The
Vistula (; ), is the longest and one of the most important rivers in
Poland at 1,047 km (651 miles) in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is 194,424 km² (75,067 square miles), of which 168,699 km² (65,135 sq. miles) lies within Poland (covering over half the area of the country).
The Vistula has its source at
Barania Góra in the south of Poland, 1220
meters above sea level in the
Silesian Beskids (western part of
Carpathian Mountains) where it begins with the White Little Vistula (
Biała Wisełka) and the Black Little Vistula (
Czarna Wisełka). It then continues to flow over the vast Polish plains, passing several large Polish cities along its way, including
Kraków,
Sandomierz,
Warszawa,
Płock,
Włocławek,
Toruń,
Bydgoszcz,
Świecie,
Grudziądz,
Tczew and
Gdańsk. It empties into the
Vistula Lagoon or directly into the
Gdańsk Bay of the
Baltic Sea with a
delta and several branches (
Leniwka,
Przekop,
Śmiała Wisła,
Martwa Wisła,
Nogat and
Szkarpawa).
Origins of the name Vistula
The name was first recorded by
Pliny in AD 77 in his
Natural History. He uses Vistula (4.52, 4.89) with an alternative spelling, Vistillus (3.06). The Vistula River ran into the
Mare Suebicum, which is today known as the Baltic Sea. The root of the name
Vistula is
Indo-European ultimately from
pre-Indo-European. The
diminutive endings -ila, -ula, were used in many Indo-European language groups, but also in Latin (see
Ursula).
In writing about the Vistula River and its peoples,
Ptolemy uses the Greek spelling, "Ouistoula". Other ancient sources spell it "Istula". Pomponius Mela refers to the "Visula" (Book 3) and Ammianus Marcellinus to the "Bisula" (Book 22), both of which names lack the -t-. The definitive reference is probably Jordanes (Getica 5 & 17), who uses "Viscla". The Anglo-Saxon poem
Widsith refers to it as the "Wistla". 12th century Polish chronicler
Wincenty Kadłubek called the river
Vandalus from the Lithuanian "vanduo", meaning "water".
Jan Długosz in his
Annales seu cronicae incliti called the Vistula "White river":
"a nationibus orientalibus Polonis vicinis, ab aquae condorem Alba aqua ... nominatur". Geography
The reaches of the Vistula are composed of three stretches: upper, from its sources to the city of Sandomierz; centre, from Sandomierz to the mouth of Narew and Bug; and bottom, from mouth of Narew till Vistula's own delta at the Baltic.
The Vistula river basin covers 194,424 km² (in Poland 168,700 km²); its average altitude rising to 270 m above sea level. In addition, the majority of its river basin (55%) is located at heights of 100 to 200 m above sea level; over 3/4 of the river basin ranges from 100 - 300 m in altitude. The highest point of the river basin lies at 2655 m (Gerlach Peak in the
Tatra mountains). One of the features of the river basin of the Vistula is its asymmetry - in great measure resulting from the tilting direction of the Central-European Lowland toward the north-west, the direction of the flow of glacial waters, as well as considerable predisposition of its older base. The asymmetry of the river basin (right-hand to left-hand side) is 73-27%.
The most recent glaciation of the
Pleistocene epoch, which ended around 10,000 BC, is called the
Weichselian glaciation or Vistulian glaciation in regard to north-central Europe.
Major cities and towns along Vistula tributaries
Delta of the Vistula River
The river forms a wide delta called the Żuławy around the town of
Biała Góra near
Sztum, about 50 km from the mouth, splitting into two branches: the Leniwka (left) and the Nogat (right). In the city of Gdańsk the Head of the Leniwka branch separates again into the Szkarpawa branch, for the purpose of flood control closed to the east with a lock. The so-called Dead Wisła divides again into the Przegalinie branch flowing into Gdańsk Bay. Until the 14th century the Vistula was divided into a main eastern branch, the Elbląg Vistula, and the smaller western branch, the Gdańsk Vistula. Since 1371 the Vistula of Gdańsk is the river's main artery. After the flood in 1840 an additional branch formed called the Bold Vistula. In 1890 through 1895, additional waterworks were carried out up the Świbna.
Near
Kwidzyń the Vistula is divided at present into two separate branches that constitute the
river delta:
Tributaries
List of right and left tributaries with a nearby city, from source to mouth:
Right tributariesLeft tributaries
Bridge across the Vistula in
Płock.
Granaries in
Grudziądz seen from the left riverside of the Vistula river, 13th - 17th century.
Medieval port crane, called
Żuraw over
Motława river (branch in the delta of the nearby Vistula river) in
Gdańsk.
