The
Elbe Lateral Canal, or the
Elbe-Seitenkanal in
German, is a long
canal in
Lower Saxony,
Germany. It runs from the
Elbe near
Lauenburg/Elbe to the
Mittelland Canal near
Gifhorn. It forms an important transport connection between southern and northern Germany, and it provides a bypass of a section of the Elbe with limited navigability. At the construction start it was also thought as a bypass outside the
GDR, considered politically unreliable.