Liman (landform)

River estuary lagoon in Black Sea region

Look up liman in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Landsat satellite photo of limans along the Black Sea coast Liman forming the Dnieper River and Southern Bug river estuaries Dniester Liman forming the Dniester river estuary

A liman is an enlarged estuary formed as a lagoon at the wide mouth of one or several rivers, where flow is nearly fully or partially constrained by a mouth bar of sediments (peresyp), as in the Dniester Liman or the Razelm liman. A liman can be maritime (the bar being created by the current of a sea) or fluvial (the bar being created by the slowed or turned flow of a sediment-saturated river).[1] The term describes many wet estuaries in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov; a synonymous term guba (губа) is used in Russian sources for insignificantly blocked estuaries of the Russian shores in the north.[2]

Water in a liman is brackish with a variable salinity: during periods of low fresh-water intake, wide-mouthed, deep examples will be greatly saline from inflow of sea water and evaporation.

## Etymology

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English borrows the word from Russian: лиман, romanized: liman (Russian pronunciation: [lʲɪˈman]), taken from the Turkish: liman, which in turn originated in the Greek: λιμήν/λιμάν, romanized: limin/liman (meaning "bay" or "port").

## Locations

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Such features are found in places with low tidal range, for example along the western and northern coast of the Black Sea, in the Baltic Sea (Vistula Lagoon, the Curonian Lagoon), as well as along the lowest part of the Danube. Examples of limans include Lake Varna in Bulgaria, Lake Razelm in Romania, the Dniester Liman in Ukraine and the Anadyrskiy Liman and Amur Liman in Siberia. In Turkey: Lake Büyükçekmece, Lake Küçükçekmece.

## See also

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* Natural harbour
* Ria

## References

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Limans.

Look up liman in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

1. ^ (in Romanian) Mihai Ielenicz (ed., 1999): Dicționar de geografie fizică, Corint publ., Bucharest, 1999 ; Grigore Antipa (1941) : Marea Neagră, Romanian academy press, Bucharest, 1941, pp. 55-64, and Petre Gâștescu, Vasile Sencu (1968) : Împărăția limanelor, Meridiane publ., Bucharest.
2. ^ "лимáн" Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary in Russian

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Coastal geography

Landforms|

* Anchialine pool
* Archipelago
* Atoll
* Avulsion
* Ayre
* Barrier island
* Bay
* Bight
* Bodden
* Brackish marsh
* Cape
* Channel
* Cliff
* Coast
* Coastal plain
* Coastal waterfall
* Continental margin
* Continental shelf
* Coral reef
* Cove
* Dune
* cliff-top
* Estuary
* Firth
* Fjard
* Fjord
* Freshwater marsh
* Fundus
* Gat
* Geo
* Gulf
* Gut
* Hapua
* Headland
* Inlet
* Intertidal wetland
* Island
* Islet
* Isthmus
* Liman
* Lagoon
* Machair
* Mudflat
* Natural arch
* Peninsula
* Reef
* Ria
* Salt marsh
* Shoal
* Skerry
* Sound
* Spit
* Stack
* Strait
* Strand plain
* Submarine canyon
* Tidal island
* Tidal marsh
* Tide pool
* Tied island
* Tombolo
* Waituna
* Windwatt

Beaches|

* Beach cusps
* Beach evolution
* Beach ridge
* Beach wrack
* Beaches in estuaries and bays
* Beachrock
* Coastal morphodynamics
* Pocket beach
* Raised beach
* Recession
* Shell beach
* Shingle beach
* Storm beach
* Wash margin

River mouths|

* Debouch
* Mouth bar
* River delta
* mega
* regressive

Processes|

* Blowhole
* Cliffed coast
* Coastal biogeomorphology
* Coastal erosion
* Concordant coastline
* Current
* Cuspate foreland
* Discordant coastline
* Emergent coastline
* Feeder bluff
* Flat coast
* Graded shoreline
* Ingression coast
* Large-scale coastal behaviour
* Longshore drift
* Marine regression
* Marine transgression
* Raised shoreline
* Rip current
* Rocky shore
* Sea cave
* Sea foam
* Shoal
* peresyp
* Steep coast
* Submergent coastline
* Surf break
* Surf zone
* Surge channel
* Swash
* Undertow
* Volcanic arc
* Wave-cut platform
* Wave shoaling
* Wind fetch
* Wind wave

Management|

* Accretion
* Coastal management
* Integrated coastal zone management
* Submersion

Related|

* Bulkhead line
* Coastal engineering
* Grain size
* boulder
* clay
* cobble
* granule
* gravel
* pebble
* sand
* shingle
* silt
* Intertidal zone
* Littoral zone
* Physical oceanography
* Region of freshwater influence
* River plume

* Category

Authority control databases |

* Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine

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