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The Baltic Sea
Most
- almost all, except Poland and Russia
- of the countries of the Baltic region,
have their capitals, as well as many
of important cities, situated by the
coast of the Baltic Sea.
Due to the Great Belt Bridge and Oresund
Bridge over the Danish Straits, the
traffic on the Baltic Sea is limited
to medium-sized vessels.There are
number of cargo and passenger ferry
operators, among them: Silja Line,
Polferries, Viking Line, Tallink,
Stena Line and TT Line.
Wikipedia
gives us following facts about The
Baltic Sea:
Geographic location
The Baltic Sea is located in Northern
Europe, from 53°N to 66°N
latitude and from 20°E to 26°E
longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian
Peninsula, the mainland of Europe,
and the Danish islands. It drains
into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund,
the Great Belt and the Little Belt.
The Kattegat continues through the
Skagerrak into the North Sea and the
Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is
artificially linked to the White Sea
by the White Sea Canal and to the
North Sea by the Kiel Canal.
The Baltic sea is about 1600 km (1000
mi) long, an average of 193 km (120
mi) wide, and an average of 55 m (180
ft, 30 fathoms) deep. The maximum depth
is 459 m (1506 ft), on the Swedish side
of the center. The surface area is about
377,000 km² (145,522 sq mi) and
the volume is about 21,000 cubic km
(5040 cubic miles). The periphery amounts
to about 8000= km (4968 mi) of coastline.
These figures are somewhat variable
because a number of different estimates
have been made.
People: About
85 million people live in the Baltic
drainage basin, 15 million within 10
km of the coast and 29 million within
50 km of the coast. Around 22 million
live in population centres of over 250,000.
90% of these are concentrated in the
10 km band around the coast. Of the
nations containing all or part of the
basin, Poland includes 45% of the 85
million, Russia 12%, Sweden 10% and
the others (see below) less than 6%
each.
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