Top 10 Baltic Sea facts

East Sea. In all Germanic languages except English the Baltic Sea is called "East Sea" - this includes German (Ostsee), Dutch (Oostzee) and all Scandinavian languages. The name has been used since the Viking age, and was also adopted (through Swedish) into Finnish language, disregarding the geography (the sea is west of Finland).

12 000 years old. The Baltic Sea is one of the youngest seas in the world. It was formed after the last ice age as an ice-lake, which later turned into a sea.

Rügen. Prora was built by Nazi Germany as a beach resort on the island of Rügen, Germany, which is known for its colossal Nazi-planned tourist structures. The enormous building complex is 4.5 kilometres in length, and was built between 1936 and 1939.

Lithuania. In the 14th century Lithuania reached the peak of its territorial expansion, spanning from the Baltic sea to the Black Sea, over the territories of today's Belarus and Ukraine.

Neva. Vistula is the longest of the Baltic Sea affluents, but its mean discharge of 1080 m3/s is less than half of Neva (2500 m3/s). Other major Baltic Sea effluents are Daugawa nad Neman (both 678 m3/s).

100 km (62 miles). Kalin­ingrad Oblast, Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea shore, is located nearby.

Finland. It is an archipelago at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea belonging to Finland. It is autonomous, demilitarised and is the only monolingual Swedish-speaking region in Finland, hence the similarity of the flag above to the Swedish one.

Baltic Porter is a very high alcohol, sweet, robust porter that originated in the Baltic states. Baltic Porter reflects both the character of original British Porters and the character of sweeter, highly alcoholic Russian Imperial Stouts.

Zealand. The area of the Danish island of Zealand is 7031 km². Swedish Gotland has an area of 3144 km², Bornhom Denmark 588 km², and Usedom 445 km².

About 2,000 years ago. The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish inland seas by area, and occupies a basin formed by glacial erosion during the last few ice ages. It is about 1,600 km (990 mi) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 metres (180 ft) deep. The maximum depth is 459 m (1,506 ft).The current course of the shoreline was formed about 2 thousand years ago.