The
Danube ( in
English) is the longest
river in the
European
Union and
Europe's second longest river
after the
Volga.
The river
originates in the Black
Forest
in Germany
as the much
smaller Brigach
and Breg
rivers which join at the German town Donaueschingen
, after which it is known as the Danube and flows
eastwards for a distance of some 2850 km (1771 miles), passing
through four Central and Eastern European capitals, before emptying
into the Black
Sea
via the Danube Delta in
Romania
and Ukraine
.
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 (7.5%),
Austria
(10.3%), Slovakia
(5.8%), Hungary
(11.7%),
Croatia
(4.5%),
Serbia
(10.3%), Romania (28.9%),
Bulgaria
(5.2%), Moldova
(0,017%),
and Ukraine
(3.8%).
Name
The English language has, since the
Norman conquest of England, used
the French word
Danube.In other languages, particularly
those spoken in the locations which the river flows through:
One theory ultimately derives all these variations to the
Celtic word
*dānu, meaning "to
flow". Other theories derive the name from an
Indic root (cf.
Danu that has contributed the names of all
other major rivers emptying into the Black Sea, such as the
Don, Donets
, Dnieper and Dniestr
).
Ancient Greek
Istros was a borrowing from
Thracian/
Dacian meaning "strong, swift", akin to
Sanskrit is.iras "swift", Ancient
Greek (
hierós) "strong, sacred".
Geography
Drainage basin
In
addition to the Danubian countries,
the drainage basin includes parts of
nine more countries: Italy
(0.15%),
Poland
(0.09%), Switzerland
(0.32%), the Czech Republic
(2.5%), Slovenia
(2.2%), Bosnia and Herzegovina
(4.8%), the Former
Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia
, and Albania
(0.03%). The highest point of the drainage basin is
the summit of Piz
Bernina
at the Italy–Switzerland border, .
Tributaries
The Danube's watershed extends into many other countries. Many
Danubian tributaries are important rivers in their own right,
navigable by barges and other shallow-draught boats. From its
source to its outlet into the Black Sea, its main tributaries are
(in order):
Cities
Danube in Linz.
The Danube flows through the following countries and cities
(ordered from source to mouth ):
The Danube flows through four capital cities (shown in bold), more
than any other river in the world.
Islands
Sectioning
- Upper Section: From spring to Devín
Gate
. Danube remains a characteristic mountain
river until Passau
, with average bottom gradient 0.0012%, from Passau
to Devín Gate the gradient lessens to 0.0006%.
- Middle Section: From Devín
Gate to Iron Gate
. The riverbed widens and the average
bottom gradient becomes only 0.00006%.
- Lower Section: From Iron Gate to Sulina
, with average gradient as little as
0.00003%.
Modern navigation
Danube is navigable by ocean ships from the Black Sea to
Brăila
in
Romania and by river ships to
Kelheim
, Bavaria; smaller craft can navigate further
upstream to
Ulm
, in Germany.
About 60 of its tributaries are also navigable.
Since
the completion 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
three 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. On 13 April 2006, a
record peak discharge at Iron Gate Dam reached 15,400 m³/s.
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.
The 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.
International cooperation
Ecology and environment
The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River
(ICPDR) is an organization consisting of 14 member states (Germany,
Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova,
Montenegro and Ukraine) and the
European
Union. The commission, established in 1998, deals with the
whole Danube River Basin, which includes tributaries and the
groundwater resources. Its goal is to implement the Danube River
Protection Convention by promoting and coordinating sustainable and
equitable water management, including conservation, improvement and
rational use of waters.
Navigation
The Danube Commission is concerned with the maintenance and
improvement of the river's navigation conditions. It was
established in 1948 by seven countries bordering the river. Members
include representatives from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany,
Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and Serbia,
It meets regularly twice a year. It also convenes groups of experts
to consider items provided for in the commission's working
plans.
The commission dates to the Paris Conferences of 1856 and 1921,
which established for the first time an international regime to
safeguard free navigation on the Danube.
Geology
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 beginning at Piz Lunghin
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 litres 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.
History
The Danube basin was the site of some of the earliest human
cultures. The
Danubian Neolithic
cultures include the
Linear
Pottery cultures of the mid-Danube basin.
