a fortified seaport-town in the Prussian province of Prussia, government of Danzig, and capital of a cognominal circle on the Elbing, 4 miles from where it flows into the Frische Haff, and 36 miles E.S.E. of Danzig. Pop. (1849) 21,637. The town is surrounded by old walls flanked with towers, and by ditches. It is divided into an old and new town, and has seven gates and eleven suburbs. In the old town the streets are narrow and the houses lofty, but the new town is generally well-built. Elbing has a Roman Catholic, a Calvinist, and five Lutheran churches, a synagogue, six hospitals, orphan and other asylums, a gymnasium, and a library. This town is indebted to Richard Cowle, an Englishman who lived there for some time previous to 1820, for several of its charitable institutions, among which is a school of industry for the maintenance of 400 children. Elbing was founded about the year 1237, and formerly was one of the most important members of the Hanseatic League. It was united to the Prussian dominions in 1772. The chief manufactures are sail-cloth, leather, tobacco, soap, oil, vitriol, pearl ash, starch, chicory, refined sugar, and woollen cloth. The trade is very considerable; but only small vessels can come up to the town, larger ones being obliged to discharge their cargoes at Pillau, at the mouth of the Frische Haff.