The Dutch also dominated trade between European countries. The Low Countries were favorably positioned at a crossing of east–west and north–south trade routes and connected to a large German hinterland through the Rhine river. Dutch traders shipped wine from France and Portugal to the Baltic lands and returned with grain for countries around the Mediterranean Sea. By the 1680s, an average of nearly 1000 Dutch ships entered the Baltic Sea each year, to trade with markets of the fading Hanseatic League. The Dutch were able to gain control of much of the trade with the nascent English colonies in North America; and after the end of the war with Spain in 1648, Dutch trade with that country also flourished.
