2 Prehistory

The Baltic Sea is a very young sea, formed by the last ice age. As the ice receded to north, the following stages of the Baltic formed:

• Baltic Ice Lake 13000 BCE
• Yoldian Sea 10300 BCE
• Ancylus Lake 9500 BCE
• Mastogloia Sea 8500 BCE
• Littorina Sea 7500 BCE
• Post-Littorina Sea 4000 BCE - current

As the ground rose after being pressed down by the ice, the Baltic Sea switched between being a sea and a lake, or something in between, and it was variously connected to the North Sea- Atlantic either through the straits of Denmark or at what are now the large lakes of Sweden, and the White Sea- Arctic Sea. Many of the stages are named after certain marine animals (like the Littorina mollusc) that are clear markers of changing water temperatures and chemical composition.

The Baltic Sea somewhat resembles a riverbed, with two tributaries (the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia). From geological surveys it has become apparent that there indeed was a river in the area in the Pleistocene: the Eridanos.

Due to the Post-glacial rebound, the ground is still rising after having been released from the weight of the Weichsel glaciation, especially around the Gulf of Bothnia: at places the ground is rising by almost one metre per century, which means that the shore can gain dozens and someplace hundreds of meters in a human lifetime.

3 History

At the time of the Roman Empire, the Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum. Tacitus in his AD 98 Agricola and Germania described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea when the ice on the Baltic Sea broke apart and chunks floated about. The Sarmatian tribes inhabited Eastern Europe and southern Russia. Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work the Getica.

Since the Viking age, the Scandinavians have called it "the Eastern Lake", but Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name Gandvik, "-vik" being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. (Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum, is likely to be a misspelling.)

In addition to fish the sea also provides amber, especially from its southern shores. The bordering countries have traditionally provided lumber, wood tar, flax, hemp, and furs. Sweden had from early medieval times also a flourishing mining industry, especially on iron ore and silver. Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. All this has provided for rich trading since the Roman times.

In the early Middle Ages, Vikings of Scandinavia fought for power over the sea with Slavic Pomeranians. The Vikings used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually all the way to Black Sea and southern Russia.

Finland and the Baltic states were the last in Europe to be converted into Christianity in the Northern Crusades: the former in the 12th century by the Swedes and the latter in the 13th century by the Germans. First the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and then the powerful German Teutonic Knights held the Baltic countries and fought with Danes and the Swedes, while the foundations of Russia were being laid in Novgorod.

Later on, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe became the Hanseatic league, which used the Baltic Sea to establish trade routes between its member cities. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Poland, Denmark and Sweden fought wars for Dominium Maris Baltici (Ruling over the Baltic Sea). Eventually, it was the Swedish empire that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum.

In the 18th century Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially the eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax and hemp.

During the Crimean War a joint fleet of Great Britain and France attacked Russian fortresses by bombarding Sveaborg that guards Helsinki and Kronstadt that guards Saint Petersburg and destroying Bomarsund in the Åland Islands. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the whole southern coast became German. The First World War was fought also on the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland returned to the Baltic Sea, and Polish ports of Gdynia and Gdansk became leading ports of the Baltic.

During the Second World War Germany reclaimed all of the southern shore and much of the eastern by occupying Poland and the Baltic states. In 1945 the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for drowned people on torpedoed refugee ships. As of 2004, the sinking of the troopship Wilhelm Gustloff remains the worst maritime disaster of all time, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people.

After 1945 the sea was a border between conflicted military blocks: in case of military conflict in Germany, in parallel with a Soviet offensive towards the Atlantic Ocean, communist Poland's fleet was prepared to invade Danish isles. In 1999 the huge bridge over the Sound limited the Baltic Sea to the middle-sized vessels. In meantime, the Baltic Sea is the main trade route for export of Russian oil.

In May 2004, the Baltic Sea became almost completely an European Union internal sea when the Baltic states became part of the European Union, leaving only the Russian metropolis of Saint Petersburg and the enclave of Kaliningrad as non-EU areas.

The Baltic Sea starts to get very rough with the October storms. These winter storms have been the cause of many shipwrecks, like for example the Estonia in 1994. But thanks to the cold brackish water where the shipworm cannot survive, the sea is a time capsule for centuries-old shipwrecks. Perhaps the most famous one is the Wasa.

