The Little Belt (Danish: Lillebælt, pronounced [ˈliləˌpelˀt]) is a strait between the island of Funen and the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. It is one of the three Danish Straits that drain and connect the Baltic Sea to the Kattegat strait, which drains west to the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean.
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
👉 Little Belt in the context of Ærøskøbing municipality
Ærøskøbing Municipality (Danish: Ærøskøbing Kommune, pronounced [ˈeːˌʁøˀsˌkʰøˀpe̝ŋ kʰoˈmuːnə]) is a former municipality of Funen County on the island of Ærø. The municipality was formed in 1970 and disestablished in 2006 when it was integrated into Ærø Municipality.
The municipality was located on the western portion of the island of Ærø. Its neighboring municipality Marstal occupied the eastern portion of the island. To the north and west are the waters of the Little Belt. To the south is the Baltic Sea, and to the southeast are the waters of Marstal Bay (Marstal Bugt).
In this Dossier
Little Belt in the context of Baltic Sea
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.
Little Belt in the context of Øresund
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.
Little Belt in the context of Danish straits
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.
Little Belt in the context of Bay of Kiel
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.