BALTIC SEA

German Ostsee, Swedish stersjn, Russian Baltiyskoye More, Finnish Itmeri, Polish Morze Baltyckie arm of the North Atlantic Ocean extending northward from the latitude of southern Denmark almost to the Arctic Circle, separating the Scandinavian peninsula from the rest of continental Europe. The Baltic Sea is encircled by Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Poland, Germany, and Denmark. Covering an area of some 160,000 square miles (420,000 square km), it is the largest expanse of brackish water in the world. Among its major affluents are the Vistula and the Oder rivers. The catchment area drained by the rivers bringing fresh water into the Baltic Sea is about four times as large as the sea itself. The Baltic Sea's major axis, from eastern Denmark to southern Finland, is about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) long, and its average width is some 120 miles (190 km). The western Baltic is connected to the North Sea by a strait called the Skagerrak, a deep inlet that separates southern Norway from the tip of the Jutland peninsula; immediately east of the Skagerrak, but at a right angle to it, the shallower strait known as the Kattegat separates northeastern Denmark from Sweden. The large islands of Bornholm (Denmark) and land and Gotland (Sweden) lie in the western Baltic, while the land Islands, farther north, rise from a narrows between Sweden and Finland and mark the entrance to the arm of the Baltic known as the Gulf of Bothnia. Just south of the land Islands, the narrow Gulf of Finland stretches eastward between Finland on the north and Estonia and Russia on the south, with St. Petersburg at its head. The Baltic is a shrunken remnant of the water-covered region that emerged as the Scandinavian ice sheet retreated toward the Arctic at the close of the Ice Age. The shallowest part of the Baltic is the continental shelf, from which rise the islands of the Danish archipelago. The Baltic's greatest depths, over 1,500 feet (457 m), lie off the southeastern coast of Sweden between the town of Nykping and the island of Gotland and also in the Gulf of Bothnia in the land Sea between Sweden and the land Islands. A deepwater channel extends along most of the Gulf of Finland. The Baltic Sea proper contains a series of basins divided by shallow shelves. The modifying effect of the North Atlantic Current is scarcely felt in the Baltic. Furthermore, the Baltic's waters contain only about a quarter as much salt as the oceans and thus freeze more readily. A fifth of the surface of Europe drains into the Baltic through more than 250 rivers, including the mighty Oder, Vistula, Neva, and Neman. This huge flow of river water, conjoined with the limited egress of Baltic waters through the narrow passages to the North Sea, explains why Baltic waters are almost fresh. The long spring thaw slows the advance of springlike weather, and the slow spread of surface freezing prolongs the autumn. Even when the Baltic is open to navigationthrough thawing or ice-breakingit is dangerous to ships because of frequent violent storms and sudden wind changes. The Baltic and North seas and the English Channel. German Ostsee, Swedish stersjn, Russian Baltiyskoye More, Finnish Itmeri, Polish Morze Baltyckie arm of the North Atlantic Ocean, extending northward from the latitude of southern Denmark almost to the Arctic Circle and separating the Scandinavian Peninsula from the rest of continental Europe. The largest expanse of brackish water in the world, the semienclosed and relatively shallow Baltic Sea is of great interest to scientists, while to historians it represents the economic core of the Hanseatic League, the great medieval trading group of northern European ports. The many names for the sea attest to its strategic position as a meeting place of many nation-states. The Baltic Sea covers about 149,000 square miles (386,000 square kilometres). The catchment area drained by the rivers bringing fresh water into the Baltic is about four times as large as the sea itself. The Baltic proper stretches southwest-northeast on the eastern side of the Scandinavian Peninsula from latitude 54 N to very near the Arctic Circle; its major axis, from eastern Denmark to southern Finland, is a little more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) long, with an average width of about 120 miles. The western Baltic extends north through insular Denmark and includes the Kattegat, a strait separating peninsular Denmark (Jutland, or Jylland) from southwestern Sweden. The Kattegat is bounded on the north by the Skagerrak, a deep inlet of the North Sea that separates southern Norway from northern Jutland. The large islands of Bornholm (Denmark) and land and Gotland (Sweden) lie in the western Baltic, while the land Islands (Finnish: Ahvenanmaa), farther north, rise from a narrows between Sweden and Finland and mark the entrance to the arm of the Baltic known as the Gulf of Bothnia. Just to the south of the land Islands, the narrow Gulf of Finland stretches eastward between Finland to the north, Estonia to the south, and Russia around the eastern end, with St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) at its head. Proceeding clockwise from the west, the states bounding the Baltic are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany. Additional reading Aarno Voipio (ed.), The Baltic Sea (1981), is an informative overview of the area. Boris Winterhalter (ed.), The Baltic Sea (1988), is a set of colloquium papers on the Baltic's geology; and Ole Bagge and Otto Rechlin, Baltic Sea Fishery Resources (1989), is the proceedings from a symposium. A special issue of Ambio, vol. 9, no. 34 (1980), is devoted to the Baltic. Gunnar Alexandersson, The Baltic Straits (1982), discusses The Sound, Kattegat, and Skagerrak. Alastair Dougal Couper