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Black Forest

The Black Forest (Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is the source of the Danube and Neckar rivers.

Its highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1493 m above sea level. Roughly oblong in shape, with a length of 160 km and breadth of up to 50 km, it has an area of about 6,009 km2.

Historically, the area was known for forestry and the mining of ore deposits, but tourism has now become the primary industry, accounting for around 300,000 jobs. There are several ruined military fortifications dating back to the 17th century.

History
In ancient times, the Black Forest was known as Abnoba mons, after the Celtic deity, Abnoba. In Roman times (Late antiquity), it was given the name Silva Marciana ("Marcynian Forest", from the Germanic word marka = "border"). The Black Forest probably represented the border area of the Marcomanni ("border people") who were settled east of the Roman limes. They, in turn, were part of the Germanic tribe of Suebi, who subsequently gave their name to the historic state of Swabia. With the exception of Roman settlements on the perimeter (e.g. the baths in Badenweiler, and mines near Badenweiler and Sulzburg) and the construction of the Roman road of Kinzigtalstraße, the colonization of the Black Forest was not carried out by the Romans but by the Alemanni. They settled and first colonized the valleys, crossing the old settlement boundary, the so-called "red sandstone border", for example, from the region of Baar. Soon afterwards, increasingly higher areas and adjacent forests were colonized, so that by the end of the 10th century, the first settlements could be found in the red (bunter) sandstone region. These include, for example, Rötenbach, which was first mentioned in 819.

Some of the uprisings (including the Bundschuh movement) that preceded the 16th century German Peasants' War, originated in the Black Forest. Further peasant unrest, in the shape of the saltpetre uprisings, took place over the next two centuries in Hotzenwald.

Remnants of military fortifications dating from the 17th and 18th centuries can be found in the Black Forest, especially on the mountain passes. Examples include the multiple baroque fieldworks of Margrave Louis William of Baden-Baden or individual defensive positions such as the Alexanderschanze (Alexander's Redoubt), the Röschenschanze and the Schwedenschanze (Swedish Redoubt).

Originally, the Black Forest was a mixed forest of deciduous trees and firs. At the higher elevations spruce also grew. In the middle of the 19th century, the Black Forest was almost completely deforested by intensive forestry and was subsequently replanted, mostly with spruce monocultures.

In 1990, extensive damage to the forest was caused by a series of windstorms. On 26 December 1999, Cyclone Lothar raged across the Black Forest and caused even greater damage, especially to the spruce monocultures. As had happened following the 1990 storms, large quantities of fallen logs were kept in provisional wet-storage areas for years. The effects of the storm are demonstrated by the Lothar Path, a forest educational and adventure trail at the nature centre in Ruhestein on a highland timber forest of about 10 hectares that was destroyed by a hurricane. Several areas of storm damage, both large and small, were left to nature and have developed today into a natural mixed forest again.

Geography
The Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to the Kraichgau in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain (which, from a natural region perspective, also includes the low chain of foothills); in the east it transitions to the Gäu, Baar and hill country west of the Klettgau. From north to south, the Black Forest extends for over 160 km, attaining a width of up to 50 km in the south and 30 km in the north. The Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands, and much of it is densely wooded, a fragment of the Hercynian Forest of antiquity.

Administratively, the Black Forest belongs completely to the state of Baden-Württemberg and comprises the cities of Freiburg, Pforzheim and Baden-Baden as well as the following districts (Kreise). In the north: Enz, Rastatt and Calw; in the middle: Freudenstadt, Ortenaukreis and Rottweil; in the south: Emmendingen, Schwarzwald-Baar, Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Lörrach and Waldshut.

Natural regions
The natural regions of the Black Forest are separated by various features.

Geomorphologically, the main division is between the gentle eastern slopes with their mostly rounded hills and broad plateaux (so-called Danubian relief, especially prominent in the north and east on the Bunter Sandstone) and the deeply incised, steeply falling terrain in the west that drops into the Upper Rhine Graben; the so-called Valley Black Forest (Talschwarzwald) with its Rhenanian relief. It is here, in the west, where the highest mountains and the greatest local differences in height (of up to 1000 metres) are found. The valleys are often narrow and ravine-like. The summits are rounded, and there are remnants of plateaux and arête-like landforms.

Geologically the clearest division is also between east and west. Large areas of the eastern Black Forest, the lowest layer of the South German Scarplands composed of Bunter Sandstone, are covered by seemingly endless coniferous forest with their island clearings. The exposed basement in the west, predominantly made up of metamorphic rocks and granites, was, despite its rugged topography, easier to settle and appears much more open and inviting today with its varied meadow valleys.

The most common way of dividing the regions of the Black Forest is, however, from north to south. Until the 1930s, the Black Forest was divided into the Northern and Southern Black Forest, the boundary being the line of the Kinzig valley. Later the Black Forest was divided into the heavily forested Northern Black Forest, the lower, central section, predominantly used for agriculture in the valleys, was the Central Black Forest and the much higher Southern Black Forest with its distinctive highland economy and ice age glacial relief. The term High Black Forest referred to the highest areas of the South and southern Central Black Forest.

The boundaries drawn were, however, quite varied. In 1931, Robert Gradmann called the Central Black Forest the catchment area of the Kinzig and in the west the section up to the lower Elz and Kinzig tributary of the Gutach. A pragmatic division, which is oriented not just on natural and cultural regions, uses the most important transverse valleys. Based on that, the Central Black Forest is bounded by the Kinzig in the north and the line from Dreisam to Gutach in the south, corresponding to the Bonndorf Graben zone and the course of the present day B 31.

In 1959, Rudolf Metz combined the earlier divisions and proposed a modified tripartite division, which combined natural and cultural regional approaches and was widely used. His Central Black Forest is bounded in the north by the watershed between the Acher and Rench and subsequently between the Murg and Kinzig or Forbach and Kinzig, in the south by the Bonndorf Graben zone, which restricts the Black Forest in the east as does the Freudenstadt Graben further north by its transition into the Northern Black Forest.

Work of the Institute of Applied Geography
The Handbook of the Natural Region Divisions of Germany published by the Federal Office of Regional Geography (Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde) since the early 1950s names the Black Forest as one of six tertiary-level major landscape regions within the secondary-level region of the South German Scarplands and, at the same time, one of nine new major landscape unit groups. It is divided into six so-called major units (level 4 landscapes). This division was refined and modified in several successor publications (1:200,000 individual map sheets) up to 1967, each covering individual sections of the map. The mountain range was also divided into three regions. The northern boundary of the Central Black Forest in this classification runs south of the Rench Valley and the Kniebis to near Freudenstadt. Its southern boundary varied with each edition.

In 1998, the Baden-Württemberg State Department for Environmental Protection (today the Baden-Württemberg State Department for the Environment, Survey and Nature Conservation) published a reworked Natural Region Division of Baden-Württemberg. It is restricted to the level of the natural regional major units and has been used since for the state's administration of nature conservation:

The Black Forest Foothills (Schwarzwald-Randplatten, 150) geomorphologically form plateaux on the north and northeast periphery of the mountain range that descend to the Kraichgau in the north and the Heckengäu landscapes in the east. They are incised by valleys, especially those of the Nagold river system, into individual interfluves; a narrow northwestern finger extends to beyond the Enz near Neuenbürg and also borders the middle reaches of the Alb to the west as far as a point immediately above Ettlingen. To the southwest it is adjoined by the Black Forest Grinden and Enz Hills (Grindenschwarzwald und Enzhöhen, 151), along the upper reaches of the Enz and Murg, forming the heart of the Northern Black Forest. The west of the Northern Black Forest is formed by the Northern Black Forest Valleys (Nördliche Talschwarzwald, 152) with the middle reaches of the Murg around Gernsbach, the middle course of the Oos to Baden-Baden, the middle reaches of the Bühlot above Bühls and the upper reaches of the Rench around Oppenau. Their exit valleys from the mountain range are all oriented towards the northwest.

The Central Black Forest (153) is mainly restricted to the catchment area of the River Kinzig above Offenburg as well as the Schutter and the low hills north of the Elz.

The Southeastern Black Forest (Südöstliche Schwarzwald, 154) consists mainly of the catchment areas of the upper reaches of the Danube headstreams, the Brigach and Breg as well as the left side valleys of the Wutach north of Neustadt – and thus draining from the northeast of the Southern Black Forest. To the south and west it is adjoined by the High Black Forest (Hochschwarzwald, 155) with the highest summits in the whole range around the Feldberg and the Belchen. Its eastern part, the Southern Black Forest Plateau, is oriented towards the Danube, but drained over the Wutach and the Alb into the Rhine. The southern crest of the Black Forest in the west is deeply incised by the Rhine into numerous ridges. Immediately right of the Wiese above Lörrach rises the relatively small Bunter Sandstone-Rotliegendes table of the Weintenau Uplands (Weitenauer Bergland) in the extreme southwest of the Black Forest; morphologically, geologically and climatically it is separate from the other parts of the Southern Black Forest and, in this classification, is also counted as part of the High Black Forest.

Mountains
At the Feldberg in the Southern Black Forest is the range's highest summit. Also in the same area are the Herzogenhorn (1,415 m) and the Belchen (1,414 m). In general the mountains of the Southern or High Black Forest are higher than those in the Northern Black Forest. The highest Black Forest peak north of the Freiburg–Höllental–Neustadt line is the Kandel (1,241.4 m). Like the highest point of the Northern Black Forest, the Hornisgrinde (1,163 m), or the Southern Black Forest lookout mountains, the Schauinsland (1,284.4 m) and Blauen (1,164.7 m) it lies near the western rim of the range.

Rivers and lakes
Rivers in the Black Forest include the Danube (which originates in the Black Forest as the confluence of the Brigach and Breg rivers), the Enz, the Kinzig, the Murg, the Nagold, the Neckar, the Rench, and the Wiese. The Black Forest occupies part of the continental divide between the Atlantic Ocean drainage basin (drained by the Rhine) and the Black Sea drainage basin (drained by the Danube).

