The Hanseatic League (Middle Low German: Hanse, Düdesche Hanse, Hansa; Modern German: Deutsche Hanse; Dutch: De Hanze; Latin: Hansa Teutonica) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Its capital was Lübeck, Cologne was also important. 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 between the 13th and 15th centuries, it stretched from the Netherlands in the west to Russia in the east, and from Estonia in the north to Kraków, Poland, in the south.
Alternate versions of Hanseatic League have been discovered throughout the multiverse: