Lindow (Mark) (German pronunciation: [ˈlɪndoː] ^ⓘ) is a town in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is located 14 km northeast of Neuruppin, and 29 km northwest of Oranienburg. The town is situated on an isthmus between the lakes Gudelacksee and Wutzsee.

In the course of the medieval eastward migrations of Germans Gebhard I, Count of Arnstein conquered the area around today's Lindow. In 1196 he settled in the castle of Ruppin, located in today's Alt Ruppin, a locality of Neuruppin. The comital family later adopted the name counts of Lindow-Ruppin. By 1220 or 1240 the counts founded a Cistercian nunnery next to Lake Wutzsee in Lindow and richly enfeoffed it with lands and villages, whose inhabitants became serfs to the nunnery. The nunnery compound comprised a cloister surrounded by the convent buildings in the east and west, the cloister church in the north and a smaller structure on the southern side partially opening towards Wutzsee.

The nunnery's estates comprised 90,000 morgen of land, 18 villages, nine watermills and several fishponds and lakes (among others Großer Stechlinsee). The dues collected from the tenants of lands allowed to maintain 35 nuns, an abbess and a male provost, pastoring them and representing the nunnery in contracts with outsiders. In return for the endowments the nuns were committed to take care of the education of the daughters of the counts, and other regional noble families.

Next to the nunnery a settlement developed which was first named in a document of 1343. The settlement developed into a little town. In 1457 a parish church was erected for the townsfolk. With the extinction of the comital family in the male line the comital fief was reverted to the prince-electors of Brandenburg in 1524. The prince-elector confirmed the nunnery in its subfiefs, previously bestowed by the counts, in 1530. After the prince-elector adopted Lutheranism in 1539 the nunnery was secularised in 1541/1542 and its fiefs taken by the prince-elector but pawned to his creditors, who left only a narrow annual appanage for the nuns. Lindow's population adopted Lutheranism in the course of the Reformation.

The prior function of the nunnery, to provide sustenance for unmarried women mostly from local noble families, wasn't to be given up with its secularisation. So the formerly Roman Catholic nunnery turned into a Lutheran women's convent (German: das Stift, more particular: Fräuleinstift, literally damsels' foundation), with its inhabitants now called conventuals. However, the appanage was little, so only few conventuals could be maintained. The foundation became a home exclusively for unmarried daughters of noble birth. The conventuals were chaired by a domina, appointed by the prince-elector.

During the Thirty Years War, Danish as well as Imperial troops captured and robbed the town in 1627, while conventuals and townsfolk weathered that on Werder island in the Gudelacksee. When in 1635 Swedish troops ravaged the town, they did not find much and crossed over to Werder island and slaughtered many townspeople.

The Imperial Army invaded and ravaged the area three years later. On 18 October 1638, the forces of General Matthias Gallas robbed and burnt the Lutheran convent, the following day they robbed and burnt the whole town of Lindow to the ground. The convent's library and the archives were destroyed by fire, the cloister school, built in the late 15th century, survived and is preserved until today. 28 further villages in the area were ravaged and burnt. Many of the survivors fled the area in order to find a survival elsewhere. Most buildings of the nunnery are in ruins since.

Until 1644 one building of the convent was restored to house the surviving remaining 12 conventuals. The decrease of dues collected from the impoverished tenants forced to reduce the number of conventuals to a mere five.