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Sylt (ˈzʏlt; Sild; Söl'ring North Frisian: Söl) is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Frisia. The northernmost island of Germany, it is known for its tourist resorts, notably Westerland, Kampen and Wenningstedt-Braderup, as well as for its sandy beach. It is frequently covered by the media in connection with its exposed situation in the North Sea and its ongoing loss of land during storm tides. Since 1927, Sylt has been connected to the mainland by the Hindenburgdamm causeway. In later years, it has been a resort for the German jet set and tourists in search of occasional celebrity sightings. With , Sylt is the fourth-largest German island and the largest German island in the North Sea. Sylt is located from off the mainland, to which it is connected by the Hindenburgdamm. Southeast of Sylt are the islands of Föhr and Amrum, to the north lies the Danish island of Rømø. The island of Sylt extends for in a north-south direction. At its northern point at Königshafen, it is only wide. Its greatest width, from the town of Westerland in the west to the eastern Nössespitze near Morsum, measures . On the western and northwestern shore, there is a sandy beach. To the east of Sylt, is the Wadden Sea, which belongs to the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park and mostly falls dry during low tide. The island's shape has constantly shifted over time, a process which is still ongoing today. The northern and southern spits of Sylt are exclusively made up of infertile sand deposits, while the central part with the municipalities of Westerland, Wenningstedt-Braderup and Sylt-Ost consists of a geestland core, which becomes apparent in the form of the Red Cliff of Wenningstedt. The geestland facing the Wadden Sea gradually turns into fertile marshland around Sylt-Ost. Sylt has only been an island since the Grote Mandrenke flood of 1362.

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Related concepts (7)

Hindenburgdamm

The Hindenburgdamm or Hindenburg Dam is an 11 km-long causeway joining the North Frisian island of Sylt to mainland Schleswig-Holstein. Its coordinates are . It was opened on 1 June 1927 and is exclusively a railway corridor. The companies that built the Hindenburgdamm, a job that took four years, were Philipp Holzmann AG of Frankfurt, working from the mainland, and Peter Fix Söhne of Duisburg working from Sylt. A train trip along the causeway takes about 10 minutes, and the time between the auto terminals at Niebüll on the mainland and Westerland on Sylt is about 30 minutes.

Sylt

North Frisian Islands

The North Frisian Islands (Öömrang and Fering Nuurdfresk Eilunen, Söl'ring Nuurđfriisk Ailönen, Nordfrisiske Øer, Nordfriesische Inseln) are the Frisian Islands off the coast of North Frisia. The term covers both the North Frisian Islands in the narrow sense (in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) and the Danish Wadden Sea Islands (in Denmark). However, culturally and linguistically, the Danish islands are usually not reckoned as being part of North Frisia, since they are not inhabited by native speakers of the North Frisian language.