The Great Belt (Danish: Storebælt, pronounced [ˈstoːɐˌpelˀt]) is a strait between the major islands of Zealand (Sjælland) and Funen (Fyn) in Denmark. It is one of the three Danish Straits.
Effectively dividing Denmark in two, the Belt was served by the Great Belt ferries from the late 19th century until the islands were connected by the Great Belt Fixed Link in 1997–98.
The Great Belt ferries (Danish: Storebæltsfærgerne) were the train and car ferries operating across the Danish strait of Great Belt, between the islands of Zealand and Funen. The railway ferry link was established in 1883, while automobile-only ferries started operating in 1930. The ferry services ceased operating with the opening of the Great Belt Fixed Link, which occurred in 1997 for rail and 1998 for car traffic.
Despite the popularity of the fixed link, some ferries still connect eastern and western Denmark. The company Mols-Linien continues to operate ferries between northwest Zealand and East Jutland, while the Spodsbjerg–Tårs route some 45 kilometres to the south also remains serviced by ferries.
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North and Central European Plain regions. It is the world's largest brackish water basin.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. It is a shelf sea and marginal sea of the Atlantic with limited water exchange between the two, making it an inland sea. The Baltic Sea drains through the Danish straits into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, Great Belt and Little Belt. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia (divided into the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea), the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdańsk.
Øresund or Öresund (UK: /ˌɜːrəˈsʊnd/, US: /ˈɜːrəsʌn, -sʊnd, ˈɔːrəsʊnd/; Danish: Øresund [ˈøːɐˌsɔnˀ]; Swedish: Öresund [œːrɛˈsɵnːd]), commonly known in English as the Sound, is a strait which forms the Danish–Swedish border, separating Zealand (Denmark) from Scania (Sweden). The strait has a length of 118 kilometres (73 mi); its width varies from 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to 28 kilometres (17 mi). The narrowest point is between Helsingør in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden.
Øresund, along with the Great Belt, the Little Belt and the Kiel Canal, is one of four waterways that connect the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean via Kattegat, Skagerrak, and the North Sea; this makes it one of the busiest waterways in the world.
The Danish straits are the straits connecting the Baltic Sea to the North Sea through the Kattegat and Skagerrak. Historically, the Danish straits were internal waterways of Denmark; however, following territorial losses, Øresund and Fehmarn Belt are now shared with Sweden and Germany, while the Great Belt and the Little Belt have remained Danish territorial waters. The Copenhagen Convention of 1857 made all the Danish straits open to commercial shipping. The straits have generally been regarded as an international waterway.
Sprogø (Danish pronunciation: [ˈspʁɔwˌøˀ]) is a small Danish island, located in the Great Belt, the strait that separates the main islands of Funen and Zealand. It is about halfway across the strait, 6.7 kilometres (4.2 miles) from the Zealand shore and 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the Funen shore.
Although sprog is modern Danish for language, the island's name was recorded originally during the 12th century as Sproøe meaning scout's island, from the old Danish verb spro (to scout).
The Great Belt Bridge (Danish: Storebæltsbroen) or Great Belt fixed link (Danish: Storebæltsforbindelsen) is a multi-element fixed link crossing the Great Belt strait between the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen. It consists of a road suspension bridge and a railway tunnel between Zealand and the small island Sprogø in the middle of the Great Belt, and a box-girder bridge for both road and rail traffic between Sprogø and Funen. The total length is 18 kilometres (11 mi).
The term Great Belt Bridge commonly refers to the suspension bridge, although it may also be used to mean the box-girder bridge, especially when discussing the railway, or the link in its entirety. Together with the New Little Belt Bridge, the Great Belt link provides a continuous road and rail connection between Copenhagen and the Danish mainland (the Jutland Peninsula of the European continent). It has the world's seventh-longest main span (1.6 km (1 mi)). Operation and maintenance of the bridge are performed by A/S Storebælt under Sund & Bælt. Maintenance and the original construction are financed by tolls on vehicles and trains making use of the bridge.
The Bay of Kiel or Kiel Bay (German: Kieler Bucht, ; Danish: Kiel Bugt) is a bay in the southwestern Baltic Sea, off the shores of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany and the islands of Denmark. It is connected with the Bay of Mecklenburg in the east, the Little Belt in the northwest, and the Great Belt in the North.
Maritime traffic entering or leaving the Baltic through the two Belts must enter the bay. Once in, through traffic to the Baltic passes through another strait, the Fehmarn Belt, into the Bay of Mecklenburg, which opens out into the Baltic Sea. In the other direction, traffic can either pass northward through the Great Belt, keeping Langeland on the port side, or enter the Kiel Fjord and traverse the Kiel Canal directly to the mouth of the Elbe River and the North Sea. The Kiel Fjord ends at Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein.