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.