as Kraków, Poland. The Hanseatic League ( / ˌ h æ n s i ˈ æ t ɪ k/ Middle Low German: Hanse, Düdesche Hanse, Hansa Modern German: Deutsche Hanse Dutch: De Hanze Latin: Hansa Teutonica) was an influential medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in central and northern Europe.

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