The longest Black Forest rivers are (length includes stretches outside the Black Forest):
 * Enz (105 km)
 * Kinzig (93 km)
 * Elz (90 km)
 * Wutach (91 km)
 * Nagold (90 km), hydrological main artery of the Nagold-Enz systems
 * Danube (86 km), headstreams:
 * Breg (46 km)
 * Brigach (40 km)
 * Murg (79 km)
 * Rench (57 km)
 * Schutter (56 km)
 * Wiese (55 km)
 * Acher (54 km)
 * Dreisam (incl. Rotbach 49 km)
 * Alb (incl. Menzenschwander Alb 43 km)
 * Glatt (37 km)
 * Möhlin (32 km)
 * Wolf (31 km)
 * Schiltach (30 km)
 * Wehra (incl. Rüttebach 28 km)
 * Oos (25 km)
 * Glasbach (18 km), hydrological main artery of the Neckar system

Important lakes of natural, glacial origin in the Black Forest include the Titisee, the Mummelsee and the Feldsee. Especially in the Northern Black Forest are a number of other, smaller tarns. Numerous reservoirs like the – formerly natural but much smaller – Schluchsee with the other lakes of the Schluchseewerk, the Schwarzenbach Reservoir, the Kleine Kinzig Reservoir or the Nagold Reservoir are used for electricity generation, flood protection or drinking water supply.

Geology
The Black Forest consists of a cover of sandstone on top of a core of gneiss and granite. Formerly it shared tectonic evolution with the nearby Vosges Mountains. Later during the Middle Eocene a rifting period affected the area and caused formation of the Upper Rhine Plain. During the last glacial period of the Würm glaciation, the Black Forest was covered by glaciers; several tarns (or lakes) such as the Mummelsee are remains of this period.

Basement
The geological foundation of the Black Forest is formed by the crystalline bedrock of the Variscan basement. This is covered in the east and northeast by Bunter Sandstone slabs, the so-called platforms. On the western edge a descending, step-fault-like, foothill zone borders the Upper Rhine Graben consisting of rocks of the Triassic and Jurassic periods.

The dominant rocks of the basement are gneiss (ortho- and paragneisses, in the south also migmatites and diatexites, for example on the Schauinsland and Kandel). These gneisses were penetrated by a number of granitic bodies during the Carboniferous period. Among the bigger ones are the Triberg Granite and the Forbach Granite, the youngest is the Bärhalde Granite. In the south lies the zone of Badenweiler-Lenzkirch, in which Palaeozoic rocks have been preserved (volcanite and sedimentary rocks), which are interpreted as the intercalated remains of a microcontinental collision. Still further in the southeast (around Todtmoos) is a range of exotic inclusions: gabbro from Ehrsberg, serpentinites and pyroxenites near Todtmoos, norite near Horbach), which are possibly the remnants of an accretionary wedge from a continental collision. Also noteworthy are the basins in the Rotliegend, for example the Schramberg or the Baden-Baden Basin with thick quartz-porphyry and tuff plates (exposed, for example, on the rock massif of Battert near Baden-Baden). Thick rotliegendes rock, covered by bunter, also occurs in the north of the Dinkelberg block (several hundred metres thick in the Basel geothermal borehole). Even further to the southeast, under the Jura, lies the North Swiss Permocarboniferous Basin.

Uplift of the mountains
Since the downfaulting of the Upper Rhine Graben during the Eocene epoch, the two shoulders on either side have been uplifted: the Black Forest to the east and the Vosges to the west. In the centre lies the Kaiserstuhl volcano, which dates to the Miocene. In the times that followed, the Mesozoic platform on the uplands was largely eroded, apart from remains of Bunter Sandstone and Rotliegend Group, but it has survived within the graben itself. During the Pliocene a pronounced but uneven bulge especially affected the southern Black Forest, including the Feldberg. As a result, the upper surface of the basement in the northern part of the forest around the Hornisgrinde is considerably lower. In the central Black Forest, the tectonic syncline of the Kinzig and Murg emerged.

Geomorphologist Walther Penck regarded the Black Forest as an uplifted geologic dome and modeled his theory of piedmonttreppen (piedmont benchlands) on it.

Platform
Above the crystalline basement of the Northern Black Forest and the adjacent parts of the Central Black Forest, the bunter sandstone platforms rise in prominent steps. The most resistant surface strata on the stepped terrain of the grinden uplands and the heights around the upper reaches of the Enz, which have been heavily eroded by the tributaries of the Murg, is the silicified main conglomerate (Middle Bunter). To the east and north are the nappes of the Upper Bunter (platten sandstones and red clays). South of the Kinzig the Bunter Sandstone zone narrows to a fringe in the east of the mountain range.

Ice age and topography
It is considered proven that the Black Forest was heavily glaciated during the peak periods of at least the Riss and Würm glaciations (up to about 10,000 years ago). This glacial geomorphology characterizes almost all of the High Black Forest as well as the main ridge of the Northern Black Forest. Apart from that, it is only discernible from a large number of cirques mainly facing northeast. Especially in this direction snow accumulated on the shaded and leeward slopes of the summit plateau to form short cirque glaciers that made the sides of these funnel-shaped depressions. There are still tarns in some of these old cirques, partly a result of the anthropogenic elevation of the low-side lip of the cirque, such as the Mummelsee, Wildsee, Schurmsee, Glaswaldsee, Buhlbachsee, Nonnenmattweiher, and Feldsee. The Titisee formed as glacial lake behind a glacial moraine.

Culture
The Black Forest is mainly rural, with many scattered villages and a few large towns. Tradition and custom are celebrated in many places in the form of annual festivities. The main dialect spoken in the Black Forest area is Alemannic. The forest is best known for its typical farmhouses with their sweeping half-hipped roofs, its Black Forest gâteaus, Black Forest ham, Black Forest gnomes, Kirschwasser and the cuckoo clock.

Traditional costume
Traditional costume or Tracht is still sometimes worn today, usually at festive occasions. The appearance of such costume varies from region to region, sometimes markedly. One of the best-known Black Forest costumes is that of the villages of Kirnbach, Reichenbach and Gutach im Kinzigtal with the characteristic Bollenhut headdress. Unmarried women wear the hats with red bobbles or Bollen; married women wear black. Engaged women sometimes wear a bridal crown (Schäppel) before and on the day of their wedding, whose largest examples from the town of St. Georgen weigh up to 5 kilograms.

Art
Its rural beauty as well as the sense of tradition of its inhabitants attracted many artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works made the Black Forest famous the world over. Notable were Hans Thoma from Bernau and his fellow student, Rudolf Epp, who was sponsored by the Grand Duke of Baden, Frederick I. Both artists painted motifs from the Black Forest throughout their lives. Artist J. Metzler from Düsseldorf travelled through the Black Forest to paint his landscapes. The works of the Gutach artist colony around Wilhelm Hasemann were widely admired, their landscape and genre motifs capturing the character of the Black Forest. Like local author Heinrich Hansjakob, they were part of a Baden folk costume movement.

Crafts

In the field of handicrafts, wood carving produces folk art like the Longinus crosses along with sculptors like Matthias Faller. Wood carving is a traditional cottage industry in the region, and carved ornaments now are produced in substantial numbers as souvenirs for tourists. Cuckoo clocks are a popular example.

Glassblowing is another notable craft of the Black Forest region. At the beginning of the 15th century, the art of glassmaking took hold in the Bavarian-Bohemian border mountains, especially since the necessary raw materials such as quartz and wood were abundant here. With the permission of the manor, glassblowers operated simple glass production facilities as "wandering huts" (Wanderhütten), the locations of which were relocated when the local resources were available. They needed huge amounts of firewood and wood for potash. In the second half of the 18th century, the huts had to close due to a shortage of wood and sales difficulties. Only after 1800, when the demand for luxury glass increased enormously, when a few decades of regulated forestry had ensured the regrowth of the raw material wood and when the forest-destroying potash extraction had become unnecessary due to the new glass flux soda, some glass huts (Glashütten) revived. Some glassblowing factories still testify to this today, for example in Höllental, near Todtnau and in Wolfach.

Cuisine
Black Forest ham originated from this region, as did the Black Forest gâteau, which is also known as "Black Forest Cherry Cake" or "Black Forest Cake" and is made with chocolate cake, cream, sour cherries and Kirsch. The Black Forest variety of Flammekueche is a Baden specialty made with ham, cheese and cream. Pfannkuchen, a crêpe or crêpe-like (Eierkuchen or Palatschinken) pastry, is also common.

The Black Forest is known for its long tradition in gourmet cuisine. No fewer than 17 Michelin starred restaurants are located in the region, among them two restaurants with three stars (Restaurants Bareiss and Schwarzwaldstube in Baiersbronn) as well as the only restaurant in Germany that has been awarded a Michelin star every year since 1966. At Schwarzwald Hotel Adler in Häusern, three generations of chefs from the same family have defended the award from the first year the Michelin Guide selected restaurants in Germany until today.

Fasnet
The German holiday of Fastnacht, or Fasnet, as it is known in the Black Forest region, occurs in the time leading up to Lent. On Fasnetmendig, or the Monday before Ash Wednesday, crowds of people line the streets, wearing wooden, mostly hand-carved masks. One prominent style of mask is called the Black Forest Style, originating from the Black Forest Region.

Cego

The Black Forest is home to an unusual tarot card game called Cego, that is part of the region's cultural heritage. After the defeat of Further Austria in 1805, much of its territory was allocated to the Grand Duchy of Baden. During the ensuing Napoleonic Wars, soldiers from Baden deployed with Napoleon's troops to Spain where, among other things, they learned a new card game, Ombre. They took this back to Baden and adapted it to be played with Tarot cards which were then in common use in southern Germany.

Cego soon developed into the national game of Baden and Hohenzollern, and these are the only regions of Germany where tarot cards are still used for playing games. The game has grown organically, and there are many regional variations, but in recent years the establishment of a Cego Black Forest Championship has led to official tournament rules being defined. In addition, regular courses and local tournaments are held and it is a permanent feature of Alemannic Week, held annually in the Black Forest at the end of September.

Conservation areas

There are two nature parks and one national park named after the Black Forest that cover the region: the Southern Black Forest Nature Park, the Central/North Black Forest and the Black Forest National Park. The difference between a nature park and a national park is that a nature park's aim is to strive for environmentally sustainable land use, to preserve the countryside as a cultural landscape, to market local produce more effectively, to make the area more suitable for sustainable tourism and to practice environmental education. A national park's aims are to protect the country's natural heritage, to practice environmental education, to serve purposes of scientific environmental observation and to prevent the area from being commercially exploited.

The Southern Black Forest Nature Park (Naturpark Südschwarzwald) was founded in 1999. It comprises 394,000 ha and is therefore Germany's largest nature park (as of 2020). It encloses the southern part of the Central Black Forest, the Southern Black Forest and adjacent areas.

The Central/North Black Forest Nature Park (Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord) was founded in 2000. It covers 375,000 ha and is thus the second-largest in Germany (as of 2020). It begins in the southern part of the Central Black Forest, bordering on the Southern Black Forest Nature Park and covers the rest of the Black Forest to the north.

