Note: Distances are in kilometers, rounded to the nearest kilometer. Waterway distances are shown, not towpath distances. Country capitals are shown in bold.
The Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, and today flows through 10 countries. The river runs through the 2nd largest number of countries in the world with the Nile running through 11 countries. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for 2,850km (1,770mi), passing through or bordering Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine before draining into the Black Sea. Its drainage basin extends into nine more countries.
Since ancient times, the Danube has become a traditional trade route in Europe. Today, 2,415km (1,501mi) of its total length are navigable. The river is also an important source of hydropower and drinking water.
Names and etymology
Danube is an Old European river name derived from a Proto-Indo-European*dānu. Other European river names from the same root include the Dunaj, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr, Dysna and Tana/Deatnu. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, dānu means "fluid, dewdrop" and dānuja means "born from dānu" or "born from dew-drops". In Avestan, the same word means "river". In the Rigveda, Dānu once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers". The Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, which is most likely derived from the word for the river in German, Donau. Its Sámi name Deatnu means "Great River". It is possible that dānu in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": Dnieper and Dniestr, from Danapris and Danastius, are presumed to continue Scythian *dānu apara "far river" and *dānu nazdya- "near river", respectively.[2]
The river was known to the ancient Greeks as the Istros (Ἴστρος)[3] a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian name meaning 'strong, swift', from a root possibly also encountered in the ancient name of the Dniester (Danaster in Latin, Tiras in Greek) and akin to Iranicturos 'swift' and Sanskritiṣiras (इषिरस्) 'swift', from the PIE*isro-, *sreu 'to flow'.[4] In the Middle Ages, the Greek Tiras was borrowed into Italian as Tyrlo and into Turkic languages as Tyrla, the latter further borrowed into Romanian as a regionalism (Turlă).[4]
The Thraco-Phrygian name was Matoas,[5] "the bringer of luck".[6]
In Latin, the Danube was variously known as Danubius, Danuvius or as Ister.[7] The Latin name is masculine, as are all its Slavic names, except Slovenian (the name of the Rhine is also masculine in Latin, most of the Slavic languages, as well as in German). The German Donau (Early Modern GermanDonaw, Tonaw,[8]Middle High GermanTuonowe)[9] is feminine, as it has been re-interpreted as containing the suffix -ouwe "wetland".
Romanian differs from other surrounding languages in designating the river with a feminine term, Dunărea.[4] This form was not inherited from Latin, although Romanian is a Romance language.[10] To explain the loss of the Latin name, scholars who suppose that Romanian developed near the large river propose[10] that the Romanian name descends from a hypothetical Thracian*Donaris. The Proto-Indoeuropean root of this presumed name is related to the Iranic word "don-"/"dan-", while the supposed suffix -aris is encountered in the ancient name of the Ialomița River, Naparis, and in the unidentified Miliare river mentioned by Jordanes in his Getica.[4] Gábor Vékony says that this hypothesis is not plausible, because the Greeks borrowed the Istros form from the native Thracians.[10] He proposes that the Romanian name is loanword from a Turkic language (Cuman or Pecheneg).[10]
The Danube basinThe hydrogeographical source of the Danube: the source of its longest headstream, the Breg, where the Danube is symbolized by the Roman allegory for the river, Danuvius.The symbolical source of the Danube: the source of the Donaubach, which flows into the Brigach.The Danube's source confluence: the Donauzusammenfluss, the confluence of Breg and Brigach.Confluence of (from left to right) Inn, Danube, and Ilz in PassauDanube in Linz, AustriaThe Danube in Bratislava, SlovakiaBasilica of Esztergom (Hungary)The Tisza is the longest tributary of the DanubeConfluence of river Sava into the Danube beneath Belgrade citadelDanube at Nikopol, Bulgaria in winterThe Danube in Sulina, Romania0 km, Danube Delta (Ukraine)Where the Danube Meets the Black Sea (NASA Goddard image).The Danube discharges into the Black Sea (the upper body of water in the image).
The 1900 plan to link the Danube and the Adriatic Sea by C. Wagenführer. It would be a realisation of the erroneous notion of the Danube having a bifurcation.
The land drained by the Danube 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 (as they enter):
The Danube flows through many cities, including four national capitals (shown below in bold), more than any other river in the world. Ordered from the source to the mouth they are:
Vienna– capital of Austria and the most populous city on the Danube, 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').
