Baltic Rim
Baltic rim [as a general area] = Ostseeraum {m}, Ostseeregion {f} | region {m} Morza Bałtyckiego, region {m} bałtycki, strefa {f} bałtycka
Baltic rim [as a group of countries] = Ostseeanrainer {m.pl}, Ostseeanrainerstaaten {m.pl}, Ostseeländer {n.pl} | kraje {m.pl} nadbałtyckie
Not to be confused with: Baltic states [Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania] = baltische Staaten {m.pl} | kraje {m.pl} bałtyckie
Modeled on “Pacific Rim”, this is another, “trendier” term for “Baltic region”, i.e., “slightly different combinations of countries in the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea” (source: en.wikipedia.org).
English sources:
- Google “Baltic rim” (24,600 ghits)
- Google “Baltic rim economies” (mostly as a journal title, 3,290 ghits)
German sources:
- Google “Ostseeraum” (99,500 hits)
- Google “Ostseeregion” (19,200 hits)
- Google “Ostseeanrainer” (16,400 hits)
- Google “Ostseeanrainerstaaten” (5,440 hits)
- Google “Ostseeländer” (4,260 hits)
Usage examples:
- “Wir wollen die Ostseeregion zunächst als Ganzes betrachten, ihre Gemeinsamkeiten herausstellen. Die gesamte Ostseeregion wird seit einigen Jahren zu einer bedeutenden europäischen Wachstumsregion.” (source: ostsee-netz.de)
- “Der Ostseeraum ist ein Wirtschafts- und Wachstumsraum.” (source: Wikipedia “Ostsee”)
Other possible translations include simply “Nordosteuropa”: e.g., the DnB Nord Bank chose to promote itself as“Ihre Bank für Nordosteuropa” in German and as “Your banking partner in the Baltic Rim” in English. On their Polish site, both variants are used next to each other: “jeden z wiodących banków w Europie Północno – Wschodniej, koncentrujący swoją działalność w państwach regionu Morza Bałtyckiego – w Polsce, Estonii na Litwie i Łotwie” (source: dnbnord.pl).
False-friend warning: In German, it’s not “baltischer Raum”, as in German “baltisch” is used in a narrower sense as an umbrella term for the three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (out of which only the latter two are “Baltic” in a linguistic sense, to make matters more complicated).
Likewise, Polish makes a distinction between “kraje bałtyckie” (“Baltic countries”, i.e., Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and “kraje nadbałtyckie” (“on-the-Baltic countries”, i.e., all countries on the Baltic sea).
Glossaries 
