Danube
:
For other uses of "Danube", see Danube (disambiguation). |
The Danube bend at Visegrád is a popular destination of tourists |
The
Danube (ancient
Danuvius) is the longest
river of the
European Union and
Europe's second-longest (after the
Volga).It originates in the
Black Forest in
Germany as two smaller rivers—the
Brigach and the
Breg—which join at
Donaueschingen, and it is from here that it is known as the Danube, flowing generally eastwards for a distance of some 2850 km (1771 miles), passing through several Central and Eastern European capitals, before emptying into the
Black Sea via the
Danube Delta in
Romania.
The Danube has been an important international waterway for centuries, as it remains today. Known to history as one of the long-standing frontiers of the
Roman Empire, the river flows through—or forms a part of the borders of—ten countries:
Germany,
Austria,
Slovakia,
Hungary,
Croatia,
Serbia,
Bulgaria,
Romania,
Moldova, and
Ukraine; in addition, the drainage basin includes parts of ten more countries:
Poland,
Switzerland,
Czech Republic,
Slovenia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Montenegro,
Republic of Macedonia,
Moldova, and
Albania.
The names of the river (
German:
Donau,
Slovak:
Dunaj,
Albanian:
Danubi,
Polish:
Dunaj,
Hungarian: ,
Croatian:
Dunav,
Serbian:
"унав /
Dunav,
Bulgarian:
"унав (
Dunav),
Romanian: ,
Ukrainian: ,
Latin:
Danuvius,
Turkish:
Tuna,
Slovene:
Donava) are all ultimately derived from the
Proto-Indo-European *dānu, meaning "river" or "stream". Still nowadays
don in
Ossetic language means both "water" and "river".
Tributaries
The Danube's tributary rivers reach into ten other countries. Some Danubian tributaries are important rivers in their own right, navigable by barges and river boats of shallow draught. Ordered from source to mouth, the main tributaries are::
Iller -
Lech -
Regen (entering at
Regensburg) -
Isar -
Inn (entering at
Passau) -
Enns -
Morava -
Leitha -
Váh (entering at
Komárno) -
Hron -
Ipel -
Sió -
Drava -
Vuka -
Tisza -
Sava (entering at
Belgrade) -
Tamiš -
Velika Morava -
Caraş -
Jiu -
Iskar -
Olt -
Vedea -
Argeş -
Ialomiţa -
Siret -
PrutCities
The Danube flows through the following major cities:
*
Ulm -
Germany*
Ingolstadt - Germany
*
Regensburg - Germany, capital of
Upper Palatinate*
Passau - Germany
*
Linz -
Austria, capital of
Upper Austria*
Krems - Austria
*
Vienna - capital of Austria, where the Danube floodplain is called the
Lobau*
Bratislava - capital of
Slovakia*
Komárno - Slovakia
*
Komárom -
Hungary*
Esztergom - Hungary
*
Visegrád - Hungary
*
Budapest - captial of Hungary
*
Baja - Hungary
*
Vukovar -
Croatia*
Bačka Palanka - city in
Serbian province of
Vojvodina*
Novi Sad - capital of the Serbian province of
Vojvodina*
Belgrade - the capital of Serbia
*
Drobeta-Turnu Severin -
Romania*
Vidin -
Bulgaria*
Lom - Bulgaria
*
Ruse - Bulgaria
*
Silistra - Bulgaria
*
Brăila - Romania
*
Galaţi - Romania
*
Tulcea - Romania
The Danube is navigable by ocean ships from the Black Sea to
Brăila in
Romania and by river ships to
Kelheim; smaller craft can navigate further upstream to
Ulm, in Germany. About 60 of its tributaries are also navigable. See
Danube-Black Sea Canal.
|
The Iron Gate, on the Romanian-Serbian border |
Since the construction of the German
Rhine-Main-Danube Canal in 1992, the river has been part of a trans-European waterway from
Rotterdam on the
North Sea to
Sulina on the Black Sea (3500 km). In 1994 the Danube was declared one of ten
Pan-European transport corridors, routes in Central and Eastern Europe that required major investment over the following ten to fifteen years. The amount of goods transported on the Danube increased to about 100 million tons in 1987. In 1999, transport on the river was made difficult by the NATO bombing of 3 bridges in
Serbia. The clearance of the debris was finished in 2002. The temporary pontoon bridge that hampered navigation was finally removed in 2005.
