DOBERAN, or DOBBERAN, a market tow-n of Northern Germany, in the grand duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, about two miles from the shores of the Baltic, and seven west of Rostock. Besides the ruins of a Cistercian abbey founded by Pribislav II. in 1173, and secularized in 1552, it possesses a church of the 14th century, which ranks as one of the finest in Northern Germany, a grand.ducal palace, a theatre, an exchange, and a concert-room. In 1793 Duke Frederick Francis caused the first seaside watering-place in Germany to be established on the neigh-bouring coast, at the spot where the Heiliger Damm, a great bank of rocks about 1000 feet broad and 15 feet high, stretches out into the sea, and forms an excellent bathing ground. Though no longer so popular as in the early part of the century, it is still frequented. In the immediate neighbourhood of the town three mineral springs were discovered in 1829 - one sulphurous, a second saline, and the third chalybeate. Population in 1875, 3866.