4 Subdivisions

The northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia out of which the northernmost part is referred to as the Bay of Bothnia . Immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland . The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with St. Petersburg. The Northern Baltic Sea lies between the Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland Basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea . The Gulf of Riga lies between Riga and Saaremaa. Bay of Gdansk lies east of the Hel peninsula on the Polish coast and west of Sambia in Kaliningrad Oblast. Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom and Wolin, east of Rügen. Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm and Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand. Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck. The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel. The Sound, the Belts, and the Kattegat connect the Baltic Sea with the Skagerrak and the North Sea. The confluence of these two seas at Skagen on the northern tip of Denmark is a visual spectacle visited by many tourists each year.

5 Biology

The Baltic Sea is very shallow, and because the straits of Denmark are quite narrow, the waters of the Baltic are not regularly exchanged with the cold waters of the Atlantic. The flow of the rivers into the Baltic is quite high, however, and as a result the salinity of water in the Baltic Sea is somewhere between freshwater and seawater, known as brackish water. The low salinity has led to many slightly divergent species like the Baltic Sea herring that is a smaller variant of the Atlantic herring. The Baltic Sea has practically no tides, which also has affected the marine species as compared with the Atlantic.

The Baltic Sea is surrounded by countries practicing a lot of agriculture, which leads into a lot of fertilizers getting into the sea (also, the city of Saint Petersburg still doesn't process much of its waste water), and therefore every summer a lot of algae blooming takes place.

6 Economy

In 1999 the huge Öresund Bridge limited the Baltic sea to the middle-sized vessels.

In the mean time, Baltic sea is the main shipping route for export of Russian oil. Many of the neighboring countries are rather concerned about this, since a major oil leak would be disastrous in the Baltic given the slow exchange of water, and the many unique species. The tourism industries, especially in economies dependent on tourism like for example in northeastern Germany, are naturally very concerned.

Shipbuilding is practiced in many large shipyards around the Baltic: Gdansk in Poland, Kiel in Germany, Karlskrona and Kockum in Sweden, and Rauma, Turku, and Helsinki in Finland.

7 Countries

Main article: Baltic Sea countries

• Denmark
• Sweden
• Finland
• Russia
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Poland
• Germany

8 Islands and Archipelagoes

Main article: List of islands in the Baltic Sea

• Åland Islands ( Finland, autonomous)
• Bornholm ( Denmark)
• Gotland ( Sweden)
• Hailuoto ( Finland)
• Hiiumaa ( Estonia)
• Öland ( Sweden)
• Rügen ( Germany)
• Saaremaa ( Estonia)
• Stockholm archipelago ( Sweden)
• Usedom or Uznam (split between Germany and Poland)
• Valassaaret ( Finland)
• Wolin ( Poland)

9 Cities

The biggest coastal cities:

• Saint Petersburg (Russia) 4,700,000
• Stockholm (Sweden) 743,703 (metropolitan area 1,823,210)
• Tricity (Poland) (metropolitan area 1,035,000) including
  • Gdansk (Poland) 462,700
  • Gdynia (Poland) 255,600
• Helsinki (Finland) 559,716 (metropolitan area 980,000)
• Riga (Latvia) 760,000
• Szczecin (Poland) 413,600
• Kaliningrad (Russia) 400,000
• Tallinn (Estonia) 387,224
• Malmö (Sweden) 259,579
• Kiel (Germany) 250,000
• Lübeck (Germany) 216,100
• Rostock (Germany) 212,700
• Klaipeda (Lithuania) 194,400
• Turku (Finland) 175,000

Important ports (though not being big cities):

• Swinoujscie (Poland) 50,000
• Ventspils (Latvia) 44,000
• Baltiysk (Russia) 20,000
• Hanko (Finland) 10,0000

• Ports of the Baltic Sea

10 See also

• Baltic
• Baltic region
• Council of the Baltic Sea States
• Baltic states
• Scandinavia
• Northern Europe
• List of rivers of the Baltic Sea

11 External links

• Old shipwrecks in the Baltic
• How the Baltic Sea was changing - Prehistory of the Baltic from the Polish Geological Institute
• Late Weichselian and Holocene shore displacement history of the Baltic Sea in Finland - more prehistory of the Baltic from the Department of Geography of the University of Helsinki
• Baltic Environmental Atlas: Interactive map of the Baltic Sea region

12 Tourism links

• Zrot : Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL) (Polish, English, German)
• Zart : Polish Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL) (Polish, English, German)
• German Tourism Site : Regional Tourist Board Vorpommern (D) (English, German, Swedish, Polish)
• Ost|See|Land - German Polish- Tourism site (D) (English, German, Swedish, Polish)

Seas Baltic Sea

<Hide>