The Aestian Island () is a tentative name of an

artificial island An artificial island or man-made island is an island that has been Construction, constructed by humans rather than formed through natural processes. Other definitions may suggest that artificial islands are lands with the characteristics of hum ...

under construction by

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

in the

Vistula Lagoon The Vistula Lagoon is a brackish water lagoon on the Baltic Sea roughly 56 miles (90 km) long, 6 to 15 miles (10 to 19 km) wide, and up to 17 feet (5 m) deep, separated from the Gdańsk Bay by the Vistula Spit. Geography The lag ...

as a

land fill Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...

project, with the infill obtained from the digging of the

Vistula Spit canal The Vistula Spit canal (), officially known as the Nowy Świat ship canal (), is a ship canal, canal across the Polish section of the Vistula Spit that creates a second connection between the Vistula Lagoon and Gdańsk Bay, Gulf of Gdańsk. It ...

. The island will cover the area of , in the shape of an ellipse with axes of . It is expected to become a wild-bird habitat. Its location is in the central part of the lagoon about off the

Vistula Spit The Vistula Spit (; ; ; ) is an aeolian sand spit, or peninsular stretch of land, separating Vistula Lagoon from Gdańsk Bay, in the Baltic Sea, with its tip separated from the mainland by the Strait of Baltiysk. The border between Poland (Pom ...

, approximately opposite the village of

Przebrno Przebrno () is a neighborhood of the town of Krynica Morska on the Vistula Spit in northern Poland, located in the western part of the town. The village has sandy beaches on the shores of the Bay of Gdańsk on the northern side of the spit, an ...

. The shape of the island was marked by steel piles in September 2020. The circumference of the island is being made of granite delivered from quarries in

Lower Silesia Lower Silesia ( ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ) is a historical and geographical region mostly located in Poland with small portions in the Czech Republic and Germany. It is the western part of the region of Silesia. Its largest city is Wrocław. The first ...

. The interior is to be filled with the sand from the Vistula Spit canal and the

dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...

of the navigable fairway for which the canal is intended. The name has been selected by a public poll and it is to be formally approved by the Ministry of the Interior and Administration. Other polled suggestions were: Rukwiel ( Searocket Island), Wodniczka ( Aquatic Warbler Island), Bursztynowa (

Amber Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...

Island) and Island. During the pre-contest, some even suggested the name

San Escobar San Escobar is a non-existent country originated from a blunder of the Poland, Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Poland), Minister of Foreign Affairs Witold Waszczykowski. Origin On 10 January 2017, Waszczykowski told reporters that, in a bid ...

. The selected name references the name of the local ancient

Aesti The Aesti (also Aestii, Astui or Aests) were an ancient people first described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his treatise ''Germania'' (circa 98 AD). According to Tacitus, the territory of Aesti was located somewhere east of the ''Suiones'' ...

tribe, as reflected in the oldest known name of the Vistula Lagoon:

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

, based on

Old Prussian Old Prussian is an extinct West Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to av ...

, which means "Lagoon of the Aesti".

References

Baltic islands Uninhabited islands of Poland Artificial islands of Europe {{poland-geo-stub