Global Warming and the Flooding of the Vistula Delta
According to flood studies carried out by Professor Zbigniew Pruszak, who is the co-author of the scientific paper
Implications of SLR and further studies carried out by scientists attending Poland’s Final International ASTRA Conference, and predictions stated by climate scientists at the climate change pre-summit in
Copenhagen, it is highly lightly most of the Vistula Delta region (which is below sea level) will be flooded due to the sea level rise caused by climate change by 2100.
Geologic history
The history of the River Vistula and her valley spans over 2 million years. The river is connected to the geological period called the
Quaternary, in which distinct cooling of the climate took place. Throughout the last one million years, an ice sheet entered the area of Poland eight times, bringing along with it changes of reaches of the river. In warmer periods, when the ice sheet retreated, the Vistula deepened and widened its valley. The river took its present shape withiin the last 14 thousand years, after complete recession of the Scandinavian ice sheet from the area. At present, along the Vistula valley, erosion of the banks and collecting of new deposits are still occurring.
As the principal river of Poland, the Vistula is also located in the centre of Europe. Three principal geographical and geological land massess of the continent meet in her river basin: the lowland Eastern European shield, the area of uplands and low mountains of Western Europe, and the Alpine zone of high mountains to which both the Alps and the
Carpathians belong. The Vistula begins in the Carpathian mountains. The run and character of the river was shaped by ice sheets flowing down from the Scandinavian Peninsula. The last ice sheet entered the area of Poland about 20 thousand years ago. During periods of warmer weather, the ancient Vistula, "Pra-Wisła", searched for the shortest way to the sea - thousands of years ago it flowed into the North Sea somewhere at the latitude of contemporary Scotland. The climate of the Vistula valley, its plants, animals and its very character changed considerably during the process of glacial retreat.
Navigation
Map of Vistula
The Vistula is navigable from the Baltic Sea to
Bydgoszcz (where the
Bydgoszcz Canal joins the river). The Vistula can accommodate modest river vessels of
CEMT class II. Further upstream the river depth lessens. Although a project was undertaken to increase the traffic-carrying capacity of the river upstream of Warsaw by building a number of locks in and around
Krakow, this project was not extended further, so that navigability of the Vistula remains limited. The potential of the river would increase considerably if a restoration of the East-West connection via the
Narew–
Bug–
Mukhovets–
Pripyat–
Dnieper waterways were considered. The shifting economic importance of parts of Europe may make this option more likely.
Historical relevance
Ancient settlements
Vistula valley east (upstream) of
Toruń.
Protoslavic tribes (Lusatia and Przeworsk Culture) occupied large parts of the Vistula Basin in the first millennium BCE. Genetic analysis indicates that there has been an unbroken genetic continuity of the inhabitants over the last 3,500 years, which would suggest that Polish tribes lived here for a long time and successfully defended against distant invaders,
[ ] such as
Suebi and
Burgundians. Even though the Romans do not appear to have had direct contact with the regions between Odra-Nysa Łużycka and the Bug, the Vistula Basin along with the lands of the
Rhine,
Danube,
Elbe, and
Oder came to be called
Magna Germania by Roman authors of the first century AD.
Ptolemy, in the second century AD, would describe the Vistula as the border between
Germania and
Sarmatia.
Death of princess Wanda by Maksymilian Piotrowski, 1861.
Tacitus is another source regarding information on the early inhabitants of the Vistula. However, he makes no secret that many of the tribes to the east of the Vistula were somewhat shrouded in mystery. For example, when describing the
Venethi,
Peucini and
Fenni he wrote that he was not sure if he should call them Germans, since they had settlements and they fought on foot, or rather
Sarmatians since they have some similar customs to them.
The Vistula river used to be connected to the
Dnieper River, and thence to the
Black Sea via the
Augustów Canal, a technological marvel with numerous
sluices contributing to its aesthetic appeal. It was the first waterway in
Central Europe to provide a direct link between the two major rivers, the Vistula and the
Neman. It provided a link with the
Black Sea to the south through the
Oginski Canal,
Dnieper River, Berezina Canal, and
Dvina River. The Baltic-Sea–Vistula–Dnieper–Black-Sea route with its rivers was one of the most ancient trade routes, the
Amber Road, on which amber and other items were traded from
Northern Europe to
Greece, Asia,
Egypt, and elsewhere.
The Vistula estuary was settled by Slavs in the 7th and 8th century.
[ p.29] Based on archeological and linguistic findings, it has been postulated that these settlers moved northward along the Vistula river.
[ This however contradicts another hypothesis supported by some researchers saying the Veleti moved westward from the Vistula delta.]
A number of West Slavic Polish tribes formed small dominions beginning in the 8th century, some of which coalesced later into larger ones. Among the tribes listed in the Bavarian Geographer's 9th century document were the Vistulans (Wiślanie) in southern Poland. Kraków and Wiślica were their main centres.
