Former mouth of a river now covered with sea water. Open limans are connected to the sea, closed limans are isolated from the sea by a sand bar. The formation of limans is a result of the geological dipping of the earth.
Liman is a name for a lake formed at the mouth of a river, blocked by a bar of sediments. Liman can be maritime (the bar is created by the stream of a sea) or fluvial (the bar is created by the flow of a bigger river at the confluence).