The Little Belt is a strait

Strait

A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...

 between the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 island of Funen

Funen

Funen , with a size of 2,984 km² , is the third-largest island of Denmark following Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy, and the 163rd largest island of the world. Funen is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 454,358 inhabitants . The main city is Odense, connected to the...

 and the Jutland Peninsula

Jutland Peninsula

The Jutland Peninsula or more historically the Cimbrian Peninsula is a peninsula in Europe, divided between Denmark and Germany. The names are derived from the Jutes and the Cimbri....

.

The belt is about 50 km long and 800m to 28 km wide, the maximum depth is approximately 75 m, and contains numerous small Danish islands.

Two bridges cross the belt, the Old Lille Belt bridge and the New Little Belt bridge

Little Belt Bridge (1970)

The New Little Belt Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the Little Belt strait between Jutland and the island of Funen in Denmark. The bridge is 1700 metres long, the main span is 600 metres, the pylons reaching a height of 120 metres, and the maximum clearance from the sea is 44...

; also the two Lille Belt overhead powerline crossings.

The Belt is mentioned in the German national anthem (written 1841), the Deutschlandlied, to define the northern limit of territories advocated in the song as a unified Germany

Unification of Germany

The formal unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 at the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm of Prussia as Emperor Wilhelm of the German...

. Its inclusion reflects the bilingual nature of the former Duchy of Schleswig, which as populated by both Danes, Germans and bilinguals. It was also mentioned for the same reason in the 1813 song, Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?, written by Ernst Moritz Arndt

Ernst Moritz Arndt

Ernst Moritz Arndt was a German nationalistic and antisemitic author and poet. Early in his life, he fought for the abolition of serfdom, later against Napoleonic dominance over Germany, and had to flee to Sweden for some time due to his anti-French positions...

.

See also

• Danish straits
  Danish straits
  The Danish straits are the three channels connecting the Baltic Sea to the North Sea through the Kattegat and Skagerrak. They transect Denmark, and are not to be confused with the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland...
  
  
• Great Belt
  Great Belt
  The Great Belt is a strait between the main Danish islands of Zealand and Funen . Effectively dividing Denmark in two, the Belt was served by the Great Belt ferries from the late 19th century until the islands were connected by the Great Belt Fixed Link in 1997–98.-Geography:The Great Belt is the...
  
  
• Øresund
  Oresund
  The Sound , is the strait that separates the Danish island Zealand from the southern Swedish province of Scania. Its width is just at the narrowest point between Helsingør, Denmark, and Helsingborg, Sweden...