Budapest– capital of Hungary, the largest city and the largest agglomeration on Danube (about 3,300,000 people). This section of the river is also called Danube Bend.
Aerial view of Margaret Island, Budapest, Hungary. There are 15 bridges over the Danube in Budapest.Great War Island, Belgrade, as seen from Zemun, Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube.Adakale Island in the Danube was forgotten during the peace talks at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which allowed it to remain a de jure Turkish territory and the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II's private possession until the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 (de facto until Romania unilaterally declared its sovereignty on the island in 1919 and further strengthened this claim with the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.) The island was submerged during the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric plant in 1970, which also removed the possibility of a potential legal claim by the descendants of Abdülhamid II.
Upper Section: From spring to Devín Gate, at the border of Austria and Slovakia. Danube remains a characteristic mountain river until Passau, with average bottom gradient 0.0012% (12 ppm), from Passau to Devín Gate the gradient lessens to 0.0006% (6 ppm).
Middle Section: From Devín Gate to Iron Gate, at the border of Serbia and Romania. The riverbed widens and the average bottom gradient becomes only 0.00006% (0.6 ppm).
Lower Section: From Iron Gate to Sulina, with average gradient as little as 0.00003% (0.3 ppm).
The Danube is navigable by ocean ships from the Black Sea to Brăila in Romania (the maritime river sector), and further on by river ships to Kelheim, Bavaria, Germany; smaller craft can navigate further upstream to Ulm, Württemberg, 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, a distance of 3,500km (2,200mi). 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 during the Kosovo War. Clearance of the resulting debris was completed in 2002, and a temporary pontoon bridge that hampered navigation was 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 Iron Gate I Hydroelectric Power Station dam, followed at about 60km (37mi) downstream (outside the gorge) by the Iron Gate II Hydroelectric Power Station. On 13 April 2006, a record peak discharge at Iron Gate Dam reached 15,400m3/s (540,000cuft/s).
In 2010–12, shipping companies (especially from Ukraine) claimed that their vessels suffered from "regular pirate attacks", on the Serbian and Romanian stretches of the Danube.[21][22][23] However, these transgressions may not be considered acts of piracy, as defined according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but rather instances of "river robbery".[24]
On the other hand, media reports say the crews on transport ships often steal and sell their own cargo and then blame the plundering on "pirates", and the alleged attacks are not piracy but small-time contraband theft that is taking place along the river.
The trading practices were legal along the river, since Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 and Romania became European border with Ukraine and Serbia. "Vamesi" the Romanian Border Officers, were confused with the new trading rules and new borders along the river as long as most of the southern Danube border is shared with Bulgaria.[25]
The Danube Delta (Romanian: Delta Dunăriipronounced[ˈdelta ˈdunərij]; Ukrainian: Дельта Дунаю, romanized:Del'ta Dunayu) is the largest river delta in the European Union. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania (Tulcea county), while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine (Odessa Oblast). The approximate surface is 4,152km2 (1,603sqmi), of which 3,446km2 (1,331sqmi) are in Romania. If one includes the lagoons of Razim-Sinoe (1,015km2 (392sqmi) of which 865km2 (334sqmi) water surface), which are located south of the delta proper, but are related to it geologically and ecologically (their combined territory is part of the World Heritage Site), the total area of the Danube Delta reaches 5,165km2 (1,994sqmi).
The Danube Delta is also the best preserved river Delta in Europe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (since 1991) and a Ramsar Site. Its lakes and marshes support 45 freshwater fish species. Its wetlands support vast flocks of migratory birds of over 300 species, including the endangered pygmy cormorant (Phalacrocorax pygmaeus). These are threatened by rival canalization and drainage schemes such as the Bystroye Canal.[citation needed]
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 and the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive.
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. Today the Commission include riparian and non-riparian states.
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.
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 Alb, which are referred to as the Donauversickerung (Danube Sink). Most of this water resurfaces only 12 kilometres (7mi) south at the Aachtopf, Germany's wellspring with the highest flow, an average of 8,500 litres per second (300cuft/s), north of Lake Constance—thus feeding the Rhine. The European Water Divide applies only 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 such large volumes of underground water erode much of the 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.