At the
Iron Gate, the Danube flows through a
gorge that forms part of the boundary between
Serbia and
Romania; it contains the
hydroelectric Iron Gate I
dam, followed at about 60 km downstream (outside the gorge) by the Iron Gate ll dam.
There are three artificial waterways built on the Danube: the
Danube-Tisa-Danube Canal (DTD) in the
Banat and
Bačka regions (
Vojvodina, northern province of
Serbia); the 64 km Danube-Black Sea canal, between Cernavodă and Constanţa (Romania) finished in 1984, shortens the distance to the Black Sea by 400 km; the Rhine-Main-Danube canal (about 171 km), finished in 1992, linking the
North Sea to the
Black Sea.
Main article Danube Delta.The Danube Delta has been a
UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991. Its wetlands (on the
Ramsar list of wetlands of international importance) support vast flocks of migratory birds, including the endangered
Pygmy Cormorant (
Phalacrocorax pygmaeus). Rival canalization and drainage scheme threaten the delta: see
Bastroe Channel.
 |
A map showing the Danube |
Although the
headwaters of the Danube are relatively small today, geologically, the Danube is much older than the
Rhine, with which its catchment area competes in today's southern Germany. This has a few interesting geological complications. Since the Rhine is the only river rising in the
Alps mountains which flows north towards the
North Sea, an invisible line divides large parts of southern Germany, which is sometimes referred to as the
European Watershed.
However, before the last
ice age in the
Pleistocene, the Rhine started at the southwestern tip of the Black Forest, while the waters from the Alps that today feed the Rhine were carried east by the so-called
Urdonau (original Danube). Parts of this ancient river's bed, which was much larger than today's Danube, can still be seen in (now waterless) canyons in today's landscape of the
Swabian Alb. After the
Upper Rhine Valley had been eroded, most waters from the Alps changed their direction and began feeding the Rhine. Today's upper Danube is but a meek reflection of the ancient one.
Since the
Swabian Alb is largely shaped of porous
limestone, and since the Rhine's level is much lower than the Danube's, today subsurface rivers carry much water from the Danube to the Rhine. On many days in the summer, when the Danube carries little water, it completely oozes away noisily into these underground channels at two locations in the Swabian Alp, which are referred to as the
Donauversickerung (
Danube Sink). Most of this water resurfaces only 12 km south at the
Aachtopf, Germany's wellspring with the highest flow, an average of 8500 liters per second, north of
Lake Constance—thus feeding the Rhine. The European Water Divide thus in fact only applies for those waters that pass beyond this point, and only during the days of the year when the Danube carries enough water to survive the sink holes in the Donauversickerung.
Since this enormous amount of underground water erodes much of its surrounding limestone, it is estimated that the Danube upper course will one day disappear entirely in favor of the Rhine, an event called
stream capturing.
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| A look upstream from the Donauinsel in Vienna, Austria during an unusually cold winter (February 2006). A frozen Danube is a phenomenon experienced only once or twice in a lifetime. (Details) |
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| Bratislava doesn't usually experience major floods, but the Danube sometimes overflows its right bank. |
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The Danube basin contains sites of the earliest human cultures: the
Danubian Neolithic cultures include the
Linear Pottery Cultures of the mid-Danube basin (see also
Linear Ceramic culture) The
Vucedol culture of the third millennium BC is famous for their ceramics. Later, many sites of the
Vinca culture are sited along the Danube. The river was part of the Roman empire's
Limes Germanicus.
Of importance for the Danube is also the
International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR). The ICPDR is an international organisation consisting of 13 member states (Germany, Austria,
Czech Republic,
Slovakia,
Slovenia,
Hungary,
Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine) and the
European Union. ICPDR, established in 1998, deals not only with the Danube itself, but with the whole Danube River Basin, which includes also its tributaries and the ground water resources. The goal of the ICPDR is to implement the Danube River Protection Convention, promoting and coordinating sustainable and equitable water management, including conservation, improvement and rational use of waters for the benefit of the Danube River Basin countries and their people.