The Black Forest National Park, established in 2014, is the first national park in Baden-Württemberg. It lies completely within the Central/North Black Forest Nature Park between the cities of Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden and covers an area of 10,062 ha. Its motto is "Natur Natur sein lassen" (let nature be nature).

Fauna
In addition to the characteristic range of fauna found in Central European forests, the following less common animals may be observed in the Black Forest:

 * Black Forest cattle which belong to the rare breed of Hinterwälder cattle,
 * the giant earthworm Lumbricus badensis, which is found only in the Black Forest region,
 * the Black Forest Horse, a draft horse once indispensable for heavy field work and nowadays an endangered breed, and
 * the endangered Western capercaillie.

Climate
The mountain range has lower temperatures and higher rainfall than its surrounding countryside. The highlands of the Black Forest are characterized by regular rainfall throughout the year. However, temperatures do not fall evenly with increasing elevation, nor does the rainfall increase uniformly. Rather, the precipitation rises quickly even in the lower regions and is disproportionately heavy on the rainier western side of the mountains. The wettest areas are the highlands around the Hornisgrinde in the north and around the Belchen and Feldberg in the south, where annual rainfall reaches 1,800–2,100 mm. Moisture-laden Atlantic westerlies dump about as much rain in the Northern Black Forest, despite its lower elevation, than in the higher area of the Southern Black Forest. There, the Vosges act as a rain shield in the face of the prevailing winds. On the exposed east side of the Central Black Forest, it is much drier; the annual rainfall there is about 750 L/m2.

The higher elevations of the Black Forest are characterized by relatively small annual fluctuations and steamed extreme values. This is the result of the frequent light winds and greater cloud cover in summer. During the winter months, frequent high pressure means that the summits are often bathed in sunshine, while the valleys disappear under a thick blanket of fog as a result of pockets of cold air (temperature inversion).

Tourism and transport

The main industry of the Black Forest is tourism. Black Forest Tourism (Schwarzwald Tourismus) assesses that there are around 140,000 direct full-time jobs in the tourist sector and around 34.8 million tourist overnight stays in 2009. In spring, summer and autumn an extensive network of hiking trails and mountain bike routes enable different groups of people to use the natural region. In winter, it is the various types of winter sport that come to the fore. There are facilities for both downhill and Nordic skiing in many places.

Tourist attractions

The most heavily frequented tourist destinations and resorts in the Black Forest are the Titisee and the Schluchsee. Both lakes offer opportunities for water sports like diving and windsurfing. The Mummelsee is a recreational lake and a starting point for a number of hiking trails including the Kunstpfad am Mummelsee ("sculpture trail at the Mummelsee"). The Murg valley, the Kinzig valley, the Triberg Waterfalls and the Open Air Museum at Vogtsbauernhof are also popular. Lookout mountains include the Feldberg, the Belchen, the Kandel and the Schauinsland in the Southern Black Forest; and the Hornisgrinde, the Schliffkopf, the Hohloh, the Merkur and the Teufelsmühle in the Northern Black Forest. The height differences in the mountains are used in many places for hang gliding and paragliding.

One often visited town is Baden-Baden with its thermal baths and festival hall. Other thermal baths are found in the spa resorts of Badenweiler, Bad Herrenalb, Bad Wildbad, Bad Krozingen, Bad Liebenzell and Bad Bellingen. From the beginning of the 19th century, the desire for spa and bathing resorts arose in all of Central Europe because of the increasing economic potential, increasing mobility and the use of advertising. The Neo-renaissance style Friedrichsbad and the Palais Thermal are examples for spas built in this era.

Other tourist destinations are the old imperial town of Gengenbach, the former county towns of Wolfach, Schiltach and Haslach im Kinzigtal and the flower and wine village of Sasbachwalden at the foot of the Hornisgrinde. Picturesque old towns may be visited in Altensteig, Dornstetten, Freiburg im Breisgau, Gernsbach, Villingen and Zell am Harmersbach. Baiersbronn is a centre of gastronomic excellence, Freudenstadt is built around the largest market place in Germany. Gersbach's floral displays have won awards as the German Golden Village of 2004 and the European Golden Village of 2007.

Noted for their fine interiors are the former monastery of St. Blasien as well as the abbeys of Sankt Trudpert, St. Peter and St. Märgen. Alpirsbach Abbey and the ruined Hirsau Abbey were built of red sandstone in the Hirsau style. Another idyllic rural edifice is Wittichen Abbey near Schenkenzell. There are well known winter sports areas around the Feldberg, near Todtnau with its FIS downhill ski run of Fahler Loch and in Hinterzarten, a centre and talent forge for German ski jumpers. In the Northern Black Forest, the winter-sports areas are concentrated along the Black Forest High Road and on the ridge between the Murg and Enz rivers around Kaltenbronn.

Hiking trails
The Black Forest has a great number of very varied trails; some of pan-regional significance. The European long-distance path E1 crosses the Black Forest following the routes of some of the local long-distance paths. Their framework is a network of long-distance paths with main routes and side branches, many of which were laid out in the early 20th century by the Black Forest Club (Schwarzwaldverein). The best known of these is the challenging West Way (Westweg) with its many steep inclines. After 1950, circular walks were constructed to meet the changing demand, initially from the relatively dense railway network and, later, mainly from locally established hiking car parks. Currently, special, more experience-oriented themed paths are being laid out, such as the Dornstetten Barefoot Park (Barfußpark Dornstetten), the Park of All Senses (Park mit allen Sinnen) in Gutach (Black Forest Railway), as well as those designed to bring the walker more directly in contact with nature (e.g. the Schluchtensteig). Roads and wide forest tracks are thus less often used than hitherto.

There are numerous shorter paths suitable for day walks, as well as mountain biking and cross-country skiing trails. The total network of tracks amounts to around 23000 km, and is maintained and overseen by volunteers of the Black Forest Club (figures from Bremke, 1999, p. 9), which is the second largest German hiking association. As of 2021, the club counts 65,000 members.

Culture and crafts

The Black Forest Open Air Museum at the Vogtsbauernhof farm in Gutach has original Black Forest houses offering insights into farming life of the 16th and 17th centuries. The buildings were dismantled at their original sites, the individual pieces numbered and then re-erected to exactly the same plan in the museum. The open-air museum shows the life of 16th and 17th century farmers in the region featuring the Vogtsbauernhof which dates back to 1612.

The German Clock Museum in Furtwangen gives a comprehensive cross-section of the history of the watchmaking and clockmaking industries.

From this early precision engineering a formerly important phonographic industry developed in the 20th century; the history of leisure electronics is presented in the German Phono Museum in St. Georgen.

The Schüttesäge Museum in Schiltach has information and living history demonstrations covering the themes of lumbering and timber rafting in the Kinzig valley as well as tanning.

The Black Forest Costume Museum in Haslach im Kinzigtal offers an overview of the traditional costume of the whole of the Black Forest and its peripheral regions. Also located in Haslach: the Hansjakob Museum and the Hansjakob Archive with numerous works of the writer, priest, politician, historian and chronicler, Heinrich Hansjakob.

Nature and science
The MiMa Mineralogy and Mathematics Museum in Oberwolfach houses minerals and mining exhibits from the whole of the Black Forest and links them to mathematical explanations.

Road transport
Several tourist routes run through the Black Forest. Well known holiday routes are the Black Forest High Road (B 500) and the German Clock Road.

Thanks to its winding country roads, the Black Forest is a popular destination for motorcyclists. This arm of tourism is controversial due to the high number of accidents and the wide-ranging noise pollution and has been restricted through the introduction of speed limits and by placing certain roads out of bounds. For example, since 1984, motorcyclists have been banned from using the mountain-racing route on the Schauinsland during summer weekends.

Railway transport

The whole of the Black Forest was once linked by railway. In the eastern part of the Northern Black Forest by the Enz Valley Railway from Pforzheim to Bad Wildbad, by the Nagold Valley Railway from Pforzheim via Calw and Nagold to Horb am Neckar, by the Württemberg Black Forest Railway from Stuttgart to Calw and the Gäu Railway from Stuttgart to Freudenstadt or its present-day section from Eutingen to Freudenstadt.

Many railway lines run from the Rhine Plain up the valleys into the Black Forest: the Alb Valley Railway runs from Karlsruhe to Bad Herrenalb, the Murg Valley Railway from Rastatt to Freudenstadt, the Acher Valley Railway from Achern to Ottenhöfen im Schwarzwald and the Rench Valley Railway from Appenweier to Bad Griesbach. The Baden Black Forest Railway has linked Offenburg with Konstanz on Lake Constance since 1873, running via Hausach, Triberg, St. Georgen, Villingen and Donaueschingen. In Hausach the Kinzig Valley Railway branches off to Freudenstadt, in Denzlingen the Elz Valley Railway peels off towards Elzach, the Höllental Railway runs from Freiburg im Breisgau through the Höllental valley to Donaueschingen, the Münstertal Railway from Bad Krozingen to Münstertal, the Kander Valley Railway from Haltingen near Basel through the Kander valley to Kandern and the Wiesen Valley Railway from Basel to Zell im Wiesental.

The Three Lakes Railway branches off at the Titisee from the Höllental Railway and runs to the Windgfällweiher and the Schluchsee. The Wutach Valley Railway runs along the border between Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland, linking Waldshut-Tiengen with Immendingen on the Black Forest Railway.

Most of these routes are still busy today, whilst some are popular heritage lines.

Administration
Since January 2006, the Black Forest Tourist organisation, Schwarzwald Tourismus, whose head office is in Freiburg, has been responsible for the administration of tourism in the 320 municipalities of the region. Hitherto there had been four separate tourist associations.

Points of interest

There are many historic towns in the Black Forest. Popular tourist destinations include Baden-Baden, Freiburg, Calw (the birth town of Hermann Hesse), Gengenbach, Staufen, Schiltach, Haslach and Altensteig. Other popular destinations include such mountains as the Feldberg, the Belchen, the Kandel, and the Schauinsland; the Titisee and Schluchsee lakes; the All Saints Waterfalls; the Triberg Waterfalls, not the highest, but the most famous waterfalls in Germany; and the gorge of the River Wutach.

For drivers, the main route through the region is the fast A 5 (E35) motorway, but a variety of signposted scenic routes such as the Schwarzwaldhochstraße (60 km, Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt), Schwarzwald Tälerstraße (100 km, the Murg and Kinzig valleys) or Badische Weinstraße (Baden Wine Street, 160 km, a wine route from Baden-Baden to Weil am Rhein) offers calmer driving along high roads. The last is a picturesque trip starting in the south of the Black Forest going north and includes numerous old wineries and tiny villages. Another, more specialized route is the German Clock Route, a circular route that traces the horological history of the region.