The hydrological parameters of Danube are regularly monitored in Croatia at Batina, Dalj, Vukovar and Ilok.[26]
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. Many sites of the sixth-to-third millennium BC Vinča culture, (Vinča, Serbia) are sited along the Danube. The third millennium BC Vučedol culture (from the Vučedol site near Vukovar, Croatia) is famous for its ceramics.
Alexander the Great defeated the Triballian king Syrmus and the northern barbarian Thracian and Illyrian tribes by advancing from Macedonia as far as the Danube in 336 BC.
Under the Romans the Danube formed the border of the Empire with the tribes to the north almost from its source to its mouth. At the same time it was a route for the transport of troops and the supply of settlements downstream. From AD 37 to the reign of the Emperor Valentinian I (364–375) the Danubian Limes was the northeastern border of the Empire, with occasional interruptions such as the fall of the Danubian Limes in 259. The crossing of the Danube into Dacia was achieved by the Imperium Romanum, first in two battles in 102 and then in 106 after the construction of a bridge in 101 near the garrison town of Drobeta at the Iron Gate. This victory over Dacia under Decebalus enabled the Province of Dacia to be created, but in 271 it was lost again.
Avars used the river as their southeastern border in the 6th century.
A look upstream from the Donauinsel in Vienna, Austria during an unusually cold winter (February 2006). A frozen Danube usually occurs just once or twice in a lifetime.
Bratislava does not usually suffer major floods, but the Danube sometimes overflows its right bank
Combat between Russian and Turkish forces on the Danube in 1854, during the Crimean War (1853–1856)
Ancient cultural perspectives of the lower Danube
Part of the rivers Danubius or Istros 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).
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 recount a white monastery on a white island with nine priests.[27]
Along its course, the Danube is a source of drinking water for about 20 million people. In Baden-Württemberg, Germany, almost 30 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 such as Ulm and Passau also use some water from the Danube.
In Austria and Hungary, most water is drawn 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 obtain drinking water from the Danube on a regular basis.[28]
Navigation and transport
Fishing from a Zille on the Danube in Lower Austria, 1982
In the 19th century, the Danube was an important waterway but was, as The Times of London put it, "annually swept by ice that will lift a large ship out of the water or cut her in two as if she were a carrot."[29]
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). Proposals to build a number of new locks 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 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. Downstream of the Iron Gate, the river is free flowing all the way to the Black Sea, a distance of more than 860 kilometres (530mi).
The Danube connects with the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal at Kelheim, with the Donaukanal in Vienna, and with the Danube–Black Sea Canal at Cernavodă.
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 Danube–Tisa–Danube Canals, links sections downstream.
In the Austrian and German sections of the Danube, a type of flat-bottomed boat called a Zille was developed for use along the river. Zillen are still used today for fishing, ferrying, and other transport of goods and people in this area.
Fishing
The importance of fishing on the Danube, which was 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. However, some of the river’s resources have been managed in an environmentally unsustainable manner in the past, leading to damage by pollution, alterations to the channel and major infrastructure development, including large hydropower dams[30].
The sturgeon stocks associated with the Danube River basin have, over the centuries, formed the basis of a large and significant commercial fishery, renowned throughout the world. The construction of the dams, beside overfishing and river pollution has a significant role over sturgeon population decline because create a barrier for fish migratory species that usually spawn in the upper parts of the river[31]. The spawning areas of migratory fishes species has been dramatically reduced by the construction of hydropower and navigation systems at Iron Gates I (1974) and Iron Gates II (1984)Corda (1988). "Iron gates II design and performance of dams- geotechnical considerations"(PDF). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering.Cite journal requires |journal= (help). The initial design of these dams has not included any fish passage facility[32]. The possibility of building a man-made fish pass enabling migration for fish species including the sturgeon, is currently under review by projects such as We Pass[33].
The Upper Danube ecoregion alone has about 60 fish species and the Lower Danube–Dniester ecoregion has about twice as many.[34] Among these are an exceptionally high diversity of sturgeon, a total of six species (beluga, Russian sturgeon, bastard sturgeon, sterlet, starry sturgeon and European sea sturgeon), but these are all threatened and have largely–or entirely in the case of the European sea sturgeon–disappeared from the river.[34] The huchen, one of the largest species of salmon, is endemic to the Danube basin, but has been introduced elsewhere by humans.[35]
Also, leisure and travel cruises on the river are of significance. Besides the often frequented route between Vienna and Budapest, some ships even go from Passau in Germany to the Danube Delta and back. During the peak season, more than 70 cruise liners are in use on the river, while the traffic-free upper parts can only be discovered with canoes or boats.
