Danish straits
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three channels in Denmark connecting the Baltic Sea to the North Sea
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Belts and sounds in Denmark and southwestern Baltic Sea The Danish Straits connect 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.
Toponymy and geography
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Danish straits” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.