Due to the rich mining history dating from medieval times (the Black Forest was one of the most important mining regions of Europe c. 1100) there are many mines re-opened to the public. Such mines may be visited in the Kinzig valley, the Suggental, the Muenster valley, and around Todtmoos.

The Black Forest was visited on several occasions by Count Otto von Bismarck during his years as Prussian and later German chancellor (1862–1890). Allegedly, he was especially interested in the Triberg Waterfalls. There is now a monument in Triberg dedicated to Bismarck, who apparently enjoyed the tranquility of the region as an escape from his day-to-day political duties in Berlin.

The Black Forest featured in the philosophical development of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger wrote and edited some of his philosophical works in a small hut in the Black Forest, and would receive visitors there for walks, including his former pupil Hannah Arendt. This hut features explicitly in his essay Building, Dwelling, Thinking. His walks in the Black Forest are supposed to have inspired the title of his collection of essays Holzwege, translated as Off The Beaten Track.

Mining

Mining developed in the Black Forest due to its ore deposits, which were often lode-shaped. The formation of these deposits (Schauinsland Pit: zinc, lead, about 700–1000 g silver/ton of lead; baryte, fluorite, less lead and zinc in the Kinzig valley; BiCoNi ores near Wittichen, uranium discovered in the Krunkelbach valley near Menzenschwand but never officially mined) often used to be linked to the intrusion of Carboniferous granite in the para- and orthogneisses. More recent research has revealed that most of these lode fillings are much younger (Triassic to Tertiary). Economic deposits of other minerals included: fluorite in the Northern Black Forest near Pforzheim, baryte in the central region near Freudenstadt, fluorite along with lead and silver near Wildschapbach, baryte and fluorite in the Rankach valley and near Ohlsbach, in the Southern Black Forest near Todtnau, Wieden and Urberg.

Small liquid magmatic deposits of nickel-magnetite gravel in norite were mined or prospected in the Hotzenwald forest near Horbach and Todtmoos. Strata-bound deposits include iron ores in the Dogger layer of the foothill zone and uranium near Müllenbach/Baden-Baden. Stone coal is only found near Berghaupten and Diersburg, but was always only of local importance.

Chronology: Stone Age mining of haematite (as red pigment) near Sulzburg. By the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. iron ore was being mined by the Celts in the Northern Black Forest (for example in Neuenbürg). Especially in the Middle Black Forest, but also in the south (for example in the Münster valley) ore mining was already probably taking place in Roman times (mining of silver and lead ore; evidence of this at Sulzburg and possibly Badenweiler). Until the High Middle Ages the High Black Forest was practically unsettled. In the course of inland colonisation in the Late High Middle Ages even the highlands were cultivated by settlers from the abbeys (St. Peter's, St. Märgen's). In the Late High Middle Ages (from about 1100) mining experienced another boom, especially around Todtnau, in the Münster and Suggen valleys and, later, on the Schauinsland too. It is believed that around 800–1,000 miners lived and worked in the Münster valley until the end of the Middle Ages. After the Plague, which afflicted the valley in 1516, the German Peasants' War (1524–26) and the Thirty Years' War, mining in the region declined until just a few pits remained.

An important mining area was the Kinzig valley and its side valleys. The small mining settlement of Wittichen near Schenkenzell in the upper Kinzig valley had many pits from which miners dug baryte, cobalt and silver of many kinds. A circular, geological footpath runs today past the old pits and tips.

Another boom began in the early 18th century after the loss of the Alsace to France. It lasted until the 19th century. Many pits from this period may be visited today as show mines; for example the Teufelsgrund Pit (Münstertal), the Finstergrund Pit near Wieden, the Hoffnungsstollen ("Hope Gallery") at Todtmoos, the mine in the Schauinsland, the formerly especially silver-rich Wenzel Pit in Oberwolfach and Gr. Segen Gottes ("God's Great Blessing") in Haslach-Schnellingen.

Non-ferrous metal mining in the Black Forest continued until the middle of the 20th century near Wildschapbach and on the Schauinsland (to 1954); fluorite and baryte are still mined today at the Clara Pit in the Rankach valley in Oberwolfach. Iron ores of the Dogger formation was worked until the 1970s near Ringsheim and was smelted in Kehl.

Compared with the Harz and Ore Mountains the quantities of silver extracted in the Black Forest were rather modest and reached only about ten percent of that produced in the other silver-mining regions.

There are many show mines in the Black Forest. These include: the Frischglück Pit near Neuenbürg, the Hella Glück Pit near Neubulach, the Silbergründle Pit near Seebach, the Himmlich Heer Pit near Hallwangen, the Heilige Drei Könige Pit near Freudenstadt, the Segen Gottes Pit near Haslach, the Wenzel Pit near Oberwolfach, the Caroline Pit near Sexau, the Suggental Silver Mine near Waldkirch, the Schauinsland Pit near Freiburg, the Teufelsgrund Pit near Münstertal, the Finstergrund Pit near Wieden and the Hoffnungsstollen Pit near Todtmoos.

Forestry

For several centuries logs from the Black Forest were rafted down the Enz, Kinzig, Murg, Nagold and Rhine rivers for use in the shipping industry, as construction timber and for other purposes. This branch of industry boomed in the 18th century and led to large-scale clearances. As most of the long, straight pine logs were transported downriver for shipbuilding in the Netherlands, they were referred to as "Dutchmen". The logs were used in the Netherlands, above all, as piles for house construction in the sandy and wet ground. Even today in Amsterdam large numbers of historic building are built on these posts and the reforestation of the Black Forest with spruce monocultures testifies to the destruction of the original mixed forest. With the expansion of the railway and road network as alternative transportation, rafting largely came to an end in the late 19th century.

Today, loggers harvest fir trees—especially very tall and branchless ones—mainly to ship to Japan. The global advertising impact of Expo 2000 fuelled a resurgence of timber exports. The importance of the timber resources of the Black Forest has also increased sharply recently due to the increasing demand for wood pellets for heating.

Glass-making, charcoal-burning and potash-mining
The timber resources of the Black Forest provided the basis for other sectors of the economy that have now largely disappeared. Charcoal burners (Köhler) built their wood piles (Meiler) in the woods and produced charcoal, which, like the products of the potash boilers—further processed inter alia for the glassmaking industry. The Black Forest supplied raw materials and energy for the manufacture of forest glass. This is evidenced today by a number of glassblowing houses e.g. in the Hoellental in Todtnau and Wolfach and the Forest Glass Centre in Gersbach (Schopfheim), which is open to visitors.

Precision-engineering, clock and jewellery manufacture

In the relatively inaccessible Black Forest valleys, industrialization did not arrive until late in the day. In winter, many farmers made wooden cuckoo clocks to supplement their income. This developed in the 19th century into the precision engineering and watch industry, which boomed with the arrival of the railway in many of the Black Forest valleys. The initial disadvantage of their remote location, which led to the development of precision-engineered wooden handicrafts, became a competitive advantage because of their access to raw materials: timber from the forest and metal from the mines. As part of a structural support programme the Baden State Government founded the first clockmaking school in 1850 in Furtwangen to ensure that small artisans were given good training and thus better sales opportunities. Due to the increasing demand for mechanical devices, large companies such as Junghans and Kienzle became established. In the 20th century, the production of consumer electronics was developed by companies such as SABA, Dual and Becker. In the 1970s, the industry declined due to Far Eastern competition. Nevertheless, the Black Forest remains a centre for the metalworking industry and is home to many high-tech companies.

Since the start of industrialisation there have been numerous firms in Pforzheim that manufacture jewellery and work with precious metals and stones. There is also a goldsmith's school in Pforzheim.

Hydropower

Due to the large amounts of precipitation and elevation changes the Black Forest has significant hydropower potential. This was used until the 19th century especially for operating numerous mills, including sawmills and hammer mills and was one of the local factors in the industrialization of some Black Forest valleys.

Since the 20th century, the Black Forest has seen the large-scale generation of electrical power using run-of-the-river power plants and pumped storage power stations. From 1914 to 1926, the Rudolf Fettweis Company was established in the Murg valley in the Northern Black Forest with the construction of the Schwarzenbach Dam. In 1932, the Schluchsee reservoir, with its new dam, became the upper basin of a pumped-storage power plant. In 2013 the association of the Southern Black Forest's Schluchseewerk owned five power plants with 14 storage tanks. At the Hornberg Basin topographical conditions allow an average head of water of 625 m to drive the turbines before it flows into the Wehra Reservoir.

In the 21st century, in the wake of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, numerous smaller run-of-the-river power stations were re-opened or newly constructed.

Notable people and residents

 * Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621/22–1676), German novelist; in 1665–67, he kept an inn in Gaisbach in the Black Forest while writing his famous picaresque novel Simplicius Simplicissimus (1669)
 * Hans Thoma, born in Bernau (1839–1924), German painter
 * Hermann Hesse, born in Calw (1877–1962), German poet and novelist
 * Jürgen Klopp, football manager, who grew up in village of Glatten
 * Martin Heidegger, German philosopher, who spent much of his time in Todtnauberg, where he wrote most of Being and Time.

Economy, geology and mining

 * Eberhard Gothein: Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Schwarzwaldes und der angrenzenden Landschaften. Erster Band: Städte- und Gewerbegeschichte, Verlag Karl J. Trübner, Strassburg 1892 (digitalised).
 * Eberhard Gothein: Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Schwarzwaldes und der angrenzenden Landschaften. Erster Band: Städte- und Gewerbegeschichte, Verlag Karl J. Trübner, Strassburg 1892 (digitalised).

Art history

 * Richard Schmidt: Schwarzwald (Deutsche Lande – Deutsche Kunst). Munich/Berlin, 1965.

Nature

 * Adolf Hanle: Nordschwarzwald (Meyers Naturführer). Mannheim/Vienna/Zurich, 1989.
 * Adolf Hanle: Südschwarzwald (Meyers Naturführer). Mannheim/Vienna/Zurich, 1989.
 * Ulrike Klugmann (Hrsg.): Südschwarzwald, Feldberg und Wutachschlucht (Naturmagazin Draußen). Hamburg, 1983.
 * Hans-Peter Schaub: Der Schwarzwald. Naturvielfalt in einer alten Kulturlandschaft. Mannheim, 2001.

Fiction

 * Jürgen Lodemann (ed.): Schwarzwaldgeschichten. Klöpfer & Mayer, Tübingen, 2007, ISBN 978-3-940086-04-4.
 * Herbert Schnierle-Lutz (ed.): Schwarzwald-Lesebuch. Geschichten aus 6 Jahrhunderten mit zahlreichen Bildern, 224 pages, Hohenheim Verlag, Stuttgart, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89850-213-9.

