Kattegatt

The Kattegat connected the North Sea approaches with the Danish straits and Baltic shipping. Its commercial history was closely affected by a toll collected farther south at Helsingor. From about 1429, vessels passing through the Sound paid a transit charge that became a major source of revenue for the Danish kings. Ships crossing the Kattegat towards the Baltic therefore entered a network shaped by both navigation and fiscal demands.

The burden could provoke international conflict. Dutch merchants were particularly affected by seventeenth-century increases, helping to explain Dutch support for Sweden in the war of 1643–1645. Sweden subsequently enjoyed exemption from the Sound toll between 1658 and 1720. During the eighteenth century the number of toll-paying vessels grew from roughly 2,500 in 1720 to more than 12,000 around 1800. These were Sound records, not counts for every Kattegat crossing. They nevertheless give a concrete measure of the expanding traffic using the connected passage between the Baltic and western European markets.