The Strelasund is a sound

Sound (geography)

In geography a sound or seaway is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight and wider than a fjord; or it may be defined as a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land ....

 of the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

 which separates Rügen

Rügen

Rügen is Germany's largest island. Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of the Vorpommern-Rügen district of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.- Geography :Rügen is located off the north-eastern coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea...

 from the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 mainland. It is crossed by a road and rail bridge called the Rügendamm

Rügendamm

The Rügen Bridge is a pre-stressed concrete cable-stayed bridge that spans the Strelasund between the German City of Stralsund and Rügen Island, Germany...

 in Stralsund

Stralsund

- Main sights :* The Brick Gothic historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.* The heart of the old town is the Old Market Square , with the Gothic Town Hall . Behind the town hall stands the imposing Nikolaikirche , built in 1270-1360...

. It runs in a roughly northwest-to-southeast direction from a small shallow bay just north of Stralsund called the Kubitzer Bodden through to another such bay, the Greifswalder Bodden

Bay of Greifswald

The Bay of Greifswald is a basin in the southwestern Baltic Sea, off the shores of Germany in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. With an area of 514 km², it is the largest Bodden of the German Baltic coast....

 in the southeast. The sound is nowhere much more than 3 km wide, reaching its greatest width towards its southeast end. It is roughly 25 km long.

The only island of any size in the Strelasund is Dänholm

Dänholm

Dänholm is a small island on the German coast of the Baltic Sea. It is situated in the Strelasund just east of Stralsund. Both bridges linking Rügen with the mainland, Rügendamm and Rügenbrücke, run over it...

 just off Stralsund, which carries part of the Rügendamm across the sound.

On the Rügen side, the shore is in many places steep, although this is punctuated by lower shorelines with reed beds in some places. On the mainland side, however, the shores are overridingly flat.

The Strelasund has been the site of two battles. The first in 1362 and the second in 1369 both pitted Danish king Valdemar IV

Valdemar IV of Denmark

Valdemar IV of Denmark or Waldemar ; , was King of Denmark from 1340 to 1375.-Ascension to the throne:...

 against the Hanseatic

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

 fleet. Differences between the two parties were settled by the Treaty of Stralsund

Treaty of Stralsund

The Treaty of Stralsund ended the war between the Hanseatic League and the kingdom of Denmark. The Hanseatic League reached the peak of its power by the conditions of this treaty....

in 1370.