Bay of Kiel

In the other direction, traffic can either pass northward through the Great Belt, keeping Langeland on the port side, or enter the Kiel Fjord and traverse the Kiel Canal directly to the mouth of the Elbe River and the North Sea.

The strategic location was not lost on the founders of Holstein, of which Kiel was intended to be a major city.

It became a prolific shipyard, which made it a prime target of allied bombing in World War II.

Before the foundation of Kiel in 1242 and the construction of a walled city there, the region could not have escaped settlement, especially by the Vikings.

The once forested peninsula between Kiel Fjord and Eckernförde Bay formed the borderland between the Saxons and the Danes in the Middle Ages.