The Danube region is not only culturally and historically of importance, but also due to its fascinating landmarks and sights important for the regional tourism industry. With its well established infrastructure regarding cycling, hiking and travel possibilities, the region along the Danube attracts every year an international clientele. In Austria alone, there are more than 14million overnight stays and about 6.5million arrivals per year.[36]
The Danube Banks in Budapest are a part of Unesco World Heritage sites, they can be viewed from a number of sightseeing cruises offered in the city.
The Danube Bend is also a popular tourist destination.
Danube Bike Trail
The Danube Bike Trail running along the Schlögener SchlingeThe Danube Bike Trail leading through the city Linz
The Danube Bike Trail (also called Danube Cycle Path or the Donauradweg) is a bicycle trail along the river. Especially the parts through Germany and Austria are very popular, which makes it one of the 10 most popular bike trails in Germany.[37]
The Danube Bike Trail starts at the origin of the Danube and ends where the river flows into the Black Sea. It is divided into four sections:
The Sultans Trail is a hiking trail that runs along the river between Vienna and Smederevo in Serbia. From there the Sultans Trail leaves the Danube, terminating in Istanbul. Sections along the river are as follows.
Resting area along the Donausteig hiking trail near Bad Kreuzen
In 2010 the Donausteig, a hiking trail from Passau to Grein, was opened. It is 450 kilometres (280mi) long and it is divided into 23 stages. The route passes five Bavarian and 40 Austrian communities. An impressive landscape and beautiful viewpoints, which are along the river, are the highlights of the Donausteig.[38]
The Route of Emperors and Kings
The Route of Emperors and Kings is an international touristic route leading from Regensburg to Budapest, calling in Passau, Linz and Vienna.[39] The international consortium ARGE Die Donau-Straße der Kaiser und Könige, comprising ten tourism organisations, shipping companies, and cities, strives for the conservation and touristic development of the Danube region.[36]
In medieval Regensburg, with its maintained old town, stone bridge and cathedral, the Route of Emperors and Kings begins. It continues to Engelhartszell, with the only Trappist monastery in Austria. Further highlight-stops along the Danube, include the "Schlögener Schlinge", the city of Linz, which was European Capital of Culture in 2009 with its contemporary art richness, the Melk Abbey, the university city of Krems and the cosmopolitan city of Vienna. Before the Route of Emperors and Kings ends, you pass Bratislava and Budapest, the latter which was seen as the twin town of Vienna during the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Since ancient Roman times, famous emperors and their retinue travelled on and along the Danube and used the river for travel and transportation. While travelling on the mainland was quite exhausting, most people preferred to travel by ship on the Danube. So the Route of Emperors and Kings was the setting for many important historical events, which characterize the Danube up until today.
The route got its name from the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I of Barbarossa and the crusaders as well as from Richard I of England who had been jailed in the Dürnstein Castle, which is situated above the Danube. The most imperial journeys throughout time were those of the Habsburg family. Once crowned in Frankfurt, the emperors ruled from Vienna and also held in Regensburg the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg. Many famous castles, palaces, residences and state-run convents where built by the Habsburger along the river. Nowadays they still remind us of the bold architecture of the "Donaubarock".
Today, people can not only travel by boat on the Danube, but also by train, by bike on the Danube Bike Trail or walk on the "Donausteig" and visit the UNESCO World Heritage cities of Regensburg, Wachau and Vienna.[40]
Important national parks
Naturpark Obere Donau (Germany)
Donauauen zwischen Neuburg und Ingolstadt (Germany) – map
In 2008, the Finnish indie rock band Wiidakko released a song called Tonava (Danube in Finnish) on their second album Asiat joita et voi koskaan saavuttaa.[41]
The Danube figures prominently in the Bulgarian National Anthem, as a symbolic representation of the country's natural beauty. In Lithuanian folklore songs appearance of Danube (Dunojus, Dunojėlis) is more common than the appearance of the longest Lithuanian river Neman.
The German tradition of landscape painting, the Danube school, was developed in the Danube valley in the 16th century.
One of Claudio Magris's masterpieces is called Danube ( ISBN1-86046-823-3). The book, published in 1986, is a large cultural-historical essay, in which Magris travels the Danube from the very first sources to the delta, tracing the rich European ethnic and cultural heritage, literary and ideological past and present along the way.