General

 * Barnes, K. J. (2007). A Rough Passage: Memories of an Empire
 * Bremke, N. (1999). Schwarzwald quer. Karlsruhe: Braun. ISBN 3-7650-8228-7.
 * Lamparski, F. (1985). Der Einfluß der Regenwurmart Lumbricus badensis auf Waldböden im Südschwarzwald. Schriftenreihe des Institut für Bodenkunde und Waldernährungslehre der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i. Br., 15. . English summary
 * Lamparski, F. (1985). Der Einfluß der Regenwurmart Lumbricus badensis auf Waldböden im Südschwarzwald. Schriftenreihe des Institut für Bodenkunde und Waldernährungslehre der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i. Br., 15. . English summary

title: Black Forest


text:
Black Sea

The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The Black Sea is supplied by major rivers, principally the Danube, Dnieper and Dniester. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its drainage basin includes parts of 24 countries in Europe.

The Black Sea, not including the Sea of Azov, covers 436400 km2, has a maximum depth of 2212 m, and a volume of 547000 km3. Most of its coasts ascend rapidly. These rises are the Pontic Mountains to the south, bar the southwest-facing peninsulas, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and the Crimean Mountains to the mid-north. In the west, the coast is generally small floodplains below foothills such as the Strandzha; Cape Emine, a dwindling of the east end of the Balkan Mountains; and the Dobruja Plateau considerably farther north. The longest east–west extent is about 1175 km. Important cities along the coast include (clockwise from the Bosporus) Burgas, Varna, Constanța, Odesa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk, Sochi, Poti, Batumi, Trabzon and Samsun.

The Black Sea has a positive water balance, with an annual net outflow of 300 km3 per year through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles into the Aegean Sea. While the net flow of water through the Bosporus and Dardanelles (known collectively as the Turkish Straits) is out of the Black Sea, water generally flows in both directions simultaneously: Denser, more saline water from the Aegean flows into the Black Sea underneath the less dense, fresher water that flows out of the Black Sea. This creates a significant and permanent layer of deep water that does not drain or mix and is therefore anoxic. This anoxic layer is responsible for the preservation of ancient shipwrecks which have been found in the Black Sea, which ultimately drains into the Mediterranean Sea, via the Turkish Straits and the Aegean Sea. The Bosporus strait connects it to the small Sea of Marmara which in turn is connected to the Aegean Sea via the strait of the Dardanelles. To the north, the Black Sea is connected to the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait.

The water level has varied significantly over geological time. Due to these variations in the water level in the basin, the surrounding shelf and associated aprons have sometimes been dry land. At certain critical water levels, connections with surrounding water bodies can become established. It is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the World Ocean. During geological periods when this hydrological link was not present, the Black Sea was an endorheic basin, operating independently of the global ocean system (similar to the Caspian Sea today). Currently, the Black Sea water level is relatively high; thus, water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea, the first of its kind discovered.

Modern names
Current names of the sea are usually equivalents of the English name "Black Sea", including these given in the countries bordering the sea:
 * Амшын Еиқәа,
 * Хы Шӏуцӏэ,
 * Սեւ ծով,
 * Qara dəniz,
 * Чeрно морe,
 * შავი ზღვა,
 * Laz and, , or simply ზუღა, , "Sea"
 * Marea Neagră,
 * Чёрное мо́ре,
 * Karadeniz,
 * Чо́рне мо́ре,
 * Чо́рне мо́ре,

Such names have not yet been shown conclusively to predate the 13th century.

In Greece, the historical name "Euxine Sea", which holds a different literal meaning (see below), is still widely used:
 * Εύξεινος Πόντος, ; the name Μαύρη Θάλασσα,, is used, but is much less common.

The Black Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms – the others being the Red Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea.

Historical names and etymology
The earliest known name of the Black Sea is the Sea of Zalpa, so called by both the Hattians and their conquerors, the Hittites. The Hattic city of Zalpa was "situated probably at or near the estuary of the Marrassantiya River, the modern Kızıl Irmak, on the Black Sea coast."

The principal Greek name Póntos Áxeinos is generally accepted to be a rendering of the Iranian word *axšaina- ("dark colored"). Ancient Greek voyagers adopted the name as Á-xe(i)nos, identified with the Greek word áxeinos (inhospitable). The name Πόντος Ἄξεινος (Inhospitable Sea), first attested in Pindar (c. 475 BC), was considered an ill omen and was euphemized to its opposite, Εὔξεινος Πόντος  (Hospitable Sea), also first attested in Pindar. This became the commonly used designation in Greek, although in mythological contexts the "true" name Póntos Áxeinos remained favoured.

Strabo's Geographica (1.2.10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often simply called "the Sea" (ὁ πόντος ). He thought that the sea was called the "Inhospitable Sea Πόντος Ἄξεινος by the inhabitants of the Pontus region of the southern shoreline before Greek colonisation due to its difficult navigation and hostile barbarian natives (7.3.6), and that the name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians colonised the region, bringing it into the Greek world.

Popular supposition derives "Black Sea" from the dark color of the water or climatic conditions. Some scholars understand the name to be derived from a system of colour symbolism representing the cardinal directions, with black or dark for north, red for south, white for west, and green or light blue for east. Hence, "Black Sea" meant "Northern Sea". According to this scheme, the name could only have originated with a people living between the northern (black) and southern (red) seas: this points to the Achaemenids (550–330 BC).

In the Greater Bundahishn, a Middle Persian Zoroastrian scripture, the Black Sea is called Siyābun. In the tenth-century Persian geography book Hudud al-'Alam, the Black Sea is called Georgian Sea (daryā-yi Gurz). The Georgian Chronicles use the name zğua sperisa ზღუა სპერისა (Sea of Speri) after the Kartvelian tribe of Speris or Saspers. Other modern names such as Chyornoye more and Karadeniz (both meaning Black Sea) originated during the 13th century. A 1570 map Asiae Nova Descriptio from Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum labels the sea Mar Maggior (Great Sea), compare Latin Mare major.

English writers of the 18th century often used Euxine Sea ( or ). During the Ottoman Empire, it was called either Bahr-e Siyah (Perso-Arabic) or Karadeniz (Ottoman Turkish), both meaning "Black Sea".

Geography
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows:

"On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara [A line joining Cape Rumili with Cape Anatoli (41°13'N)].

In the Kertch Strait. A line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia (45°02'N)."The area surrounding the Black Sea is commonly referred to as the Black Sea Region. Its northern part lies within the Chernozem belt (black soil belt) which goes from eastern Croatia (Slavonia), along the Danube (northern Serbia, northern Bulgaria (Danubian Plain) and southern Romania (Wallachian Plain) to northeast Ukraine and further across the Central Black Earth Region and southern Russia into Siberia.

The littoral zone of the Black Sea is often referred to as the Pontic littoral or Pontic zone.

The largest bays of the Black Sea are Karkinit Bay in Ukraine; the Gulf of Burgas in Bulgaria; Dnieprovski Bay and Dniestrovski Bay, both in Ukraine; and Sinop Bay and Samsun Bay, both in Turkey.

Drainage basin
The largest rivers flowing into the Black Sea are:

 * 1) Danube
 * 2) Dnieper
 * 3) Don
 * 4) Dniester
 * 5) Kızılırmak
 * 6) Kuban
 * 7) Sakarya
 * 8) Southern Bug
 * 9) Çoruh/Chorokhi
 * 10) Yeşilırmak
 * 11) Rioni
 * 12) Yeya
 * 13) Mius
 * 14) Kamchiya
 * 15) Enguri/Egry
 * 16) Kalmius
 * 17) Molochna
 * 18) Tylihul
 * 19) Velykyi Kuialnyk
 * 20) Veleka
 * 21) Rezovo
 * 22) Kodori/Kwydry
 * 23) Bzyb/Bzipi
 * 24) Supsa
 * 25) Mzymta

These rivers and their tributaries comprise a 2 e6km2 Black Sea drainage basin that covers wholly or partially 24 countries:

Unrecognised states:
 * Abkhazia

Islands
Some islands in the Black Sea belong to Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine:

 * St. Thomas Island – Bulgaria
 * St. Anastasia Island – Bulgaria
 * St. Cyricus Island – Bulgaria
 * St. Ivan Island – Bulgaria
 * St. Peter Island – Bulgaria
 * Sacalinu Mare Island – Romania
 * Sacalinu Mic Island – Romania
 * K Island – Romania and Ukraine
 * Utrish Island
 * Krupinin Island
 * Sudiuk Island
 * Kefken Island
 * Oreke Island
 * Giresun Island - Turkey
 * Dzharylhach Island – Ukraine
 * Zmiinyi (Snake) Island – Ukraine

Climate
Short-term climatic variation in the Black Sea region is significantly influenced by the operation of the North Atlantic oscillation, the climatic mechanisms resulting from the interaction between the north Atlantic and mid-latitude air masses. While the exact mechanisms causing the North Atlantic Oscillation remain unclear, it is thought the climate conditions established in western Europe mediate the heat and precipitation fluxes reaching Central Europe and Eurasia, regulating the formation of winter cyclones, which are largely responsible for regional precipitation inputs and influence Mediterranean sea surface temperatures (SSTs).

The relative strength of these systems also limits the amount of cold air arriving from northern regions during winter. Other influencing factors include the regional topography, as depressions and storm systems arriving from the Mediterranean are funneled through the low land around the Bosporus, with the Pontic and Caucasus mountain ranges acting as waveguides, limiting the speed and paths of cyclones passing through the region.

Geology and bathymetry
The Black Sea is divided into two depositional basins—the Western Black Sea and Eastern Black Sea—separated by the Mid-Black Sea High, which includes the Andrusov Ridge, Tetyaev High, and Archangelsky High, extending south from the Crimean Peninsula. The basin includes two distinct relict back-arc basins which were initiated by the splitting of an Albian volcanic arc and the subduction of both the Paleo- and Neo-Tethys oceans, but the timings of these events remain uncertain. Arc volcanism and extension occurred as the Neo-Tethys Ocean subducted under the southern margin of Laurasia during the Mesozoic. Uplift and compressional deformation took place as the Neotethys continued to close. Seismic surveys indicate that rifting began in the Western Black Sea in the Barremian and Aptian followed by the formation of oceanic crust 20 million years later in the Santonian. Since its initiation, compressional tectonic environments led to subsidence in the basin, interspersed with extensional phases resulting in large-scale volcanism and numerous orogenies, causing the uplift of the Greater Caucasus, Pontides, southern Crimean Peninsula and Balkanides mountain ranges.