The third millennium
BC Vučedol
culture
(from the Vučedol site near Vukovar
, Croatia) is famous for its ceramics. Many sites of
the sixth-to-third millennium BC
Vinča culture are sited along the Danube.
The river was part of the Roman empire's
Limes Germanicus. The Romans often used the
river Danube as a border for their empire.
Ancient cultural perspectives of the lower Danube
Part of the Danubius or Istros river was also known as (together
with the Black Sea) the Okeanos in ancient times, being called the
Okeanos Potamos (Okeanos River). The lower Danube was also called
the Keras Okeanoio (Gulf or Horn of Okeanos) in the Argonautica by
Apollonius Rhodos (Argon. IV. 282). The lower Danube has a slow
deep wide course, so it can be seen why it was considered as part
of the Okeanos.
Both Homer (Odyss. XII. 1) and Hesiod (Theogonia, v.242. 959) in
their theogonic legends exclusively refer to the lower Danube as
the Okeanos Potamos, possibly due to it being remembered as the
remnant of when the Pannonian and lower Danubian basins were under
water .
At the end of the Okeanos Potamos, is the holy island of Alba
(Leuke, Pytho Nisi, Isle of Snakes), sacred to the Pelasgian (and
later, Greek) Apollo, greeting the sun rising in the east.
Hecateus Abderitas refers to Apollo's
island from the region of the Hyperboreans, in the Okeanos. It was
on Leuke, in one version of his legend that the hero Achilles was
buried (to this day, one of the mouths of the Danube is called
Chilia). Old Romanian folk songs sing of a white monastery on a
white island with nine priests.
Danube Bike Trail
The Danube Bike Trail (also called Danube Cycle Path or the
Donauradweg) is a bicycle trail along the river.
The Danube Bike Trail (Donauradweg) is divided into four sections:
- Donaueschingen-Passau (559 km)
- Passau-Vienna
(340 km)
- Vienna-Budapest
(306 km)
- Budapest-Black
Sea (1670 km)
Economics
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 
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 (110×11.45 m) 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 river plant's
locks in Vienna, canalization of the Danube was limited to the
Gabčíkovo 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 m). Downstream of the Iron Gate, the river is free flowing
all the way to the Black Sea, a distance of more than 860
kilometres.
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 Tisa. 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.
Tourism
Wachau Valley near Durnstein.
Important tourist and natural spots along
the Danube include the Wachau
valley, the Nationalpark Donau-Auen
in Austria, Gemenc
in Hungary, the Naturpark Obere Donau
in Germany, Kopački rit
in Croatia, Iron Gate and Danube Delta in
Romania, the Srebarna Nature Reserve
in Bulgaria.
Important National Parks
Cultural significance
The Danube is mentioned in the title of a famous
waltz by
Austrian composer Johann
Strauss,
An der schönen, blauen
Donau (
On the Beautiful Blue Danube). This piece
was composed as Strauss was traveling down the Danube River. This
piece is well known across the world and is also used widely as a
lullaby.
Another famous
waltz about the Danube is
The Waves of the
Danube ( ) by the Romanian composer
Ion Ivanovici (1845–1902), and the work took
the audience by storm when performed at the 1889
Paris Exposition.
Joe Zawinul wrote a
symphony about the Danube called
Stories of the
Danube.
It was performed for the first time at the
1993 Bruckner festival, at Linz
.
The Danube figures prominently in the Bulgarian National Anthem, as
a symbolic representation of the country's natural beauty.
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 1-86046-823-3).
The historical fiction
Earth's
Children series by
Jean M. Auel refers to the Danube as the Great Mother
River.
The river is the subject of the film
The Ister (official site
here).
Parts of the German road movie
Im
Juli take place along the Danube.
Noted horror writer
Algernon
Blackwood's most famous short story, "The Willows" concerned a
trip down the Danube.
See also
References
External links
General
International organizations
Individual cities or countries
)
)
)
)
)
in the Baden-Württemberg
in Baden-Württemberg
in Baden-Württemberg
in Baden-Württemberg
in Baden-Württemberg
in Bavaria
in Bavaria
in Bavaria
in Bavaria
in Bavaria
in Bavaria
in Bavaria
in Bavaria
, though the Innere Stadt
is situated away from the main flow of the Danube
(it is bounded by the Donaukanal – 'Danube canal').
– capital of Slovakia
(Croatia)
(Serbia)
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