Haff (lagoon)

Haff, also called Bodden in some usage, is the German term for a type of shallow estuarine lagoon along the southern Baltic Sea coast, formed where fresh water rivers meet the sea behind a barrier that encloses the lagoon from the open Baltic. Named haffs in the region include the Vistula Lagoon, known in German as the Frisches Haff, the Szczecin Lagoon, called both the Grosses Haff and the Kleines Haff, the Kamien Lagoon or Camminer Bodden, the Curonian Lagoon or Kurisches Haff, and the Oderhaff, also called the Stettiner Haff or Pommersches Haff. In northern Germany and the Netherlands, the related but now obsolete Frisian word hef was sometimes used for the Wadden Sea, which shares some of the same lagoon like characteristics.