During the Messinian salinity crisis in the neighboring Mediterranean Sea, water levels fell but without drying up the sea. The collision between the Eurasian and African plates and the westward escape of the Anatolian block along the North Anatolian and East Anatolian faults dictates the current tectonic regime, which features enhanced subsidence in the Black Sea basin and significant volcanic activity in the Anatolian region. These geological mechanisms, in the long term, have caused the periodic isolations of the Black Sea from the rest of the global ocean system.

The large shelf to the north of the basin is up to 190 km wide and features a shallow apron with gradients between 1:40 and 1:1000. The southern edge around Turkey and the eastern edge around Georgia, however, are typified by a narrow shelf that rarely exceeds 20 km in width and a steep apron that is typically 1:40 gradient with numerous submarine canyons and channel extensions. The Euxine abyssal plain in the centre of the Black Sea reaches a maximum depth of 2212 m just south of Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula.

Chronostratigraphy
The Paleo-Euxinian is described by the accumulation of eolian silt deposits (related to the Riss glaciation) and the lowering of sea levels (MIS 6, 8 and 10). The Karangat marine transgression occurred during the Eemian Interglacial (MIS 5e). This may have been the highest sea levels reached in the late Pleistocene. Based on this some scholars have suggested that the Crimean Peninsula was isolated from the mainland by a shallow strait during the Eemian Interglacial.

The Neoeuxinian transgression began with an inflow of waters from the Caspian Sea. Neoeuxinian deposits are found in the Black Sea below -20 m water depth in three layers. The upper layers correspond with the peak of the Khvalinian transgression, on the shelf shallow-water sands and coquina mixed with silty sands and brackish-water fauna, and inside the Black Sea Depression hydrotroilite silts. The middle layers on the shelf are sands with brackish-water mollusc shells. Of continental origin, the lower level on the shelf is mostly alluvial sands with pebbles, mixed with less common lacustrine silts and freshwater mollusc shells. Inside the Black Sea Depression they are terrigenous non-carbonate silts, and at the foot of the continental slope turbidite sediments.

Hydrology

The Black Sea is the world's largest body of water with a meromictic basin. The deep waters do not mix with the upper layers of water that receive oxygen from the atmosphere. As a result, over 90% of the deeper Black Sea volume is anoxic water. The Black Sea's circulation patterns are primarily controlled by basin topography and fluvial inputs, which result in a strongly stratified vertical structure. Because of the extreme stratification, it is classified as a salt wedge estuary.

Inflow from the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporus and Dardanelles has a higher salinity and density than the outflow, creating the classic estuarine circulation. This means that the inflow of dense water from the Mediterranean occurs at the bottom of the basin while the outflow of fresher Black Sea surface-water into the Sea of Marmara occurs near the surface. According to Gregg (2002), the outflow is 16000 m3/s or around 500 km3/yr, and the inflow is 11000 m3/s or around 350 km3/yr. The following water budget can be estimated:
 * Water in: 900 km3/year
 * Total river discharge: 370 km3/year
 * Precipitation: 180 km3/year
 * Inflow via Bosporus: 350 km3/year
 * Water out: 900 km3/year
 * Evaporation: 400 km3/year (reduced greatly since the 1970s)
 * Outflow via Bosporus: 500 km3/year

The southern sill of the Bosporus is located at 36.5 m below present sea level (deepest spot of the shallowest cross-section in the Bosporus, located in front of Dolmabahçe Palace) and has a wet section of around 38000 m2. Inflow and outflow current speeds are averaged around 0.3 to 0.4 m/s, but much higher speeds are found locally, inducing significant turbulence and vertical shear. This allows for turbulent mixing of the two layers. Surface water leaves the Black Sea with a salinity of 17 practical salinity units (PSU) and reaches the Mediterranean with a salinity of 34 PSU. Likewise, an inflow of the Mediterranean with salinity 38.5 PSU experiences a decrease to about 34 PSU.

Mean surface circulation is cyclonic; waters around the perimeter of the Black Sea circulate in a basin-wide shelfbreak gyre known as the Rim Current. The Rim Current has a maximum velocity of about 50–100 cm/s. Within this feature, two smaller cyclonic gyres operate, occupying the eastern and western sectors of the basin. The Eastern and Western Gyres are well-organized systems in the winter but dissipate into a series of interconnected eddies in the summer and autumn. Mesoscale activity in the peripheral flow becomes more pronounced during these warmer seasons and is subject to interannual variability.

Outside of the Rim Current, numerous quasi-permanent coastal eddies are formed as a result of upwelling around the coastal apron and "wind curl" mechanisms. The intra-annual strength of these features is controlled by seasonal atmospheric and fluvial variations. During the spring, the Batumi eddy forms in the southeastern corner of the sea.

Beneath the surface waters—from about 50 to 100 m—there exists a halocline that stops at the Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL). This layer is composed of cool, salty surface waters, which are the result of localized atmospheric cooling and decreased fluvial input during the winter months. It is the remnant of the winter surface mixed layer. The base of the CIL is marked by a major pycnocline at about 100 - 200 m, and this density disparity is the major mechanism for isolation of the deep water.

Below the pycnocline is the Deep Water mass, where salinity increases to 22.3 PSU and temperatures rise to around 8.9 C. The hydrochemical environment shifts from oxygenated to anoxic, as bacterial decomposition of sunken biomass utilizes all of the free oxygen. Weak geothermal heating and long residence time create a very thick convective bottom layer.

The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea. The discovery of the river, announced on August 1, 2010, was made by scientists at the University of Leeds and is the first of its kind to be identified. The undersea river stems from salty water spilling through the Bosporus Strait from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, where the water has a lower salt content.

Hydrochemistry
Because of the anoxic water at depth, organic matter, including anthropogenic artifacts such as boat hulls, are well preserved. During periods of high surface productivity, short-lived algal blooms form organic rich layers known as sapropels. Scientists have reported an annual phytoplankton bloom that can be seen in many NASA images of the region. As a result of these characteristics the Black Sea has gained interest from the field of marine archaeology, as ancient shipwrecks in excellent states of preservation have been discovered, such as the Byzantine wreck Sinop D, located in the anoxic layer off the coast of Sinop, Turkey.

Modelling shows that, in the event of an asteroid impact on the Black Sea, the release of hydrogen sulfide clouds would pose a threat to health—and perhaps even life—for people living on the Black Sea coast.

There have been isolated reports of flares on the Black Sea occurring during thunderstorms, possibly caused by lightning igniting combustible gas seeping up from the sea depths.

Marine

The Black Sea supports an active and dynamic marine ecosystem, dominated by species suited to the brackish, nutrient-rich, conditions. As with all marine food webs, the Black Sea features a range of trophic groups, with autotrophic algae, including diatoms and dinoflagellates, acting as primary producers. The fluvial systems draining Eurasia and central Europe introduce large volumes of sediment and dissolved nutrients into the Black Sea, but the distribution of these nutrients is controlled by the degree of physiochemical stratification, which is, in turn, dictated by seasonal physiographic development.

During winter, strong wind promotes convective overturning and upwelling of nutrients, while high summer temperatures result in a marked vertical stratification and a warm, shallow mixed layer. Day length and insolation intensity also control the extent of the photic zone. Subsurface productivity is limited by nutrient availability, as the anoxic bottom waters act as a sink for reduced nitrate, in the form of ammonia. The benthic zone also plays an important role in Black Sea nutrient cycling, as chemosynthetic organisms and anoxic geochemical pathways recycle nutrients which can be upwelled to the photic zone, enhancing productivity.

In total, the Black Sea's biodiversity contains around one-third of the Mediterranean's and is experiencing natural and artificial invasions or "Mediterranizations".

Phytoplankton

The main phytoplankton groups present in the Black Sea are dinoflagellates, diatoms, coccolithophores and cyanobacteria. Generally, the annual cycle of phytoplankton development comprises significant diatom and dinoflagellate-dominated spring production, followed by a weaker mixed assemblage of community development below the seasonal thermocline during summer months, and surface-intensified autumn production. This pattern of productivity is augmented by an Emiliania huxleyi bloom during the late spring and summer months.
 * Dinoflagellates
 * Annual dinoflagellate distribution is defined by an extended bloom period in subsurface waters during the late spring and summer. In November, subsurface plankton production is combined with surface production, due to vertical mixing of water masses and nutrients such as nitrite. The major bloom-forming dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea is Gymnodinium sp. Estimates of dinoflagellate diversity in the Black Sea range from 193 to 267 species. This level of species richness is relatively low in comparison to the Mediterranean Sea, which is attributable to the brackish conditions, low water transparency and presence of anoxic bottom waters. It is also possible that the low winter temperatures below 4 °C of the Black Sea prevent thermophilous species from becoming established. The relatively high organic matter content of Black Sea surface water favor the development of heterotrophic (an organism that uses organic carbon for growth) and mixotrophic dinoflagellates species (able to exploit different trophic pathways), relative to autotrophs. Despite its unique hydrographic setting, there are no confirmed endemic dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea.

 * Diatoms
 * The Black Sea is populated by many species of the marine diatom, which commonly exist as colonies of unicellular, non-motile auto- and heterotrophic algae. The life-cycle of most diatoms can be described as 'boom and bust' and the Black Sea is no exception, with diatom blooms occurring in surface waters throughout the year, most reliably during March. In simple terms, the phase of rapid population growth in diatoms is caused by the in-wash of silicon-bearing terrestrial sediments, and when the supply of silicon is exhausted, the diatoms begin to sink out of the photic zone and produce resting cysts. Additional factors such as predation by zooplankton and ammonium-based regenerated production also have a role to play in the annual diatom cycle. Typically, Proboscia alata blooms during spring and Pseudosolenia calcar-avis blooms during the autumn.

 * Coccolithophores
 * Coccolithophores are a type of motile, autotrophic phytoplankton that produce CaCO3 plates, known as coccoliths, as part of their life cycle. In the Black Sea, the main period of coccolithophore growth occurs after the bulk of the dinoflagellate growth has taken place. In May, the dinoflagellates move below the seasonal thermocline into deeper waters, where more nutrients are available. This permits coccolithophores to utilize the nutrients in the upper waters, and by the end of May, with favorable light and temperature conditions, growth rates reach their highest. The major bloom-forming species is Emiliania huxleyi, which is also responsible for the release of dimethyl sulfide into the atmosphere. Overall, coccolithophore diversity is low in the Black Sea, and although recent sediments are dominated by E. huxleyi and Braarudosphaera bigelowii, Holocene sediments have been shown to also contain Helicopondosphaera and Discolithina species.

