Although Haparanda has a boat harbor, it is not accessible for larger vessels and is not, as often thought, the Baltic Sea's northernmost port, that honor most probably belonging to Töre further west on the Swedish coast.

The Bay of Greifswald is quite shallow, with an average depth of 5. 6 m, and a maximum depth of 13. 5 m. Its water is brackish rather than briny owing to inflow from rivers, and the Baltic Sea's complex hydrography ( saltier water is generally found only at greater depths there ).

In the North, the lagoon is connected to the Baltic Sea's Bay of Pomerania with the three straits Peenestrom, Świna () and Dziwna (), which divide the mainland and the islands of Usedom () and Wolin ().

Below 40 to 70 m, the salinity is between 10 and 15 ‰ in the open Baltic Sea, and more than this near Danish Straits.

The flow of fresh water into the sea from approximately two-hundred rivers and the introduction of salt from the South builds up a gradient of salinity in the Baltic Sea.

Salt water provides for greater organic activity than freshwater, and in particular, the shipworm, terredo navalis, lives only in salt water, so some of the best preservation in the absence of sediments has been found in the cold, dark waters of the Great Lakes in North America and in the ( low salinity ) Baltic Sea ( where the Vasa was preserved ).

The salinity of water in major seas varies from about 0. 7 % in the Baltic Sea to 4. 0 % in the Red Sea.

Øresund, being at the border between oceanic salt water ( with a salinity of more than 30 PSU ) and the Baltic sea ( only 3 – 7 PSU ) has rather unique water conditions.

The streams are very complex, but the surface stream is often northbound ( from the Baltic sea ) which gives a lower surface salinity, though streams can change from one day to another.

However pike are confined to the low salinity water at the surface of the Baltic sea, and are seldom ever seen in brackish water elsewhere.

In the south the water is the normal brackish water of the Baltic Sea, but in the north, in the Bothnian Bay, the salinity is so low, from 0. 4 % near Kvarken to 0. 2 % in the northernmost part, that one can no longer taste the salt in the water and many freshwater fish thrive in it.

Due to the low salinity of the Baltic Sea, the wreck suffered little damange from shipworms and was salvaged, in surprisingly good condition, in 1961.

The Vasa ( ship ) | Vasa is one of the oldest and most well-preserved ships salvaged in the world, owed to the cool temperatures and low salinity of the Baltic Sea

The Littorina Sea is named after common periwinkle ( Littorina littorea ), then a prevailing mollusc in the Baltic waters, which indicates salinity of the sea.

Pliny is presenting an archaic view, as in his time amber was a precious stone brought from the Baltic at great expense, but the Germans, he says, use it for firewood, according to Pytheas.

Baltic amber is sometimes colored artificially, but also called " true amber ".

Baltic amber is distinguished by its yield of succinic acid, hence the name succinite.

Baltic amber or succinite ( historically documented as Prussian amber ) is found as irregular nodules in marine glauconitic sand, known as blue earth, occurring in the Lower Oligocene strata of Sambia in Prussia ( in historical sources also referred to as Glaesaria ).

The Porvoo Common Statement ( 1996 ), agreed to by the Anglican churches of the British Isles and most of the Lutheran churches of Scandinavia and the Baltic, also stated that " the continuity signified in the consecration of a bishop to episcopal ministry cannot be divorced from the continuity of life and witness of the diocese to which he is called.

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53 ° N to 66 ° N latitude and from 20 ° E to 26 ° E longitude.

The Baltic Sea is connected by man-made waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal, and to the North Sea via the Kiel Canal.

The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea, perhaps the largest body of brackish water in the world ( other possibilities include the Black Sea, Hudson Bay and the Caspian Sea ).

The Baltic Sea is about 1, 600 km ( 1, 000 mi ) long, an average of 193 km ( 120 mi ) wide, and an average of 55 m ( 180 ft, 30 fathoms ) deep.

The Baltic Sea, in ancient sources known as Mare Suebicum ( also known as Mare Germanicum ), is also known by the equivalents of " East Sea ", " West Sea ", or " Baltic Sea " in different languages:

* Baltic Sea is used in English ; in the Baltic languages Latvian ( Baltijas jūra ) and Lithuanian ( Baltijos jūra ); in Latin ( Mare Balticum ) and the Romance languages French ( Mer Baltique ), Italian ( Mar Baltico ), Portuguese ( Mar Báltico ), Romanian ( Marea Baltică ) and Spanish ( Mar Báltico ); in Greek ( Βαλτική Θάλασσα ); in Albanian ( Deti Balltik ); in the Slavic languages Polish ( Morze Bałtyckie or Bałtyk ), Czech ( Baltské moře or Balt ), Croatian ( Baltičko more ), Slovenian ( Baltsko morje ), Bulgarian ( Baltijsko More ( Балтийско море ), Kashubian ( Bôłt ), Macedonian ( Балтичко Море / Baltičko More ), Ukrainian ( Балтійське море (" Baltijs ' ke More "), Belarusian ( Балтыйскае мора (" Baltyjskaje Mora "), Russian ( Балтийское море (" Baltiyskoye Morye ") and Serbian ( Балтичко море / Baltičko more ); in the Hungarian language ( Balti-tenger ); and also in Basque ( Itsaso Baltikoa )

On the long-term average, the Baltic Sea is ice-covered for about 45 % of its surface area at the maximum annually.

