Baltic Sea countries
The nine countries around the Baltic Sea, a shallow, brackish sea in northern Europe where all but Russia are now in NATO.
9 countriesAs of September 2026Short notes, not sourcedSuggest a correction
The Baltic covers about 377,000 km² and averages only about 55 m deep. Hundreds of rivers flow into it and it swaps little water with the North Sea through the narrow Danish straits, so it is brackish, fresh enough near its northern end that parts of the Gulf of Bothnia freeze over most winters.
In the Middle Ages the German merchant towns of the Hanseatic League ran its trade, from Lübeck to Tallinn. After Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, every Baltic country except Russia is in the alliance, and Russia reaches the sea only around St Petersburg and from its Kaliningrad exclave.
The Nordic shore3
DenmarkControls the straits into the Baltic, the Øresund among them, crossed by a bridge and tunnel to Sweden since 2000.
SwedenHas the longest Baltic coast, and the island of Gotland in the middle of the sea.
FinlandFaces the sea on two sides, on the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland. The Åland Islands between it and Sweden are Finnish.
The eastern and southern shore6
RussiaSt Petersburg, at the head of the Gulf of Finland, was built by Peter the Great from 1703 as Russia’s window on Europe. Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania, is its other Baltic coast.
EstoniaTallinn faces Helsinki across the Gulf of Finland, about 80 km away.
LatviaRiga, the largest city in the three Baltic states, is on the Gulf of Riga.
LithuaniaIts short coast includes half of the Curonian Spit, a long sand spit it shares with Russia.
PolandGdańsk, where the Solidarity movement began in the shipyards in 1980, is its main port.
GermanyIts Baltic coast runs from Flensburg past Kiel and Rostock to the island of Usedom, which it shares with Poland. The Kiel Canal is the shortcut from the Baltic to the North Sea.
Close calls
Norway
Norway’s south coast faces the Skagerrak, the strait between Norway and Denmark, which counts as part of the North Sea rather than the Baltic.
Belarus
Belarus is landlocked, though the Neman and the Western Dvina rivers carry its water to the Baltic.
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