Baltic Sea is an arm of the North Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, northeast Germany, Poland, Russia and the North and Central European Plain.
The largest expanse of brackish water in the world, the semi-enclosed 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 countries.
The catchment area drained by the rivers bringing fresh water into the Baltic is about four times as large as the sea itself.
It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdansk.
Baltic Sea