Rivers And Seas Of The World Codexery

Baltic Sea

The world's largest brackish water basin, an arm of the Atlantic enclosed by nine countries.

Last updated

Baltic Sea

via Wikipedia: White Sea–Baltic Canal · see source

Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden are the countries that enclose the Baltic Sea, which is a branch of the Atlantic Ocean.[1] Lengthwise, the sea measures roughly 1600 km, its typical width is 193 km, its mean depth is 55 m, and the greatest depth recorded is 459 m.[2]

Geography and history

Geographers widely agree the physical border with the North Sea is the Langelandsbælt and the Drogden-Sill strait.[3] Tacitus called it the Suebic Sea, and Ptolemy called it the Sarmatian Ocean, but the first to name it the Baltic Sea was the eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen.[4] Adam of Bremen compared the sea with a belt, stating it stretches through the land as a belt.[5] Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the Baltic Sea, in the Øresund, the Great Belt, and the Little Belt.[6]

The Helsinki Convention defines the "Baltic Sea Area" as the Baltic Sea and the Entrance to the Baltic Sea, bounded by the parallel of the Skaw in the Skagerrak.[7] Approximately 349644 km² of surface area and about 20000 km³ of volume characterize the Baltic Sea, whose coastline extends for roughly 8000 km.[2][8] Heavy salt water moving from the Kattegat toward the basins near Bornholm and Gotland is impeded by the Drogden Sill, which is 7 m deep, and the Darss Sill, which is 18 m deep.[9] Nobody knows for certain where the term "Baltic Sea" originally came from.[4]

At Middelfart, the Little Belt reaches its most constricted point, known as the "Middelfart Sund".[6]

What the cited sources add

The Yle news report from December 2024 states that authorities reported disruptions in a total of four telecommunications cables connecting Finland in the Baltic Sea.[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Niktalab, "Over the Alps: History of Children and Youth Literature in Europe", Faradid Publisher, 2024, p. 6 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "EuroOcean" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Fragen zum Meer (Antworten) – IOW", www.io-warnemuende.de (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Tacitus, Germania(online text ): Ergo iam dextro Suebici maris litore Aestiorum gentes adluuntur, quibus ritus habitusque Sueborum, lingua Britannicae propior.&; Benario, "Tacitus: Germania", Liverpool University Press, 1 July 1999, p. 110; Ptolemy, Geography III, chapter 5: "Sarmatia in Europe is bounded on the north by the Sarmatian ocean at the Venedic gulf" (online text ). (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Balteus in Nordisk familjebok. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Sundzoll", Academic dictionaries and encyclopedias (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Text of Helsinki Convention" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Geography of the Baltic Sea Area" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Baltic Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Swedish Chemicals Agency (KEMI): The BaltSens Project – The sensitivity of the Baltic Sea ecosystems to hazardous compounds" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. "Estlink cable disruption: Finnish Border Guard detains tanker linked to Russia's 'dark fleet'", Yle, 26 December 2024. facts only, no text reused. yle.fi

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Baltic Sea (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

More in Rivers And Seas Of The World

Bay of BengalBay of BiscayBeaufort SeaBering SeaBlack SeaCaspian SeaCoral SeaDead SeaAmazon RiverAmu DaryaAmurAngara

Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

Spotted an error? Know more?

Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced

Comments

Loading…
Open in the interactive codex →