Lindow

Lindow in der Mark, short: Lindow, is a town in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is located 14 km northeast of Neuruppin, and 29 km northwest of Oranienburg. The town is situated on an isthmus between the lakes Gudelacksee and Wutzsee.

In the course of the medieval eastward migrations of Germans Gebhard I, Count of Arnstein conquered the area around today's Lindow. In 1196 he settled in the castle of Ruppin, located in today's Alt Ruppin, a locality of Neuruppin. The comital family later adopted the name counts of Lindow-Ruppin. By 1220 or 1240 the counts founded a Cistercian nunnery next to Lake Wutzsee in Lindow and richly enfeoffed it with lands and villages, whose inhabitants became serfs to the nunnery. The nunnery compound comprised a cloister surrounded by the convent buildings in the east and west, the cloister church in the north and a smaller structure on the southern side partially opening towards Wutzsee.