Förden and East Jutland Fjorde

On the eastern coast of the Jutland Peninsula, consisting of Danish Jutland and German Schleswig-Holstein, there is a special type of narrow bay called Förde (plural: Förden) in German and fjord (plural fjorde) in Danish. These bays are of glacial origin, but the glacial mechanics were very different from those of Norwegian Fjords.

The words förde and fjord are of the same origin as the English word firth.

Geology

When present Baltic Sea was covered by a huge shield of ice, at the edge of it the ice moved upon a land without mountains as tongues of glaciers. These carved out canals. Later on the ice retreated and gave place at first to a large lake, then to the Baltic Sea. The water level rose and the canals were filled by water. The material carved out formed moraine hills near the sides and ends of the canals.

The fjärdar at the coasts of Sweden and Finland have a similar origin.

Some of these förden and fjorde are believed not to have been carved out by the ice but to have been washed out by flows of water below the ice (tunnel valleys).

List

Denmark:

• Langerak: Length 32 km. Eastern part of Limfjord, really a strait with eastern entrance from Kattegat and western communication to the other parts of Limfjord, which are rather lagoons.

• Mariager Fjord: 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 Fjord: Length 10 km, width 3 - 4 km.

• Als 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 Fjord, in German Flensburger Förde, in Danish Flensborg Fjord: It is the largest of these bays (length 40 or 50 km), and reaching farthest west.

Germany:

• Schlei, in Danish Slien: Length 40 - 42 km. The narrowest German Förde.

• Eckernförde Bay, in German Eckernförder Bucht, in Danish Egernførde Fjord: The component -förde in the name of the city is generally considered to reference a ford.

• Kieler Förde: Geologically larger than nominally, as a part of the large Kiel Bay belongs 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.

Literature

• Kurt-Dietmar Schmidtke: Die Entstehung Schleswig-Holsteins, Neumünster (Germany), 3rd edition 1995, ISBN 3-529-05316-3