Dollart

The Dollart (German name, ) or Dollard (Dutch name, ) is a bay in the south‑eastern Wadden Sea at the Germany–Netherlands border, west of the Ems estuary. It forms the innermost part of the Ems–Dollart estuarine system and is characterised by extensive intertidal flats, salt marshes and shallow channels. A large proportion of the surface falls dry at low tide, creating internationally important feeding grounds for migratory shorebirds and waterfowl. The remaining unembanked forelands belong to the transnational Wadden Sea World Heritage Site.

==Name== The toponym appears in late‑fifteenth‑century sources as Dollard/Dullert. A contemporary dossier from the Aduard monastery (c. 1485) and a notice by the Groningen rector Wilhelmus Frederici (1498/99) are among the earliest mentions. The origin of the name is uncertain. A plausible explanation derives it from Middle Dutch dole/dole in the sense of a "large pit, pool" (hence "deep, excavated water"), alternatively "grave/pit of the dead"; popular early‑modern writers instead connected it with the "furious nature" (Dutch: dolle aard) of the sea in this area, a view paraphrased by Ubbo Emmius around 1600 as "from the rage of its waves" (a fluctuum rabie). The related form Dullaert/Dollaert is also attested historically for other sea inlets, such as the Braakman in Zeeland.