Rhine knee

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The Rhine knee or Rhine's knee (German : Rheinknie) is the name of several distinctive bends in the course of the river Rhine.

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Basel

Rhine knee, view from Basel Minster Basel-Muensterblick-2006-patpatpat1.jpg
Rhine knee, view from Basel Minster

In Basel, the Rhine changes its westerly direction of flow in an angle of 90 degrees to a northerly direction, along the borders of France and Germany, to flow to the North Sea. [1] From a political viewpoint, the Rhine knee is near the tripoint of France, Germany and Switzerland. Therefore, this region is called Regio TriRhena. [2] [3] The Basel knee separates the High Rhine from the Upper Rhine section.

The whole Rhine knee lies within Swiss territory and is settled by the city of Basel and its adjacent municipalities Riehen and Bettingen. Farther north are the German cities of Lörrach and Weil am Rhein as well as the French towns Huningue and Saint Louis.[ citation needed ]

The Basel knee arose in the last glacial period (Würm glaciation), when the river flowed directly from today's Grenzach-Wyhlen west of the city to the area of Weil am Rhein in the north. The northern Wiese tributary transported large rubble and gravel sediments from the Feldberg glacier into the Rhine Valley, enforcing the river's characteristic bend to the south.[ citation needed ]

Bingen

Bingen Hole Binger Loch 2011 1.JPG
Bingen Hole

The Upper Rhine again changes its flow direction from west to north at another bend near the German town of Bingen and the mouth of the Nahe tributary. Coming here from the city of Mainz, parallel to the crest of the Rhenish Massif, the turn to the north at Bingen marks the opening of a water gap between the Hunsrück mountain range in the west and the Taunus in the east, stretching up to Koblenz in the north and separating the Upper from the Middle Rhine.[ citation needed ]

The Rhine narrows at the site are called Bingen Hole (Binger Loch), marked by the Mouse Tower on an island in the river and uphill Ehrenfels Castle. Until several blasting operations in the 19th century, an underwater reef of quartzite was a great threat to ship transport.[ citation needed ]

Düsseldorf

There is also a bridge in Düsseldorf called "Rhine knee bridge". [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhine</span> Major river in Western Europe

The Rhine is one of the major European rivers. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Swiss-Austrian border. From Lake Constance downstream, it forms part of the Swiss-German border. After that the Rhine defines much of the Franco-German border. It then flows in a mostly northerly direction through the German Rhineland. Finally in Germany, the Rhine turns into a predominantly westerly direction and flows into the Netherlands where it eventually empties into the North Sea. It drains an area of 9,973 km2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upper Rhine</span> Section of the Rhine in Germany and Switzerland

Upper Rhine is the section of the Rhine between the Middle Bridge in Basel, Switzerland, and the Rhine knee in Bingen, Germany. It is surrounded by the Upper Rhine Plain. Most of its upper section marks the France–Germany border.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bingen am Rhein</span> Town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weil am Rhein</span> Town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Weil am Rhein is a German town and commune. It is on the east bank of the River Rhine, and extends to the tripoint of Switzerland, France, and Germany. It is the most southwesterly town in Germany and a suburb in the Trinational Eurodistrict of Basel. The town has around 30,000 inhabitants, and the Eurodistrict metropolitan area has about 830,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High Rhine</span> Part of the river Rhine in Switzerland and Germany

High Rhine is the section of the Rhine between Lake Constance and the city of Basel, flowing in a general east-to-west direction and forming mostly the Germany–Switzerland border. It is the first of four named sections of the Rhine between Lake Constance and the river delta at the North Sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiese (river)</span> A tributary of the Rhine in the southern Black Forest

The Wiese is a river, 57.8 kilometres long, and a right-hand tributary of the Rhine in southwest Germany and northwest Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bingen (Rhein) Hauptbahnhof</span> Railway station in Bingen am Rhein, Germany

Bingen (Rhein) Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the German city of Bingen am Rhein on the West Rhine Railway. It is located in the borough of Bingerbrück. The station that serves central Bingen is called Bingen Stadt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Rhine Railway</span> Railway line in Germany

