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What goods did Hanseatic merchants transport across the Baltic Sea?

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Map showing the physical features, major cities, and national boundaries around the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and English Channel regions of northern and western Europe. The map highlights coastal countries including the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, with sea depths indicated and key islands, peninsulas, and underwater trenches labeled. — Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the English Channel.

Hanseatic merchants facilitated a vital east-west trade network across the Baltic Sea, connecting the resource-rich lands of the east with the industrial markets of the west.1

Their trade goods included:

From the East and South: Merchants transported food surpluses and raw materials, including grain, timber, pitch, tar, potash, charcoal, wax, honey, hemp for ropes, flax for sailcloth, and furs.12
From Scandinavia: They traded Swedish copper and iron ore, as well as whale oil and cod from Norway.12
Fish: Salted herring was a major commodity, traded extensively throughout Germany and southward to the Alps.12
From the West: In exchange for these raw materials, merchants brought cloth and various manufactured goods to the eastern regions.1

This trade was essential to the Hanseatic League's power, as they established a near-monopoly on these long-distance commercial routes during the 13th to 15th centuries.13