TheØresund Bridge, between the Danish capitalCopenhagen and the Swedish city ofMalmö, inaugurated on 1 July 2000, connects a bi-nationalmetropolitan area with close to 4 million inhabitants.[7] TheHH Ferry route, betweenHelsingør, Denmark andHelsingborg, Sweden, in the northern part of Øresund, is one of the world's busiest internationalferry routes, with more than 70 departures from each harbour per day.[8]
Øresund is ageologically young strait that formed 8,500–8,000 years ago as a result ofrising sea levels. Previously, theAncylus Lake, a fresh-water body occupying theBaltic basin, had been connected to the sea solely via theGreat Belt. The incursion of salt water via Øresund marked the beginning of the modern Baltic Sea as a salt-water body.[9]
The name is first attested on arunestone dated to ca. AD 1000, where it is written asura suti, read asOld East Norse/øːrasundi/ (the dative case).[11] TheOld West Norse (andmodern Icelandic) form of the name isEyrarsund.Ør is the modern form of the old Norse word (aur) meaning a gravel beach or shoal (see alsoayre), often forming aspit. Such landforms are common in the area and "ör" is found in the names of many places along the strait, e.g.Helsingør,Skanör,Dragør andHalör, an important center of trade during theViking Age.[10][12][13]
The northern boundary between Øresund andKattegat is a line which goes fromGilleleje at Zealand's northern peak to the westernmost point ofKullaberg (Kullen's Lighthouse) at the smaller peninsula north ofHelsingborg, known asKullahalvön. In the south, the boundary towards theBaltic Sea starts atStevns Klint, at the westernmost peak of the peninsula just south ofKøge Bay,Stevns Peninsula toFalsterbo at the Falsterbo peninsula. Its eastern boundary is the Swedish coastline; to the westAmager may be considered part of Øresund (in which case it is the largest island) or a part of Zealand. Amager has eight connections with Zealand (two street bridges, a road bridge, a motorway bridge, a dual-track railway tunnel, an underground metro and a bicycle bridge) as well as a combined motorway and dual track railway to Scania and Sweden.
Øresund, like other Danish and Danish-German straits, is at the border between oceanic salt water (which has a salinity of more than 30PSU orper mille by weight) and the far less saltyBaltic Sea.
As theKattegat in the north has almost oceanic conditions and the Baltic Sea (around 7 PSU, in its main basin) hasbrackish water, Øresund's water conditions are rather unusual and shifting. The streams are very complex, but the surface stream is often northbound (from the Baltic Sea) which gives a lower surface salinity, though streams can change from one day to another. The average surface salinity is about 10–12 PSU in the southern part, but above 20 PSU north of Helsingør.
Near the seafloor (where the sea is deep enough), conditions are more stable and salinity is always oceanic (above 30 PSU) below a certain depth that varies between 10 and 15 metres. In the southern part, however, the depth is 5–6 metres (outside the rather narrow waterwaysDrogden andFlintrännan), and this is the definite border of oceanic salt water, therefore also a border for many maritime species of animals. Only 52 known salt-water species reside in the central Baltic Sea, compared to around 1500 in theNorth Sea. Close to 600 species are known to exist in at least some part of Øresund. Well-known examples, for which the bottom salinity makes a distinct breeding border, include lobster, small crabs (Carcinus maenas), several species offlatfish and thelion's mane jellyfish; the latter can sometimes drift into the southwest Baltic Sea, but it cannot reproduce there.
There are daily tides, but the lunar attraction cannot force much water to move from west to east, or vice versa, in narrow waters where the current is either northbound or southbound. So, not much of the difference in water levels in Øresund is due to daily tides, and other circumstances "hide" the little tide that still remains. The current has a much stronger effect than the tide on the water level, but strong winds may also affect the water level. During exceptional conditions, such as storms and hurricanes, oceanic water may suddenly flow into the Baltic Sea at all depths. Such events give deep waters in the southern Baltic Sea higher salinity, which makes it possible forcod to breed there. If no such inflow of oceanic water to the Baltic Sea occurs for around a decade, the breeding of cod becomes endangered.
Kronborg castle is situated on the extreme northeastern tip of the island of Zealand at the narrowest point of the ØresundNorthern Øresund
Political control of Øresund has been an important issue in Danish andSwedish history. Denmark maintainedmilitary control with thecoastalfortress ofKronborg atElsinore on the west side andKärnan atHelsingborg on the east, until the eastern shore was ceded to Sweden in 1658, based on theTreaty of Roskilde. Both fortresses are located where the strait is 4 kilometres wide.
In 1429, KingEric of Pomerania introduced theSound Dues which remained in effect for more than four centuries, until 1857. Transitory dues on the use of waterways, roads, bridges and crossings were then an accepted way of taxing which could constitute a great part of a state's income. The Strait Dues remained the most important source of income for the Danish Crown for several centuries, thus making Danish kings relatively independent of Denmark'sprivy council andaristocracy.
To be independent of the Øresund, Sweden carried out two great projects: the foundation ofGothenburg in 1621 and the construction of theGöta Canal from 1810 to 1832.
^"The Sound."Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 March 2004. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
^Gluver, Henrik; Dan Olsen (1998)."2.7 Øresund Bridge, Denmark-Sweden".Ship Collision Analysis.Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.ISBN90-5410-962-9.Øresund (the Strait) is, like the Great Belt, an important water way for the international ship traffic between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
^The region had a population of 3,894,365 as of 2015[update] and a population density of 187/km2."Geography". Tendens Øresund. Archived fromthe original on 11 February 2010. Retrieved29 October 2010.. On 1 January 2016 the Øresund Committee changed the name of the region to "Greater Copenhagen and Skåne".
^"At Scandlines". Archived fromthe original on 2016-12-24. Retrieved2015-01-09. press "Tidtabell 2 jan-31 maj 2015", PDF file.
^ØreOrdbog over det danske Sprog "et smalt stykke land imellem to store vande, fra et land til andet. [...] Øresund kaldes saaledes fordi det begynder ved Siellands Øre og ved Øster-Søen ved et Øre, som er Skan-Øre. [...] sandet ell. gruset strand(bred), ofte spec.: dannende en odde, en halvø ell. en smal landtange."Katlev, Jan (2000).Politikens Etymologisk Ordbog.Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag. p. 694.ISBN87-567-6200-3.afør,øre 'gruset strandbred' + sund.Ør,Ordbog over det danske Sprog. Cf. also Ole Lauridsen in the Danish radio programSproghjørnet(audio clip in Danish).
Menefee, Samuel Pyeatt, "The Strait Dues and Access to the Baltic Sea" in Renate Platzoder and Philomene Verlaan (eds.),The Baltic Sea: New Developments in National Policies and International Co-Operation (1996), pp. 101–32.
Øresunddirekt – Official public information site for the inhabitants of the Øresund region
Øresund TrendsArchived 2012-03-25 at theWayback Machine – An official public information site with up-to-date information on the region, available in English
Øresundstid – The History of the Øresund Region(in English, Swedish, and Danish)