Jules Verne's The Danube Pilot (1908) (Le Pilote du Danube) depicts the adventures of fisherman Serge Ladko as he travels down the river. Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, about a boat excursion on the river, is considered one of the greatest stories in the literature of the supernatural.
The river is the subject of the film The Ister (2004).
Parts of the German road movie Im Juli take place along the Danube. In Nicolas Roeg's 1980 film Bad Timing, the border crossing over the Danube between Bratislava and Vienna is a recurring site in which the romance between Milena (Teresa Russell), Alex (Art Garfunkel) and Milena's husband Stefan (Denholm Elliot) is played out.
The river is mentioned a great number of times throughout the Earth's Children Saga by Jean M. Auel, especially in the book The Plains of Passage, when the main characters Ayla and Jondalar travel west along this river, which they call the Great Mother River, due to its big size.
In the 2007 Disney animated TV show Little Einsteins season 2 episode The Glass Slipper Ball based on the Disney animated fairy tale Cinderella, when Leo, Quincy, Annie and June are inside the red rocket ship named Rocket and Rocket transform into a submarine and following the orange fish based on the painting by Andy Warhol, through the Danube River all the way to Schonbrunn Palace in the Hietzing district in Vienna, Austria.
The Hungarian sweet speciality Duna kavics ("Danube pebbles") is named after the river.
A Hungarian folk ensemble, the Danube Folk Ensemble (Duna Művészegyüttes), is named after the river. The group is made up of 30 dancers and musicians. During their performances they show the Hungarian folk music, dance and costumes.
There are Hasidic (Chabad Nigunnim) songs called "dunai", dating from around 1800. They are often lullabys and are named after the river Dunay. Farmers around the river used to come to it and sing spiritual songs to thank God for the great beauty which they saw every day.[citation needed]
With an area of 238,397 km2 (92,046 sq mi), Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe. Located in Southeastern Europe, bordering on the Black Sea, the country is halfway between the equator and the North Pole and equidistant from the westernmost part of Europe—the Atlantic Coast—and the most easterly—the Ural Mountains. Romania has 3,195 kilometers of border. Republic of Moldova and Ukraine lie to the east, Bulgaria lies to the south, and Serbia and Hungary to the west. In the southeast, 245 kilometers of sea coastline provide an important outlet to the Black Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Roughly 1,500 km (932 mi) long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at 2,500 km (1,553 mi) and the Scandinavian Mountains at 1,700 km (1,056 mi). The range stretches from the far eastern Czech Republic (3%) in the northwest through Slovakia (17%), Poland (10%), Hungary (4%) and Ukraine (10%) Serbia (5%) and Romania (50%) in the southeast. The highest range within the Carpathians is known as the Tatra mountains in Slovakia and Poland, where the highest peaks exceed 2,600 m (8,530 ft). The second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks range between 2,500 m (8,202 ft) and 2,550 m (8,366 ft).
The Banat is a geographical and historical region straddling between Central and Eastern Europe that is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania ; the western part in northeastern Serbia ; and a small northern part lies within southeastern Hungary.
The Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, in Bavaria, Germany, connects the Main and the Danube rivers across the European Watershed, running from Bamberg via Nuremberg to Kelheim. The canal connects the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea, providing a navigable artery between the Rhine delta, and the Danube Delta in south-eastern Romania and south-western Ukraine. The present canal was completed in 1992 and is 171 kilometres (106 mi) long.
Europe is often divided into regions based on geographical, cultural or historical criteria. Many European structures currently exist, some are cultural, economic, or political - examples include the Council of Europe, the European Broadcasting Union with the Eurovision Song Contest, and the European Olympic Committees with the European Games. Several transcontinental countries which border mainland Europe, are often included as belonging to a "wider Europe" including, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, as well as the overseas territories and regions of the European Union.
The Iron Gates is a gorge on the river Danube. It forms part of the boundary between Serbia and Romania (north). In the broad sense it encompasses a route of 134 km (83 mi); in the narrow sense it only encompasses the last barrier on this route, just beyond the Romanian city of Orșova, that contains two hydroelectric dams, with two power stations, Iron Gate I Hydroelectric Power Station and Iron Gate II Hydroelectric Power Station.
