The Hanseatic League (also known as the Hanse or Hansa) is a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns.

It dominated Baltic maritime trade (c. 1400–1800) along the coast of Northern Europe.

It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (c. thirteenth to seventeenth centuries).The League is created to protect economic interests and diplomatic privileges in the cities and countries and along the trade routes the merchants visit.

The Hanseatic cities have their own legal system and furnish their own armies for mutual protection and aid.

Despite this, the organization is not a city-state, nor can it be called a confederation of city-states; only a very small number of the cities within the league enjoy autonomy and liberties comparable to those of a free imperial city.

The legacy of the Hansa is remembered today in several names: the German airline Lufthansa (i.e., "Air Hansa"); F.C.

Hansa Rostock; the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, in the Netherlands; the Hanze oil production platform (also in the Netherlands); the Hansa Brewery in Bergen; the Hansabank in the Baltic states (now known as Swedbank); and the Hanse Sail in Rostock.

DDG Hansa was a major German shipping company from 1881 until its bankruptcy in 1980.