On the History of Naming the North Sea*

 1. The North Sea - where it is - how it grew in importance

    The sea is situated in the northern part of Western Europe roughly between the eastern coast of Britain, the 61st parallel in the North, the southern coasts of Norway, a small part of the SE coast of Sweden, the western shores of Denmark, the north-western coasts of Germany, as well as those of the Netherlands and Belgium, with a tiny French coastal par(around Dunquerque). Its area is about 225 thousand sq. miles, a little more than the land area of France. Being a shallow sea(overwhelmingly covering the continental shelves except in the Norwegian Trench where at one point it is almost 400 fathoms deep) it also holds a relatively small amount of water.
The North Sea belongs to the better-known seas not only in Europe, but throughout the world. Its familiarity has especially grown at great scales since? the 1970¡¯s as output of petroleum and natural gas from its continental shelf achieved global importance.
As the Hungarian scholar of geography M. Haltenberger wrote in his book Marine Geography(1965) the rough waters of the sea had been avoided by both the Romans and traders of the Hanseatic League. The importance of the sea started to grow only after the great discoveries as the Atlantic Ocean became the ¡°Mediterranean Sea of the new times¡±.