Belte and Sunde

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In the Baltic Sea region and Norway, a sund is a narrow strait or its narrowest part. Many of these sounds are named after the island that separates them from the mainland or a larger neighboring island. Straits called the Belt exist only in Denmark or on its border.

Word origin

In Scandinavian dictionaries the word sund is equated with the Old Norse, Old English, Icelandic and Norwegian sund (swimming). A sound would be a strait over which one can swim. This fits in with the fact that straits with the Sund name are relatively narrow.

According to another explanation, the word can be derived from the Old Norse verb sundr . It means “to separate” or “to divide” (cf. German (from) separate , today's Scandinavian sondre and Swedish sönder “broken”). A sound would then be a land division or a rift.

In any case, all Sunde European wind straits. In North America and New Zealand , some fjord-like bays are called Sound , which differs from the European meaning. In Scotland, in addition to numerous straits, two fjords are called Sound .

Denmark and western Baltic Sea

Belte and Sunde of Denmark and the western Baltic Sea.
Only the longest are shown on bridges (orange), tunnels (dark blue) and dams (dark green).

The standing phrase "Belte and Sund" refers to the three seas that connect the inland Baltic Sea with the Kattegat , a bay of the ocean:

"Belte and Sund" also denotes a forecast area (B12) of the sea ​​weather service .

There are, however, other belte and more numerous other sins.

Belte form a Y-shaped system of marine roads between the Danish island of Zealand ( Zealand ) and of Jutland ( Jylland ) and Schleswig-Holstein existing Cimbrian peninsula .

Where there is a belt and a sound parallel to each other, the belt designates the wider strait, and the sound the narrower one:

Svendborg Sund, view from Svendborg to Tåsinge

Nowadays, all of the Sunde listed are crossed by piers (Öresund eastern section of the bridge, western section of the tunnel), with the exception of Grønsund , which bridges around the area .

There are a number of other sins in Denmark:

Sunde in Norway

Aldersund in Helgeland , Norway, separates the island of Aldra (left) from the mainland

On the Norwegian fjord coast there are not only “typical” fjords, ie bays with only one entrance, but also “fjords” which are partially or completely bordered by islands. The narrower passages there are often called “Sund”. In some places the rear ends of two funnel-shaped “fjords” are connected by a “sound”. The island of Hinnøya , which is partly assigned to the Lofoten and partly to the Vesterålen , is separated from the mainland by the Tjeldsund (the Tjeldsund connects the Vestfjord and the Vågsfjord ) and by the Raftsund , the Sortlandsund, the Risøysund and the Toppsund from the neighboring islands.

The Karmsund in Rogaland , Norway, played an important role in the control of trade along the coast during the Viking Age and was ultimately important for the unification of the empire by Harald Fairhair . At Karmsund there are a number of archaeological sites that show the importance of the place for Norwegian history.

While "sund" is neuter in Norwegian as a strait ( i.e. sundet ), there is the grammatically masculine form as a sea name. This is the name of the source lake of the Glomma Aursunden .

Sunde in Sweden

Apart from the fact that in Swedish also straits outside of Northern Europe are referred to as sund, z. B. Gibraltar sund , there are several sunds in Swedish waters. The Kalmarsund separates the island of Öland from the mainland and the Fårösund separates the island of Fårö from Gotland .

Sunde in Estonia

In Estonia , which was ruled first by Denmark and then by a German minority for centuries, there are Danish, Swedish and German names for the straits between the offshore islands and the mainland: Sund:

"Belt" in the Deutschlandlied

Bay of Kiel as “De Belt” on a map by Willem Blaeu , 17th century
German Confederation 1815–1866 (red border)

The term belt is also used in the first stanza of the Deutschlandlied . The song was composed in 1841. At that time, the Duchy of Schleswig did not yet belong to Germany, but since the formation of the state temporarily as a fiefdom , at times directly to Denmark. Holstein belonged to the German Confederation and had previously belonged to the Holy Roman Empire , but was also under Denmark since Emperor Friedrich III. had given it to the King of Denmark as a fief. Since Holstein was wholly and Schleswig partially German-speaking, Schleswig-Holstein was claimed by a German movement. In the German-Danish War of 1864, Schleswig-Holstein was conquered by the German Confederation , initially administered jointly by Prussia and Austria for two years , then with the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1867 Prussia was incorporated as a province. Since Northern Schleswig was ceded to Denmark in 1920, the German-Danish border corresponds even more to the language border.

Detailed maps

  • Germany: u. a. Topographic maps 1: 100,000
  • Denmark: u. a. General map 1: 200,000
  • Norway: Capellen 1: 325,000

Web links

Wiktionary: Sund  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Elof Hellquist: 1. sund . In: Svensk etymologisk ordbok . 1st edition. CWK Gleerups förlag, Berlingska boktryckerie, Lund 1922, p. 907 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
  2. ↑ Ordbog over det danske sprog: Sund
  3. ↑ Duden: The Origin dictionary , keywords special and but
  4. ^ German Meteorological Service : Forecast areas in sea weather reports , accessed on April 1, 2020