Gothland

Gothland, or Gottland, an island in the Baltic, off the S.E. coast of Sweden, and belonging to that country. It has an area of 1,080 square miles, and with the small surrounding islets forms the district of Wisby, so named from the chief town, where in the fifteenth century the outlawed King Eric X. maintained himself for ten years by piracy. The coast is rock-bound, but good pastoral and arable land exists in the interior, and there are valuable quarries of sandstone and marble.