26 Facts About Baltic Sea

1.

Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.

FactSnippet No. 776,954
2.

Baltic Sea is connected by artificial waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea–Baltic Canal and to the German Bight of the North Sea via the Kiel Canal.

FactSnippet No. 776,955
3.

Geographers widely agree that the preferred physical border of the Baltic Sea is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill and Langeland.

FactSnippet No. 776,956
4.

Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people of the Suebi, and Ptolemy Sarmatian Ocean after the Sarmatians, but the first to name it the Baltic Sea was the eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen.

FactSnippet No. 776,957
5.

Baltic Sea might have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder.

FactSnippet No. 776,958
6.

Baltic Sea was known in ancient Latin language sources as Mare Suebicum or even Mare Germanicum.

FactSnippet No. 776,959
7.

Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic Sea 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.

FactSnippet No. 776,960
8.

In 1945, the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for retreating soldiers and refugees on torpedoed troop transports.

FactSnippet No. 776,961
9.

The Baltic Sea then separated opposing military blocs: NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

FactSnippet No. 776,962
10.

Since May 2004, with the accession of the Baltic states and Poland, the Baltic Sea has been almost entirely surrounded by countries of the European Union .

FactSnippet No. 776,963
11.

An arm of the North Atlantic Ocean, the Baltic Sea is enclosed by Sweden and Denmark to the west, Finland to the northeast, and the Baltic countries to the southeast.

FactSnippet No. 776,964
12.

Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish inland seas by area, and occupies a basin formed by glacial erosion during the last few ice ages.

FactSnippet No. 776,965
13.

Northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia, of which the northernmost part is the Bay of Bothnia or Bothnian Bay.

FactSnippet No. 776,966
14.

Since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely 20 times, most recently in early 1987, which was the most severe winter in Scandinavia since 1720.

FactSnippet No. 776,967
15.

Only two other brackish waters are larger according to some measurements: The Black Baltic Sea is larger in both surface area and water volume, but most of it is located outside the continental shelf .

FactSnippet No. 776,968
16.

The Caspian Baltic Sea is larger in water volume, but—despite its name—it is a lake rather than a sea.

FactSnippet No. 776,969
17.

The water surplus caused by the continuous inflow of rivers and streams to the Baltic Sea means that there generally is a flow of brackish water out through the Danish Straits to the Kattegat .

FactSnippet No. 776,970
18.

Baltic Sea somewhat resembles a riverbed, with two tributaries, the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia.

FactSnippet No. 776,971
19.

Geological surveys show that before the Pleistocene, instead of the Baltic Sea, there was a wide plain around a great river that paleontologists call the Eridanos.

FactSnippet No. 776,972
20.

Fauna of the Baltic Sea is a mixture of marine and freshwater species.

FactSnippet No. 776,973
21.

Since the Baltic Sea is so young there are only two or three known endemic species: the brown alga Fucus radicans and the flounder Platichthys solemdali.

FactSnippet No. 776,974
22.

Several widespread marine species have distinctive subpopulations in the Baltic Sea adapted to the low salinity, such as the Baltic Sea forms of the Atlantic herring and lumpsucker, which are smaller than the widespread forms in the North Atlantic.

FactSnippet No. 776,975
23.

Cetaceans in the Baltic Sea are monitored by the countries bordering the sea and data compiled by various intergovernmental bodies, such as ASCOBANS.

FactSnippet No. 776,976
24.

Plans to artificially oxygenate areas of the Baltic Sea that have experienced eutrophication have been proposed by the University of Gothenburg and Inocean AB.

FactSnippet No. 776,977
25.

The Baltic Sea is the main trade route for the export of Russian petroleum.

FactSnippet No. 776,978
26.

The Convention covers the whole of the Baltic Sea area, including inland waters and the water of the sea itself, as well as the seabed.

FactSnippet No. 776,979