Salt in the map: Cartography of the forgotten lakes of the Black Sea

Abstract The lakes surrounding the Black Sea have long represented a vital resource for salt exploitation, a practice documented since Antiquity. The northern shores and the Crimean Peninsula were historically the most active regions, supplying salt to markets in Constantinople, Greece, Italy, and, significantly, to the vast hinterlands of the Russian and Ukrainian territories. Far less known, however, are the other Pontic salt sources, particularly the limans of southern Bessarabia. Based on historical maps and foreign travellers’ accounts, this article provides a first comprehensive synthesis of salt exploitation across the Black Sea basin, with a detailed focus on developments north of the Danube. The Bessarabian limans, attested since the fourteenth century, reached peak production between 1840 and 1844 but remained underdeveloped due to the region’s unstable political status. While most sites have since been abandoned, the war in Ukraine has renewed interest in alternative salt sources. The concept of the saltscape (landscapes shaped by salt production) offers both ecological insight and cultural depth. Reviving selected traditional sites may offer not only modest economic relief, but also help preserve a regional identity that has endured across centuries and regimes.