The eastern coast of the Jutland Peninsula, consisting of Danish

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sc ...

features a type of narrow bay called Förde (plural: ''Förden'') in

and fjord (plural ''fjorde'') in Danish. These bays are of glacial origin, but the glacial mechanics were different from those of

Norwegian Fjords This list of Norwegian fjords shows many of the fjords in Norway. In total, there are about 1,190 fjords in Norway and the Svalbard islands. The sortable list includes the lengths and locations of those fjords. Fjords See also * List of gla ...

and also from those of Swedish and Finnish

Fjard A fjard ( sv, fjärd, ) is a large open space of water between groups of islands or mainland in archipelagos. Fjards can be found along sea coasts, in freshwater lakes or rivers. Fjard and fjord were originally the same word with the general mean ...

s. The words ''Förde'', ''fjord'' and ''fjard'' are of the same origin as the English word ''firth'', but today there are differences in the meaning between

firth Firth is a word in the English and Scots languages used to denote various coastal waters in the United Kingdom, predominantly within Scotland. In the Northern Isles, it more usually refers to a smaller inlet. It is linguistically cognate to ''f ...

(Förde) and

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icel ...

in general.

Geology

When the area of the present

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

was covered by an ice sheet during the Weichselian glaciation, about 20,000 to 70,000 years ago, the edge of the ice moved on land as tongues of

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...

s; these carved out channels. When the ice retreated it created a large lake. The water level rose and the channels were filled by water. The material removed formed

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris ( regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice sh ...

hills near the sides and ends of the channels. Some of these Förden and fjorde are believed not to have been carved out by the ice directly, but to have been washed out by flows of water below the ice ( tunnel valleys). Alternatively they have been interpreted as 'beheaded' river channels preserved beside a tideless sea.

List

The present day firths of this region includes:

Denmark

* Langerak: Length 32 km. Eastern part of

Limfjord The Limfjord ( common Danish: ''Limfjorden'' , in north Jutlandish dialect: ''Æ Limfjord'') is a shallow part of the sea, located in Denmark where it has been regarded as a fjord ever since Viking times. However, it now has inlets both from ...

, really a strait with eastern entrance from Kattegat and western communication to the other parts of Limfjord, which are rather lagoons. *

Mariager Fjord With a length of approximately 35 km (22 statute miles), Mariager Fjord is the longest fjord in Jutland, and the 2nd longest fjord (Tied with Ise Fjord on Zealand), behind Roskilde Fjord in Denmark (Excluding the self-governing territory of Gree ...

: Length 35 km, deep channel 42 km. * Randers Fjord: Length 30 km. Entrance from the north, branching in the south, with eastern branch. ** Grund Fjord: Less obstructed by sand than the main fjord. * Norsminde Fjord: Hardly 3 km long. Now a lake due to silting. * Horsens Fjord: Length 16 km. The entrance between the islands of Alrø and Hjarnø is called ''Alrø Sund''. * Vejle Fjord: Length 12 km. * Rands Fjord: Length 3 km. Up to 19th century it was a real bay; then a dam was built to separate it from the sea. Now the former fjord is used as a reserve of fresh water. * Kolding Fjord: Length 10 km. A branch of the narrow part of the Little Belt. * Haderslev Fjord: Length 15 km. The narrowest fjord. *

Åbenrå Aabenraa (; , ; Sønderjysk: ''Affenråe'') is a town in Southern Denmark, at the head of the Aabenraa Fjord, an arm of the Little Belt, north of the Denmark–Germany border and north of German town of Flensburg. It was the seat of Sønder ...

Fjord: Length 10 km, width 3 – 4 km. *

Als Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

Fjord: Length 12 km, prolonged to 20 km by ''Augustenborg Fjord'' (8 km). In addition to the main entrance from the north, there is a narrow second entrance called ''Als Sund''; the blind end is Augustenborg Fjord.

Border

* Flensburg Firth, in German ''Flensburger Förde'', in Danish ''Flensborg Fjord'': It is the largest of these bays (length 40 or 50 km), and reaches farthest west.

Germany

Schlei The Schlei (; da, Slien, also ''Slesvig Fjord''e.g. in: Adolph Frederik Bergsøe: ''Den danske stats statistik'', Kjøbenhavn 1844, p. 156) (more often referred to in English as the Sly Firth) is a narrow inlet of the Baltic Sea in Schleswig-H ...

, in Danish ''Slien'': Length 40 – 42 km. The narrowest German Förde. * Eckernförde Bay, in German ''Eckernförder Bucht'', in Danish ''Egernførde Bugt'': The component ''-förde'' in the name of the city has been considered by some authors to reference a ford and by others to a fjord. *

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

er Förde: Geologically larger than nominally, as a part of the large Kiel Bay belongs geographically to Kieler Förde. * The lake ''Hemmelsdorfer See'' is a former Förde. * ''Traveförde'' is now partly filled up by sand. The residual part is called ''Pötenitzer Wiek'' and connects to the sea only by the estuary of the Trave river.

References

Literature

* Kurt-Dietmar Schmidtke: ''Die Entstehung Schleswig-Holsteins'', Neumünster (Germany), 3rd edition 1995, {{DEFAULTSORT:Foerden And East Jutland Fjorde Fjords of Denmark Förden of Germany Bays of the Baltic Sea fr:Fjord#Bras de mer du type de fœrde