ABSTRACT
In the chronicle of Adam of Bremen there is a description of Wolin, an early medieval centre of crafts and trade which was located at the mouth of the Oder River in Poland. This centre was considered by the author to be the largest of European cities. To verify this thesis, this chapter calculates the area occupied by Wolin in the early Middle Ages on the basis of archaeological data and compares it with the two most important Baltic centres of the Viking period – Hedeby and Birka. In addition, this chapter speculates on the possible population of Wolin, as previous estimates have been presented without details of the method used. The results indicate that Wolin may have been one of the largest, or the largest, craft and trade centre on the Baltic Sea. If the passage in the chronicle of Adam of Bremen was not just a literary device, one might suspect that he had the area of northern Europe in mind.
