Germany · Schleswig-Holstein · Kiel
Wellingdorf, Kiel — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Wellingdorf is a Stadtteil of Kiel on the east bank of the Förde at the mouth of the Schwentine, first mentioned in 1315 as Belendorp.
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Where to stay in Wellingdorf
Where the beds are, and what that means for the visit.
Kiel proper keeps the hotels. Wellingdorf works as a base on the east bank, with the Ostring carrying traffic through the middle of it and the ferry crossing to the west shore in a few minutes. Two schools serve the quarter.
The Gymnasium Wellingdorf and the Theodor-Storm-Schule stand here, the latter a primary and community school. A street festival fills the Schönberger Straße once a year.
About Wellingdorf
What are the main landmarks in Wellingdorf?
The Seefischmarkt is what the quarter is known for. Its weather vane on the market hall reads as a summary of the place: an elk for the fishers who came from the lost eastern territories, a steam trawler for deep-sea fishing, a lighthouse for Kiel as a landfall, and a flounder for the Schleswig-Holstein cutter fleet. Ocean research took the same ground.
The Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, GEOMAR, sits at the Seefischmarkt, and Coop and IBAK have their headquarters inside the quarter. A ferry runs from the pier. Line F2 crosses the Förde to the Reventloubrücke on the western shore, which is the quickest way into the city from here.
What is the history of Wellingdorf?
Wellingdorf appears in the record in 1315. The older name Belendorp points at the hilly ground it stood on, and the village was purely agricultural, its houses set to either side of the Schönberger Straße, which linked all the villages of the east bank with Kiel and the Probstei. Kiel took it in 1910, together with Hassee, Gaarden-Süd, Hasseldieksdamm and Ellerbek.
Fish made the modern quarter. Work on a large Seefischmarkt began in Wellingdorf in 1938, the buildings were finished just before the war and destroyed by bombing, and landings rose again from 1947. East Prussian fishers rebuilt the trade.
They had come from Pillau by cutter, and the Andreasgemeinde in Wellingdorf became the parish of the refugee fishers among them. A company was founded in 1948. Andreas Gayk signed its contract on 6 March, and from the first landing on 1 July 1949 nine wholesale firms and fishing cooperatives worked as the go-between for producers and traders for the next twenty years.
Where is Wellingdorf?
Wellingdorf lies on the south bank of the Schwentine at its mouth on the east side of the Kieler Förde, with Neumühlen-Dietrichsdorf and Oppendorf across the river, Ellerbek to the west and Elmschenhagen to the south.
More areas in Kiel
Updated October 2026