A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by barrier islands or reefs. Lagoons are commonly divided into coastal lagoons and atoll lagoons. They have also been identified as occurring on mixed-sand and gravel coastlines. There is an overlap between bodies of water classified as coastal lagoons and bodies of water classified as estuaries. Lagoons are common coastal features around many parts of the world.
The Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's largest national park, situated at the coast of the Baltic Sea. It consists of several peninsulas, islands and lagoon shore areas in the Baltic Sea, belonging to the district of Vorpommern-Rügen.
Szczecin Lagoon, Stettin Lagoon, Bay of Szczecin, or Stettin Bay, also Oder lagoon, is a lagoon in the Oder estuary, shared by Germany and Poland. It is separated from the Pomeranian Bay of the Baltic Sea by the islands of Usedom and Wolin. The lagoon is subdivided into the Kleines Haff in the West and the Wielki Zalew in the East. An ambiguous historical German name was Frisches Haff, which later exclusively referred to the Vistula Lagoon.
Zingst is the easternmost portion of the three-part Fischland-Darß-Zingst Peninsula, located in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, between the cities of Rostock and Stralsund on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea.
The island of Ummanz lies in the Baltic Sea, off the west coast of the island of Rügen, and belongs, like the latter, to the county of Vorpommern-Rügen in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Bodden are briny bodies of water often forming lagoons, along the southwestern shores of the Baltic Sea, primarily in Germany's state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. These lagoons can be found especially around the island of Rügen, Usedom and the Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula. Some of them are protected reserves, forming the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park.
The Achterwasser is a lagoon forming a bay on the Peenestrom river, which flows into the Baltic Sea, and like that estuary is an inland coastal waterbody. This lagoon extends so far into the island of Usedom, that it is only separated from the Baltic Sea by a narrow barrier spit between Ückeritz and Zinnowitz. It is bordered in the north by the peninsula of Gnitz and in the south by the Lieper Winkel. The reed-lined, south-eastern bay is called the Balmer See, the one in the southwest, which can only be accessed with difficulty on its western shore is the Krienker See.
The Vistula Lagoon is a brackish water lagoon on the Baltic Sea roughly 56 miles (90 km) 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 Bodstedter Bodden is a lagoon, of the type known as a bodden, that is part of the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain and the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park in northeastern Germany. It lies south of the peninsula of Fischland-Darß-Zingst on the coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The heavily indented, reed fringed shoreline forms a picturesque landscape with the result that the villages near the shore are popular tourist destinations.
The Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain is a waterbody on the Baltic Sea coast northeast of Rostock in Germany. It consists of a string of several lagoons or bodden arranged in an east-west direction that are separated from the open sea by the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula. The surface area of these lagoons is 197 km² and the average water depth is only about two metres.
The Barther Bodden is a bodden water between the Zingst peninsula and the mainland town of Barth. It is a brackish lagoon that is part of the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain. Its largest inflow is the Barthe stream.
The tiny uninhabited German island of Gänsewerder lies in the Schaproder Bodden, a lagoon on the Baltic Sea coast, 400 metres east of the Gellen Peninsula on Hiddensee. It is part of the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park and is out of bounds to the public. The surface of Gänsewerder is flat, sandy and damp, and only reeds and small plants grow there. There is a small pond in the northeast of the island. The island has an oval shape and slopes along its longer axis from southwest to northeast. It measures about 328 by 155 metres and has an area of some 4 hectares. When the national park was established, Gänsewerder was a coastal nesting area for birds, but is no longer. The island of Fährinsel off Hiddensee, which is inhabited by several species of bird, is managed as one area along with the Gellen and Gänserwerder.
Kirr is an island in the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain south of the Zingst Peninsula on the German Baltic Sea coast. It is separated from the peninsula by the Zingster Strom. The island is a nature reserve within the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park. It was formerly and is sometimes still called Großer Kirr or Große Kirr. This is to distinguish it from the northwestern part of the island, which was still a separate albeit much smaller island in the Zingster Strom in the second half of the 20th century, that used to be called Kleiner Kirr or Kleine Kirr.
Heuwiese is an uninhabited German Baltic Sea island that lies about two kilometres south of Ummanz and west of Germany's largest island, Rügen.
The small, uninhabited island of Liebes lies in the Baltic Sea, in the lagoon of Varbelvitzer Bodden between the islands of Rügen and Ummanz. It is a good 1,000 metres long, up to 200 metres wide and its highest point lies just 1.5 metres above sea level. The name of the island could be derived from the Slavic word Lipa = "lime tree".
The German Baltic Sea island of Mährens is uninhabited and lies between the islands of Rügen and Ummanz off the coast of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It is only around 150 × 100 metres across and up to 3 metres above sea level. Together with its two, rather larger, neighbours, Liebes and Urkevitz, as well as the smaller Wührens, the island lies within the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park and, as a bird reserve, it is out-of-bounds to unauthorised persons.
Urkevitz is an uninhabited German island in the West Pomeranian Lagoon Area National Park. It lies in the Baltic Sea between the islands of Rügen and Ummanz, and is less than 100 metres from the latter. The island is about 1,000 metres long, up to 300 metres wide and up to 5 metres above sea level.
The German Baltic Sea island of Wührens lies between the much larger islands of Rügen and Ummanz. Its maximum extent measures 230 by 80 metres and it has an area of 1.73 hectares, rising just about sea level. It is uninhabited and only grass-covered. It is surrounded by the neighbouring islands of Liebes to the west, Urkevitz to the east and Mährens to the north. It is the smallest of the four islands in the channels of Wittenberger and Focker Strom.
The Zingster Strom is a distinctive, river-like arm of the Barther Bodden lagoon, south of the Zingst peninsula on Germany's Baltic Sea coast. It lies between the island of Kirr and the Zingst and runs from east to west in a semi-circular arc, both ends being open to the south. It is less than one hundred metres wide in places and about three kilometres long. Unlike its rather shallow neighbouring waterbodies it is over six metres deep in places. At its northernmost point lies the village of Zingst with its harbour and a water fowl roosting area. Two smaller islands, Brunstwerder and Gänsebrink, are located in the Strom. The Strom used to have direct access to the Baltic via the Alte Stramminke, a former inlet.
The uninhabited little island of Balmer Werder lies in the Baltic Sea, in the Balmer See, the southeastern part of the Achterwasser lagoon, between Usedom and the mainland off the village of Balm. Balm belongs to the municipality of Benz in the county of Vorpommern-Greifswald in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