 * Cyanobacteria
 * Cyanobacteria are a phylum of picoplanktonic (plankton ranging in size from 0.2 to 2.0 μm) bacteria that obtain their energy via photosynthesis, and are present throughout the world's oceans. They exhibit a range of morphologies, including filamentous colonies and biofilms. In the Black Sea, several species are present, and as an example, Synechococcus spp. can be found throughout the photic zone, although concentration decreases with increasing depth. Other factors which exert an influence on distribution include nutrient availability, predation, and salinity.

Animal species

 * Zebra mussel
 * The Black Sea along with the Caspian Sea is part of the zebra mussel's native range. The mussel has been accidentally introduced around the world and become an invasive species where it has been introduced.

 * Common carp
 * The common carp's native range extends to the Black Sea along with the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea. Like the zebra mussel, the common carp is an invasive species when introduced to other habitats.

 * Round goby
 * Another native fish that is also found in the Caspian Sea. It preys upon zebra mussels. Like the mussels and common carp, it has become invasive when introduced to other environments, like the Great Lakes in North America.

 * Dolphins swim near ferry in port of Batumi 150505-A-PU919-7446.jpg with a ferry at Batumi port]]Marine mammals and marine megafauna
 * Marine mammals present within the basin include two species of dolphin (common and bottlenose ) and the harbour porpoise, although all of these are endangered due to pressures and impacts by human activities. All three species have been classified as distinct subspecies from those in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and are endemic to the Black and Azov seas, and are more active during nights in the Turkish Straits. However, construction of the Crimean Bridge has caused increases in nutrients and planktons in the waters, attracting large numbers of fish and more than 1,000 bottlenose dolphins. However, others claim that construction may cause devastating damages on the ecosystem, including dolphins.
 * Mediterranean monk seals, now a vulnerable species, were historically abundant in the Black Sea, and are regarded to have become extinct from the basin in 1997. Monk seals were present at Snake Island, near the Danube Delta, until the 1950s, and several locations such as the and Doğankent were the last of the seals' hauling-out sites post-1990. Very few animals still thrive in the Sea of Marmara.
 * Ongoing Mediterranizations may or may not boost cetacean diversity in the Turkish Straits and hence in the Black and Azov basins.
 * Various species of pinnipeds, sea otter, and beluga whale were introduced into the Black Sea by mankind and later escaped either by accidental or purported causes. Of these, grey seals and beluga whales have been recorded with successful, long-term occurrences.
 * Great white sharks are known to reach into the Sea of Marmara and Bosporus Strait and basking sharks into the Dardanelles, although it is unclear whether or not these sharks may reach into the Black and Azov basins.

Ecological effects of pollution
Since the 1960s, rapid industrial expansion along the Black Sea coastline and the construction of a major dam has significantly increased annual variability in the N:P:Si ratio in the basin. In coastal areas, the biological effect of these changes has been an increase in the frequency of monospecific phytoplankton blooms, with diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 2.5 and non-diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 6. The non-diatoms, such as the prymnesiophytes Emiliania huxleyi (coccolithophore), Chromulina sp., and the Euglenophyte Eutreptia lanowii, are able to out-compete diatom species because of the limited availability of silicon, a necessary constituent of diatom frustules. As a consequence of these blooms, benthic macrophyte populations were deprived of light, while anoxia caused mass mortality in marine animals.

The decline in macrophytes was further compounded by overfishing during the 1970s, while the invasive ctenophore Mnemiopsis reduced the biomass of copepods and other zooplankton in the late 1980s. Additionally, an alien species—the warty comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi)—was able to establish itself in the basin, exploding from a few individuals to an estimated biomass of one billion metric tons. The change in species composition in Black Sea waters also has consequences for hydrochemistry, as calcium-producing coccolithophores influence salinity and pH, although these ramifications have yet to be fully quantified. In central Black Sea waters, silicon levels were also significantly reduced, due to a decrease in the flux of silicon associated with advection across isopycnal surfaces. This phenomenon demonstrates the potential for localized alterations in Black Sea nutrient input to have basin-wide effects.

Pollution reduction and regulation efforts have led to a partial recovery of the Black Sea ecosystem during the 1990s, and an EU monitoring exercise, 'EROS21', revealed decreased nitrogen and phosphorus values, relative to the 1989 peak. Recently, scientists have noted signs of ecological recovery, in part due to the construction of new sewage treatment plants in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in connection with membership in the European Union. Mnemiopsis leidyi populations have been checked with the arrival of another alien species which feeds on them.

Mediterranean connection during the Holocene

The Black Sea is connected to the World Ocean by a chain of two shallow straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is 55 m deep, and the Bosporus is as shallow as 36 m. By comparison, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than 100 m lower than they are now.

There is evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Some researchers theorize that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for some time after.

In the aftermath of the last glacial period, water levels in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The exact timeline of this development is still subject to debate. One possibility is that the Black Sea filled first, with excess freshwater flowing over the Bosporus sill and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea. There are also catastrophic scenarios, such as the "Black Sea deluge hypothesis" put forward by William Ryan, Walter Pitman and Petko Dimitrov.

Deluge hypothesis
The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea c. 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait. The hypothesis was headlined when The New York Times published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an academic journal. While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating, and magnitude of the events. Relevant to the hypothesis is that its description has led some to connect this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths.

Archaeology
The Black Sea was sailed by Hittites, Carians, Colchians, Armenians, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Varangians, Crusaders, Venetians, Genoese, Georgians, Bulgarians, Tatars and Ottomans.

The concentration of historical powers, combined with the preservative qualities of the deep anoxic waters of the Black Sea, has attracted increased interest from marine archaeologists who have begun to discover a large number of ancient ships and organic remains in a high state of preservation.

Recorded history

The Black Sea was a busy waterway on the crossroads of the ancient world: the Balkans to the west, the Eurasian steppes to the north, the Caucasus and Central Asia to the east, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia to the south, and Greece to the southwest.

The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis (in present-day Georgia), marked for the ancient Greeks the edge of the known world.

The Pontic–Caspian steppe to the north of the Black Sea is seen by several researchers as the pre-historic original homeland (Urheimat) of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).

Greek presence in the Black Sea began at least as early as the 9th century BC with colonies scattered along the Black Sea's southern coast, attracting traders and colonists due to the grain grown in the Black Sea hinterland. By 500 BC, permanent Greek communities existed all around the Black Sea, and a lucrative trade-network connected the entirety of the Black Sea to the wider Mediterranean. While Greek colonies generally maintained very close cultural ties to their founding polis, Greek colonies in the Black Sea began to develop their own Black Sea Greek culture, known today as Pontic. The coastal communities of Black Sea Greeks remained a prominent part of the Greek world for centuries, and the realms of Mithridates of Pontus, Rome and Constantinople spanned the Black Sea to include Crimean territories.

The Black Sea became a virtual Ottoman Navy lake within five years of the Republic of Genoa losing control of the Crimean Peninsula in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of Venice's old rival Ragusa. The Black Sea became a trade route of slaves between Crimea and Ottoman Anatolia via the Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe. Imperial Russia became a significant Black Sea power in the late-18th century, occupying the littoral of Novorossiya in 1764 and of Crimea in 1783. Ottoman restrictions on Black Sea navigation were challenged by the Black Sea Fleet (founded in 1783) of the Imperial Russian Navy, and the Ottomans relaxed export controls after the outbreak in 1789 of the French Revolution.

Modern history
The Crimean War, fought between 1853 and 1856, saw naval engagements between the French and British allies and the forces of Nicholas I of Russia. On the 2 March 1855 death of Nicholas I, Alexander II became Tsar. On 15 January 1856, the new tsar took Russia out of the war on the very unfavourable terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), which included the loss of a naval fleet on the Black Sea, and the provision that the Black Sea was to be a demilitarized zone similar to a contemporaneous region of the Baltic Sea.

World Wars
The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of World War I (1914–1918) and saw both naval and land battles between 1941 and 1945 during World War II. For example, Sevastopol was obliterated by the Nazis, who even brought Schwerer Gustav to the Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942). The Soviet naval base was one of the strongest fortifications in the world. Its site, on a deeply eroded, bare limestone promontory at the southwestern tip of the Crimea, made an approach by land forces exceedingly difficult. The high-level cliffs overlooking Severnaya Bay protected the anchorage, making an amphibious landing just as dangerous. The Soviet Navy had built upon these natural defenses by modernizing the port and installing heavy coastal batteries consisting of 180mm and 305mm re-purposed battleship guns which were capable of firing inland as well as out to sea. The artillery emplacements were protected by reinforced concrete fortifications and 9.8-inch thick armored turrets.

21st century
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Snake Island was a source of contention. On 24 February 2022, two Russian navy warships attacked and captured Snake Island. It was subsequently bombarded heavily by Ukraine. On 30 June 2022, Ukraine announced that it had driven Russian forces off the island.

On 14 April 2022, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk by Ukrainian missiles.

As early as 29 April 2022 submarines of the Black Sea Fleet were used by Russia to bombard Ukrainian cities with Kalibr SLCMs. The Kalibr missile was so successful that on 10 March 2023 Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced plans to broaden the type of ship which carried it, to include the corvette Steregushchiy and the nuclear-powered cruiser Admiral Nakhimov.

On the morning of 14 March 2023, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet intercepted and damaged an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, causing the latter to crash into the Black Sea. At 13:20 on 5 May 2023 a Russian Su-35 fighter jet intercepted and threatened the safety of a Polish L-140 Turbolet on a "routine Frontex patrol mission.. and performed 'aggressive and dangerous' manoeuvres". The incident, which occurred "in international airspace over the Black Sea about 60km" east of Romanian airspace, "caused the crew of five Polish border guards to lose control of the plane and lose altitude."

Economy and politics
The Black Sea plays an integral part in the connection between Asia and Europe. In addition to sea ports and fishing, key activities include hydrocarbons exploration for oil and natural gas, and tourism. According to NATO, the Black Sea is a strategic corridor that provides smuggling channels for moving legal and illegal goods including drugs, radioactive materials, and counterfeit goods that can be used to finance terrorism.

Navigation
According to an International Transport Workers' Federation 2013 study, there were at least 30 operating merchant seaports in the Black Sea (including at least 12 in Ukraine). There were also around 2,400 commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea.

Fishing
The Turkish commercial fishing fleet catches around 300,000 tons of anchovies per year. The fishery is carried out mainly in winter, and the highest portion of the stock is caught between November and December.