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin in Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only the lowlands, the plain that remained when the Pliocene Epoch Pannonian Sea dried out.
About 10.5% of Romania's population is represented by minorities. The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians and Romani people, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Poles in Bukovina, Serbs, Croats, Slovaks and Banat Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Jews, Turks and Tatars, Armenians, Russians, Afro-Romanians, and others.
The asp is a European freshwater fish of the Cyprinid family. It is sometimes considered one of two members of the genus Aspius by some taxonomic authorities. It is protected under Appendix III of the Bern Convention and listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List.
The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) is an international organisation with its permanent secretariat in Vienna. It was established by the Danube River Protection Convention, signed by the Danube countries in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1994.
The Danube Commission is concerned with the maintenance and improvement of navigation conditions of the Danube River, from its source in Germany to its outlets in Romania and Ukraine, leading to the Black Sea. It was established in 1948 by seven countries bordering the river, replacing previous commissions that had also included representatives of non-riparian powers. Its predecessor commissions were among the first attempts at internationalizing the police powers of sovereign states for a common cause.
The Danube crested newt or Danube newt is a species of newt found in central and eastern Europe, along the basin of the Danube river and some of its tributaries and in the Dnieper delta. It has a smaller and more slender body than the other crested newts in genus Triturus but like these, males develop a conspicuous jagged seam on back and tail during breeding season.
Ponticola kessleri, the bighead goby or Kessler's goby, is a species of goby native to Eurasia. The bighead goby is a Ponto-Caspian relict species. It inhabits the fresh and oligohaline waters, with mineralisation from 0-0.5‰ up to 1.5-3.0‰.
EuroVelo 6 (EV6), named the "Rivers Route", is a EuroVelo long-distance cycling route that runs along 3,653 km (2,270 mi) some of Europe's major rivers, including much of the Loire, some of the Saône, a short section of the upper Rhine and almost the entire length of Europe’s second longest river, the Danube — from the Atlantic coast of France to the city of Constanța on the Black Sea.
For a long time, it was not necessary to build a Harbour in Vienna, because the existing natural landing points were sufficient for the level of trade on the Danube. It was only when steamships began to arrive in great numbers that a harbour offering safe berths became essential. Even then however, goods were for the most part loaded and unloaded at an unenclosed river harbour that was established at the end of the 19th century.
See Internationalization of the Danube River for events before 1856.
Extreme flooding in Central Europe began after several days of heavy rain in late May and early June 2013. Flooding and damages primarily affected south and east German states, western regions of the Czech Republic (Bohemia), and Austria. In addition, Switzerland, Slovakia, Belarus, Poland, Hungary and Serbia (Vojvodina) were affected to a lesser extent. The flood crest progressed down the Elbe and Danube drainage basins and tributaries, leading to high water and flooding along their banks.
The Danubian Limes, or Danube Limes, refers to the Roman military frontier or limes which lies along the River Danube in the present-day German state of Bavaria, in Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania.
↑ Dyer, Robert (1974). "Matoas, the Thraco-Phrygian name for the Danube, and the IE root *madų". Glotta. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (GmbH & Co. KG). 52 (1/2): 91–95. JSTOR40266286.
↑ Šašel Kos, Marjeta (2009). "Reka kot božanstvo— Sava v antiki" [River as a Deity– The Sava in Antiquity]. In Barachini, Jožef (ed.). Ukročena lepotica: Sava in njene zgodbe[The Tamed Beauty: The Sava and Its Stories](PDF) (in Slovenian and English). Sevnica: Javni zavod za kulturo, šport, turizem in mladinske dejavnosti. pp.42–50. ISBN978-961-92735-0-0. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016.
↑ Ancient Languages of the Balkans, Part One. Paris: Mouton. 1976. p.144.
↑ Tonaw in Sebastian Franck (1542). Weltbuch. p.81.Donaw e.g. in Leonhard Thurneisser zum Thurn (1572). Pison. p.186. Spelling Donau from the 17th century.
↑ Žmuc, Irena (2010). "Sustained Interest"(PDF). In Županek, Bernarda (ed.). Emona: Myth and Reality. Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana; City Museum of Ljubljana. p.63. ISBN978-961-6509-20-6. Archived from the original(PDF) on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
↑ "The Danube". International Association of Water Supply Companies in the Danube River Catchment Area. Archived from the original on 19 May 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
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