The Danube is mentioned in the title of a famous
waltz by
Austrian
composer Johann Strauss,
An der schönen, blauen Donau (
By the Beautiful Blue Danube). This song was composed as Strauss was travelling down the Danube River. This song is well known across the world and is also used widely as a
lullabyAnother famous
waltz about the Danube is
The Waves of the Danube (
Romanian:
Valurile Dunării) by the Romanian composer
Ion Ivanovici (1845–1902), and the work took the audience by storm when performed at the 1889
Paris Exposition.
The German tradition of landscape painting, the
Danube school, was developed in the Danube valley in the 16th century.
The most famous book describing the Danube might be
Claudio Magris's masterpiece
Danube (ISBN 1860468233).
Drinking water
Along its path, the Danube is a source of drinking water for about ten million people. In
Baden-Württemberg,
Germany, almost thirty percent (
as of 2004) of the water for the area between
Stuttgart,
Bad Mergentheim,
Aalen and
Alb-Donau (district) comes from purified water of the Danube. Other cities like
Ulm and
Passau also use some water from the Danube.
In
Austria and
Hungary, most water comes from ground and spring sources, and only in rare cases is water from the Danube used. Most states also find it too difficult to clean the water because of extensive pollution; only parts of
Romania where the water is cleaner still use a lot of drinking water from the Danube.
Navigation and transport
As "Corridor VII" of the
European Union, the Danube is an important transport route. Since the opening of the
Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, the river connects the Black Sea with the industrial centers of Western Europe and with the Port of
Rotterdam. The waterway is designed for large scale inland vessels (110 by 11,45 meters) but it can carry much larger vessels on most of its course. The Danube has been partly canalized in Germany (5 locks) and Austria (10 locks). Further proposals to build a number of new locks in order to improve navigation have not progressed, due in part to environmental concerns.
Downstream from the Freudenau Locks in Vienna, canalization of the Danube was limited to the Gabcikovo dam and locks near Bratislava and the two double Iron Gate locks in the border stretch of the Danube between Serbia and Romania. These locks have larger dimensions (similar to the locks in the Russian
Volga river, some 300 by over 30 meters). Downstream of the Iron Gate, the river is free flowing all the way to the Black Sea, a distance of more than 860 kilometers.
The Danube connects with the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal at Kelheim, and with the Wiener Donaukanal in Vienna. Apart from a couple of secondary navigable branches, the only major navigable rivers linked to the Danube are the Drava, Sava and Tisza. In Serbia, a canal network also connects to the river; the network, known as the Dunav-Tisa-Dunav canals, links sections downstream.
Fishing
The importance of fishing on the Danube, which used to be critical in the
Middle Ages, has declined dramatically. Some fishermen are still active at certain points on the river, and the
Danube Delta still has an important industry.
Important tourist and natural spots along the Danube, including the
Wachau valley, the
Nationalpark Donau-Auen in Austria, the
Naturpark Obere Donau in
Germany,
Kopački rit in
Croatia,
Iron Gates (Danube
Gorge) and
Danube Delta in
Romania.
¹ Length from the source of the
Breg.² Source of the
Breg*
2006 European floods*
Bibliography on Water Resources and International Law See
Danube River. Peace Palace Libray
*
Dun.AV - The Danube Panorama Project*
Danube Sink*
Aachtopf spring*
The Danube Delta* Danube Basin
Map (GIF - 257 KB),
Map+info, PDF*
International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River*
'The Ister': A 2840km documentary film journey up the Danube*
Danube Project Centre / Inland Waterway Transport on the Danube river*
Danube regional Project*
The Danube / Danube Tourist Commission | A River's lure*
DANUBE-BRIDGES | Hungarian*
Map of Rhine-Danube Waterway*
Archaelogical and prehistoric discoveries in river Danube by
Veljko Milković
