About the Baltic Sea

Etymology. The first to name it the Baltic Sea (“Mare Balticum”) was 11th century German chronicler Adam of Bremen. The origin of the name is speculative. He may have based it on the mythical North European island Baltia, mentioned by Xenophon. The Baltic Sea is surrounded by nine countries: Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Finland and Sweden. As long as people have lived here, the Baltic Sea has served as an avenue to connect the bordering countries and as a source of human livelihood. The largest expanse of brackish water in the world, the semienclosed 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.

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