Vistula Lagoon
The
Vistula Lagoon is a brackish water lagoon on the Baltic Sea roughly 56 miles long, 6 to 15 miles wide, and up to 17 feet deep, separated from Gdańsk Bay by the Vistula Spit. It is now known as the
Vistula Bay or
Vistula Gulf. The modern German name,
Frisches Haff, is derived from an earlier form,
Friesisches Haff. The lagoon is a mouth of a few branches of the Vistula River, notably the Nogat, and the Pregolya River. It is connected to Gdańsk Bay by the Strait of Baltiysk. The Poland–Russia border runs across the lagoon. Localities on the lagoon include Kaliningrad, Baltiysk, and Primorsk in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast and Elbląg, Tolkmicko, Frombork, Krynica Morska in Poland. The Polish port of Elbląg used to see a substantial amount of trading traffic on the lagoon, but that has declined owing to the current border situation. Kaliningrad and Baltiysk are currently major seaports on the lagoon.