The West Rhine railway is a famously picturesque, double-track electrified railway line running for 185 km from Cologne via Bonn, Koblenz, and Bingen to Mainz. It is situated close to the western (left) bank of the river Rhine and mostly aligned to allow 160 km/h operation between Cologne and Koblenz and between Bingen and Mainz. Line speed between Koblenz and Bingen is restricted by the meandering nature of the Rhine Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wutach (river)</span> River in Germany

The Wutach is a river, 91 kilometres long, in the southeastern part of the Black Forest in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is a right-hand tributary of the Rhine. In its lower reaches it flows for about 6 kilometres along the border with the canton of Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manubach</span> Municipality in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Manubach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Köln Süd station</span> Railway station in Germany

Köln Süd station is located in the southwestern edge of the Innenstadt of Cologne in the district of Neustadt-Süd in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located between the streets of Luxemburger Straße and Zülpicher Straße. The station is a stop for regional services on the West Rhine Railway. The Cologne freight railway bypass branches off from the station over the South Bridge; it is also used as needed by passenger trains. The station has four platform tracks at two island platforms and two tracks without platforms, which are used by the intensive freight traffic. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 4 station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Untersee (Lake Constance)</span>

The Untersee, also known as Lower Lake Constance, is the smaller of the two lakes that together form Lake Constance. The boundary between Switzerland and Germany runs through it. The lake surrounds several islands, the largest being Reichenau Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhine romanticism</span>

The Rhine romanticism was the interpretation of the landscape conditions and history of the Rhine Valley in the cultural-historical period of the romanticism, by the end of the 18th century until the late 19th century and was continued in all forms of art expression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bingen Forest</span> Mountain range in Germany

The Bingen Forest is part of the Hunsrück, a low mountain range in the Central Uplands of Germany. It is up to 638.6 m above sea level (NN) and is located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Kehl (1796)</span> Battle in the war of the first coalition

During the Battle of Kehl, a Republican French force under the direction of Jean Charles Abbatucci mounted an amphibious crossing of the Rhine River against a defending force of soldiers from the Swabian Circle. In this action of the War of the First Coalition, the French drove the Swabians from their positions in Kehl and subsequently controlled the bridgehead on both sides of the Rhine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germany–Switzerland border</span> International border

The border between the modern states of Germany and Switzerland extends to 362 kilometres (225 mi), mostly following Lake Constance and the High Rhine, with territories to the north mostly belonging to Germany and territories to the south mainly to Switzerland. Exceptions are the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen, the Rafzerfeld and hamlet of Nohl of the canton of Zürich, Bettingen and Riehen municipalities and part of the city of Basel in the canton of Basel-City and the old town of the German city of Konstanz, which is located south of the Seerhein. The canton of Schaffhausen is located almost entirely on the northern side of the High Rhine, with the exception of the southern part of the municipality of Stein am Rhein. The German municipality of Büsingen am Hochrhein is an enclave surrounded by Swiss territory.

A knee, or river knee, is a bend in a river changing its course greatly, suddenly to a different general direction. It is different from most (one-off) riverbends, and from a (particular) meander which connotes one of several bends in a sinuous course, without changing the general direction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weil am Rhein station</span> Railway junction in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Weil am Rhein station is a small railway junction in Weil am Rhein in the German state of Baden-Württemberg on the German-Swiss border. The Weil am Rhein–Lörrach railway branches off the Mannheim–Karlsruhe–Basel railway at the station. From 1878 to 1937, the station was the starting point of the Weil am Rhein–Saint-Louis line to the French town of Saint-Louis.

References

  1. "Rhine River (scroll down a bit to find the info)". WorldAtlas. 2021-06-28. Retrieved 2025-01-24.
  2. "espaces-transfrontaliers.org: Territory factsheets". www.espaces-transfrontaliers.org. Retrieved 2025-01-24.
  3. "Home". TourismTriRhena.com. Retrieved 2025-01-24.
  4. "Rheinkniebrücke (Rhine Knee Bridge) in Dusseldorf, Germany". GPSmyCity. Retrieved 2025-01-24.