Hydrocarbon exploration
In the 1980s, the Soviet Union started offshore drilling for petroleum in the sea's western portion (adjoining Ukraine's coast). Independent Ukraine continued and intensified that effort within its exclusive economic zone, inviting major international oil companies for exploration. Discovery of the new, massive oilfields in the area stimulated an influx of foreign investments. It also provoked a short-term peaceful territorial dispute with Romania which was resolved in 2011 by an international court redefining the exclusive economic zones between the two countries.

The Black Sea contains oil and natural gas resources but exploration in the sea is incomplete. , 20 wells are in place. Throughout much of its existence, the Black Sea has had significant oil and gas-forming potential because of significant inflows of sediment and nutrient-rich waters. However, this varies geographically. For example, prospects are poorer off the coast of Bulgaria because of the large influx of sediment from the Danube which obscured sunlight and diluted organic-rich sediments. Many of the discoveries to date have taken place offshore of Romania in the Western Black Sea and only a few discoveries have been made in the Eastern Black Sea.

During the Eocene, the Paratethys Sea was partially isolated and sea levels fell. During this time sand shed off the rising Balkanide, Pontide and Caucasus mountains trapped organic material in the Maykop Suite of rocks through the Oligocene and early Miocene. Natural gas appears in rocks deposited in the Miocene and Pliocene by the paleo-Dnieper and paleo-Dniester rivers, or in deep-water Oligocene-age rocks. Serious exploration began in 1999 with two deep-water wells, Limanköy-1 and Limanköy-2, drilled in Turkish waters. Next, the HPX (Hopa)-1 deepwater well targeted late Miocene sandstone units in Achara-Trialet fold belt (also known as the Gurian fold belt) along the Georgia-Turkey maritime border. Although geologists inferred that these rocks might have hydrocarbons that migrated from the Maykop Suite, the well was unsuccessful. No more drilling happened for five years after the HPX-1 well. In 2010, Sinop-1 targeted carbonate reservoirs potentially charged from the nearby Maykop Suite on the Andrusov Ridge, but the well-struck only Cretaceous volcanic rocks. Yassihöyük-1 encountered similar problems.

Other Turkish wells, Sürmene-1 and Sile-1 drilled in the Eastern Black Sea in 2011 and 2015 respectively tested four-way closures above Cretaceous volcanoes, with no results in either case. A different Turkish well, Kastamonu-1 drilled in 2011 did successfully find thermogenic gas in Pliocene and Miocene shale-cored anticlines in the Western Black Sea. A year later in 2012, Romania drilled Domino-1 which struck gas prompting the drilling of other wells in the Neptun Deep. In 2016, the Bulgarian well Polshkov-1 targeted Maykop Suite sandstones in the Polshkov High and Russia is in the process of drilling Jurassic carbonates on the Shatsky Ridge as of 2018.

In August 2020, Turkey found 320 e9m3 of natural gas in the biggest ever discovery in the Black Sea, and hoped to begin production in the Sakarya Gas Field by 2023. The sector is near where Romania has also found gas reserves.

Tourism
In the years following the end of the Cold War, the popularity of the Black Sea as a tourist destination steadily increased. Tourism at Black Sea resorts became one of the region's growth industries.

The following is a list of notable Black Sea resort towns:

 * 2 Mai (Romania)
 * Agigea (Romania)
 * Ahtopol (Bulgaria)
 * Amasra (Turkey)
 * Anaklia (Georgia)
 * Anapa (Russia)
 * Albena (Bulgaria)
 * Alupka (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Alushta (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Balchik (Bulgaria)
 * Batumi (Georgia)
 * Burgas (Bulgaria)
 * Byala (Bulgaria)
 * Cap Aurora (Romania)
 * Chakvi (Georgia)
 * Constanța (Romania)
 * Constantine and Helena (Bulgaria)
 * Corbu (Romania)
 * Costinești (Romania)
 * Eforie (Romania)
 * Emona (Bulgaria)
 * Feodosia (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Foros (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Gagra (Abkhazia/Georgia)
 * Gelendzhik (Russia)
 * Giresun (Turkey)
 * Golden Sands (Bulgaria)
 * Gonio (Georgia)
 * Gudauta (Abkhazia/Georgia) and subsequently the Gudauta Bay
 * Gurzuf (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Hopa (Artvin, Turkey)
 * Jupiter (Romania)
 * Kamchia (Bulgaria)
 * Kavarna (Bulgaria)
 * Kiten (Bulgaria)
 * Kobuleti (Georgia)
 * Koktebel (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Lozenetz (Bulgaria)
 * Mamaia (Romania)
 * Mangalia (Romania)
 * Năvodari (Romania)
 * Neptun (Romania)
 * Nesebar (Bulgaria)
 * Novorossiysk (Russia)
 * Obzor (Bulgaria)
 * Odesa (Ukraine)
 * Olimp (Romania)
 * Ordu (Turkey)
 * Pitsunda (Abkhazia/Georgia)
 * Pomorie (Bulgaria)
 * Primorsko (Bulgaria)
 * Rize (Turkey)
 * Rusalka (Bulgaria)
 * Samsun (Turkey)
 * Saturn (Romania)
 * Şile (Turkey)
 * Sinop (Turkey)
 * Skadovsk (Ukraine)
 * Sochi (Russia)
 * Sozopol (Bulgaria)
 * Sudak (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Sulina (Romania)
 * Sunny Beach (Bulgaria)
 * Sveti Vlas (Bulgaria)
 * Trabzon (Turkey)
 * Tsikhisdziri (Georgia)
 * Tuapse (Russia)
 * Ureki (Georgia)
 * Vama Veche (Romania)
 * Varna (Bulgaria)
 * Venus (Romania)
 * Yalta (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Yevpatoria (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed) )
 * Zonguldak (Turkey)

Modern military use
The 1936 Montreux Convention provides for free passage of civilian ships between the international waters of the Black and the Mediterranean seas. However, a single country (Turkey) has complete control over the straits connecting the two seas. Military ships are categorised separately from civilian vessels and can pass through the straits only if the ship belongs to a Black Sea country. Other military ships have the right to pass through the straits if they are not in a war against Turkey and if they stay in the Black Sea basin for a limited time. The 1982 amendments to the Montreux Convention allow Turkey to close the straits at its discretion in both war and peacetime.

The Montreux Convention governs the passage of vessels between the Black, the Mediterranean and Aegean seas and the presence of military vessels belonging to non-littoral states in the Black Sea waters.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet has its official primary headquarters and facilities in the city of Sevastopol (Sevastopol Naval Base).

The Soviet hospital ship Armenia was sunk on 7 November 1941 by German aircraft while evacuating civilians and wounded soldiers from Crimea. It has been estimated that approximately 5,000 to 7,000 people were killed during the sinking, making it one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history. There were only eight survivors.

In December 2018, the Kerch Strait incident occurred, in which the Russian navy and coast guard took control of three Ukrainian vessels as the ships were trying to transit from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov.

In April 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk in the western Black Sea by sea-skimming Neptune missiles of the Ukrainian armed forces while the Russians claimed that an onboard fire had caused munitions to explode and damage the ship extensively. She was the largest ship to be lost in naval combat in Europe since World War II.

In late 2023, Russia announced plans to build a naval base on the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia.

General and cited references

 * Stella Ghervas, "Odessa et les confins de l'Europe: un éclairage historique", in Stella Ghervas et François Rosset (ed), Lieux d'Europe. Mythes et limites (Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2008), pp. 107–124. ISBN 978-2-7351-1182-4
 * Charles King, The Black Sea: A History, 2004, ISBN 0-19-924161-9
 * William Ryan and Walter Pitman, Noah's Flood, 1999, ISBN 0-684-85920-3
 * Neal Ascherson, Black Sea (Vintage 1996), ISBN 0-09-959371-8
 * Rüdiger Schmitt, "Considerations on the Name of the Black Sea", in: Hellas und der griechische Osten (Saarbrücken 1996), pp. 219–224
 * Dimitrov, D. 2010. Geology and Non-traditional resources of the Black Sea . LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8383-8639-3. 244p.
 * Rüdiger Schmitt, "Considerations on the Name of the Black Sea", in: Hellas und der griechische Osten (Saarbrücken 1996), pp. 219–224
 * Dimitrov, D. 2010. Geology and Non-traditional resources of the Black Sea . LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8383-8639-3. 244p.
 * Dimitrov, D. 2010. Geology and Non-traditional resources of the Black Sea . LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8383-8639-3. 244p.
 * Dimitrov, D. 2010. Geology and Non-traditional resources of the Black Sea . LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8383-8639-3. 244p.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Black Sea


text:
Talk:Baroque

Consistent citation style
This article uses a variety of citation styles and methods. If anyone wants to establish a "consistent citation style", a consensus should be reached using this talk page. Personally, I do not care. It may be impossible to reach a consensus on Wikipedia.

Until that time, I will continue to use the existing citation styles and methods. I may change a ref/citation from one method to another as I deem appropriate. -- User-duck (talk) 02:25, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I will use sfnp templates to obtain a consistent format for short foot notes. And I will upgrade citations in the "Books cited in text" section with templates to obtain a consistent format and facilitate links.
 * I may update citations using sources in the "Books cited in text" section to short foot notes.
 * I will update incomplete/incorrect citations as I encounter them. I may update incomplete citations to short foot notes and a new source in the "Books cited in text" section.
 * I may implement citation templates to obtain consistent format.
 * I intend to add only books to the "Books cited in text" section.
 * I doubt I will remove any templates.

"Baraque" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Baraque. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 5 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed,Rosguill talk 17:42, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Ancient Baroque
How does everyone feel about maybe adding a small section about baroque in the ancient Graeco-Roman world to the article? The term is used by historians to describe certain artistic styles in ancient Hellenistic and Roman architecture, sculpture, literature, etc. which share characteristics with baroque proper, such as the sense of movement and exuberant ornamentation. However, it's not directly related to modern baroque so I was thinking of maybe just adding a short section at the end after Section 12? Not-A-Kitty (talk) 16:20, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

 * Use of the term not relating to the baroque period is outside the scope of this article; a mention in the "Origin" section (which perhaps might be expanded very slightly to "Origin and usage") should suffice for other more general applications of the term, perhaps? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 16:31, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The origin section would be the wrong place, implying that early modern baroque was influenced by the ancient styles, which isn't usually thought to be the case - except in architecture perhaps.  I think a short section would be ok. 17:52, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * There's a reason I suggested changing the name of the section to "origin and usage", since the broader usage both predates and postdates the baroque period, and is by no means exclusive to the discussion of the ancient world. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 20:16, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Baroque