It is known that since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely only 20 times.

Of these two seals, only the Baltic ringed seal suffers when there is not an adequate ice in the Baltic Sea, as it feeds its young only on ice.

The Baltic Sea flows out through the Danish straits ; however, the flow is complex.

The northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia, of which the northernmost part is the Bay of Bothnia

Bornholm (; Old Norse: Burgundaholmr, " the island of the Burgundians ") is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of ( most of ) the rest of Denmark, south of Sweden, and north of Poland.

With the establishment of a German state in Prussia, and the eradication or flight of much of the Baltic Prussian population in the 13th century, the remaining Prussians began to be assimilated, and by the end of the 17th century, the Prussian language had become extinct.

The crusade encompassed much of the Baltic Sea coast, Danzig ( Present day Gdańsk ), and other areas of the coast up to Sambia.

The native Baltic Prussians were conquered and Christianized by the Knights with much warfare, and numerous German towns were established along the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea.

The isolation threshold should be at Heinjoki to the east of Vyborg, where the Baltic Sea and Ladoga were connected by a strait or a river outlet at least until the formation of the River Neva, and possibly even much later, until 12th century AD or so.

During the Livonian Crusade, ancient Livonia was colonized by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, later called the Livonian Order, and the name Livonia came to designate a much broader territory: Terra Mariana on the eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea, in present-day Latvia and Estonia.

Although the games existed in pockets in Europe -- it is recorded as being played as early as the 17th century by merchants in England -- it has never gained much popularity in most regions, except in the Baltic area, where once it was a very popular game (" Bohnenspiel ") and Bosnia, where it is called Ban-Ban and still played today.

Old Prussian ( Prussian: Prūsiskan or Prūsiskai Bilā ) is an extinct Baltic language, once spoken by the Old Prussians, the indigenous peoples of Prussia ( not to be confused with the later and much larger German state of the same name ), now north-eastern Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia.

During the Ice Ages, the sea level of the Atlantic Ocean dropped so much that the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, and the Gulf of Finland disappeared, and the countries now surrounding them, including Germany, Poland, the other Baltic countries and Scandinavia, were directly joined by land.

From atop the tower one can survey the town, the tiny harbor, the great panorama of the Baltic Sea, and much of Warmia's countryside.

In Gliwice operates Gliwice Canal ( pl: Kanal Gliwicki ) which links Gliwice Harbour to the Oder River and thus to the waterway network across much of Germany and to the Baltic Sea.

Tourism has declined slightly over the last few years but not as much as tourism on the Schleswig-Holstein Baltic coast.

Because much of the former Surrey Docks had strong trade links to Scandinavia and the Baltic region the area is still home to a thriving Scandinavian community.

Baltic Girls Basketball has had much athletic success winning a total of 5 state titles.

However, the Baltic had by this time lost much of its strategic importance.

A return to duty comes when he is promoted to commodore and sent on a mission to the Baltic Sea, where he must be a diplomat as much as an officer.

Accordingly, it is rare in the brackish Baltic Sea, where wooden shipwrecks are preserved for much longer than in the oceans.

Nazi Germany established the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Baltic States and much of Belarus, and the administrative centre for Lithuania ( Generalbezirk Litauen ) was in Kaunas ruled by Generalkommissar Adrian von Renteln.

In 1944, the Red Army lifted the siege of Leningrad and re-conquered the Baltic area along with much of Ukraine and Belarus.

While he spent much of 1351 trying to drum up support for further crusading action among the German cities in the Baltic States, he never returned to attack Novgorod.

In the much younger Baltic amber numerous inclusions of several modern families of mayflies have been found ( Ephemeridae, Potamanthidae, Leptophlebiidae, Ametropodidae, Siphlonuridae, Isonychiidae, Heptageniidae, and Ephemerellidae ).

Major declines have also been observed from 1980 onward in Sweden, Finland, northern Russia ( Karelia ), and the Baltic States, and smaller declines in much of the rest of northern and central Europe.

In Europe, the Greater Scaup breeds in Iceland, the northern coasts of the Scandinavian peninsula, including much of the northern parts of the Baltic Sea, the higher mountains of Scandinavia and the areas close to the Arctic Sea in Russia.