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Baltic Sea Facts

Baltic Sea Facts
The Baltic Sea is located in the Atlantic Ocean, partially surrounded by the North European Plain, Finland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic countries. The Baltic Sea also encompasses the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Riga, the Bay of Gdansk, and the Gulf of Finland. The Baltic Sea has a limited exchange of water with the Atlantic. Artificial waterways connect the Baltic Sea to the White Sea, and the German Bight of the North Sea. The surface area of the Baltic Sea is 146,000 square miles, and it has an average depth of 180 feet.
Interesting Baltic Sea Facts:
During the Roman Empire the Baltic Sea was referred to as Mare Sarmaticum or Mare Suebicum.
During the early Middle Ages the Baltic region was a trade empire of the Norse. This is referred to as the Viking Age.
Countries that border the Baltic Sea include Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.
The shoreline of the Baltic Sea is 5,000 miles in length.
The Baltic Sea has an abundant supply of fresh water runoff from the land surrounding it, resulting in it having much less salt than the ocean. Runoff from the land equals roughly 25% of the Baltic Sea's volume every year.
Since 1720 the Baltic Sea has frozen completely over 20 times in total. The most recent case of it freezing over occurred in 1987.
It is believed that the Baltic Sea formed approximately 10,000 years ago, following the last glaciation.
The Baltic Sea is home to many freshwater and marine species. Some of these include herring, cod, hake, stickleback, flounder, perch, pike, roach, and whitefish.
Commercial fishing in the Baltic Sea is an important industry. The most common commercially fished species include herring, sprat, and cod.
On the shores of the Baltic Sea in Lithuania, Russia, and Poland, amber is an important deposit and industry.
Part of World War I was fought in the Baltic Sea.
There are more than 85 million people living in the region of the Baltic Sea.
Major tributaries to the Baltic Sea include Neva, Vistula, Daugava, Neman, Kemijoki, Oder, Lule alv, Narva, and Torne alv.
There are many islands in the Baltic Sea including Gotland, Saaremaa, Oland, Lolland, Hiiumaa, Rugen, Aland main island, Bornholm, Kimitoon, Falster, Usedom, and Wolin.
The biggest coastal cities of the Baltic Sea include Saint Petersburg, Stockholm, Riga, Helsinki, Gdansk, Tallinn, Kaliningrad, Szczecin, Gdynia, Kiel, and Espool.
Mammal species in the Baltic Sea at risk for becoming extinct include the harbour porpoise, the Baltic ringed seal, the Eurasian otter, the grey seal, and the harbour seal.
Endangered bird species in the Baltic Sea region include the Terek sandpiper, the Mediterranean gull, the southern dunlin, and the black-legged kittiwake.
Endangered species of fish in the Baltic Sea include the eel, the grayling, the porbeagle shark, the spurdog shark, wolf fish, whitefish, ling, sea lamprey, tope shark, thornback ray, salmon, and trout.
Images taken by satellite in 2010 showed that there is an algae bloom covering 146,000 square miles in the Baltic Sea, and 38,610 square miles of its sea floor is now a dead zone.


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