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 (1.7%), 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 (Asura) 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
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
Origin of the river Danube. The place where two small rivers (Breg and Brigach) unite to form the Danube in
Donaueschingen, Germany. The German name of the place is
Donauzusammenfluss, meaning "Danube confluence".
(left) and Danube (right) in Passau./" class="wiki">confluence of the
Inn (left) and Danube (right) in Passau.
Danube in Linz.
The Danube flows through the following countries and cities (ordered from source to mouth ):
- *Ulm in Baden-Württemberg
- *Vienna – capital of Austria, where the Danube floodplain is called the Lobau, though the Innere Stadt is situated away from the main flow of the Danube (it is bounded by the Donaukanal – 'Danube canal').
- *Sulina – the last city through which it flows
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
The 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 Danube is located near Croatia
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
Đerdap gorge, Serbia, overlooking Romania
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 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. I like the Danube.
History
thumb|At [[Esztergom and
Štúrovo, the Danube separates
Hungary from
Slovakia]]
thumb|The Danube between [[Belene and
Belene Island, Bulgaria]]
A look upstream from the
Donauinsel in
Vienna,
Austria during an unusually cold winter (February 2006). A frozen Danube is a phenomenon experienced once or twice in a lifetime. (
Details)
Bratislava doesn't usually experience major floods, but the Danube sometimes overflows its right bank.
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.
[, Nicolae Densusianu (1913).]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:
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 ).
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.
In the
PC Space Simulator
Freelancer the battle cruiser
Donau is destroyed during the first cutscene.
In the
Star Trek universe, a class of spacecraft was named after the Danube.
German industrial band
Rammstein have a song titled "Donaukinder", meaning "Children of the Danube", on the extended version of their album
Liebe ist für alle da.
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 (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 (110×11.45 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 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 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
- Naturpark Obere Donau (Germany)
- Nature protection area Donauleiten (Germany)
- Nationalpark Donau Auen (Austria)
- Duna-Ipoly Nemzeti Park (Hungary)
- Natural Park Măcinului Mountains (Romania)
- Natural Park Little Pond of Brăila (Romania)
See also