Many Polish legends are connected with the Vistula and the beginnings of Polish statehood. One of the most enduring is that about princess Wanda co nie chciała Niemca (who rejected the German).[ ] According to the most popular variant, popularized by the 15th century historian Jan Długosz, Wanda, daughter of King Krak, became queen of the Poles upon her father's death.[ ] Wanda however committed suicide, drowning in the Vistula river, to ensure he would not invade her country again. Main trading artery
11th century Benedictine Abbey in
Tyniec overlooks the Vistula.
In the 14th century the lower Vistula was controlled by the Teutonic Order, invited in 1226 by Konrad I of Masovia to help him fight the pagan Prussians on the border of his lands. In 1308 the Teutonic Knights captured the Gdańsk castle and murdered the population. Since then the event is known as the Gdańsk slaughter. The Order had inherited Mewe from Sambor II, thus gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Vistula. Many granaries and storehouses, built in the 14th century, line the banks of the Vistula.[ ] In the 15th century the city of Gdańsk gained great importance in the Baltic area as a centre of merchants and trade and as a port city. While at this time the surrounding lands were inhabited by Pomeranians, Gdańsk soon became a starting point for German settlement of the largely fallow Vistula land.
The most intensive development of the Vistula as a trade route came from the 15th to 18th century, during which period a variety of hydraulic structures were put up, as well as embankments to provide flood protection.[ a - p. 6, b - p. 7, c - p. 5, d - p. 5]
Vistula river in
Warsaw near the end of the 16th century. The right side shows the
Sigismund Augustus bridge built between 1568-1573 by Erazm Cziotko (c. long).
Grain was also the largest export commodity of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The volume of traded grain can be considered a good and well-measured proxy for the economic growth of the Commonwealth.
Vistula river (
Vistvla fluvivs) in
Toruń in 1641.
The owner of a folwark usually signed a contract with the merchants of Gdańsk, who controlled 80% of this inland trade, to ship the grain north to that seaport on the Baltic Sea. Many rivers in the Commonwealth were used for shipping purposes, including the Vistula. The river had a relatively well-developed infrastructure, with river ports and granaries. Most river shipping travelled north, southward transport being less profitable, and barges and rafts were often sold off in Gdańsk for lumber.
At the end of the 18th century the third partition of Poland, between Prussia, Austria, and Russia, put an end to the economic importance of the Vistula. Minor navigation improvements were undertaken only locally, in Prussia and in Austria. The major 19th-century improvement was the construction of the Bydgoszcz Canal, which connected the Vistula with the Oder drainage area. In order to arrest recurrent flooding on the lower Vistula, the Prussian government in 1889-95 constructed an artificial channel about 12 km. east of Gdańsk (German name: Danzig) – known as the Vistula Cut (German: Weichseldurchstich; Polish: Przekop Wisły) – that acted as a huge sluice, diverting much of the Vistula flow directly into the Baltic. As a result, the historic Vistula channel through Gdańsk lost much of its flow, and was known thereafter as the Dead Vistula (German: Tote Weichsel; Polish: Martwa Wisła). German states got complete control of the region in 1795-1812 (see: Partitions of Poland), as well as during the World Wars, in 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.
thumb|left|Iron Bridge over Vistula in Warsaw (c. 1900). This framework bridge was constructed by Stanisław Kierbedź in 1850-1864. It was destroyed by the Germans in 1944.
From 1867 to 1917, the Russian tsarist administration called the Kingdom of Poland the Vistula land after the collapse of the January Uprising (1863-1865).
Almost 75% of the territory of interbellum Poland was drained northward into the Baltic Sea by the Vistula (total area of drainage basin of the Vistula within boundaries of the Second Polish Republic was 180 300 km²), the Niemen (51 600 km²), the Odra (46 700 km²) and the Daugava (10 400 km²).
In 1920 the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War Battle of Warsaw (sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula), was fought as Red Army forces commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky approached the Polish capital of Warsaw and nearby Modlin Fortress situated on the mouth of the Vistula. World War II
The Polish September campaign included battles over control of the mouth of the Vistula, and of the city of Gdańsk, so close to the river delta. During the Invasion of Poland (1939), after the initial battles in Pomerelia, the remains of the Polish Army of Pomerania withdrew to the southern bank of the Vistula.[ ] After defending Toruń for several days, the army withdrew further south under pressure of the overall strained strategic situation, and took part in the main battle of Bzura.
The 1944 Warsaw Uprising was planned with the expectation that the Soviet forces, who had arrived in the course of their offensive and were waiting on the other side of the Vistula River in full force, would help in the battle for Warsaw.[ ] However the Soviets betrayed the Poles, stopping their advance at the Vistula and branding the insurgents as criminals in radio broadcasts.
.jpg/){kind=link}