Danube (ancient
Danubius, and in the lower part of its course, Ister; German
Donau; Slovak Dunaj; Hungarian Duna; Serbo-Croatian and
Bulgarian Dunav; Romanian Dunărea; Ukrainian Dunay), second
longest river in Europe, and one of the principal transportation arteries on the
continent. It is the only major European river to flow from west to east. It
rises in the Black Forest region of Germany and flows in a generally easterly
direction for a distance of about 2850 km (1770 mi), emptying, on the Romanian
coast, into the Black Sea. The delta of the Danube is a region of desolate
marshes and swamps, broken by tree-covered elevations. The Danube is navigable
by ocean vessels to Brăila, Romania, and by river craft as far as Ulm in
Germany, a distance of 2,600 km (1,600 mi). About 60 of the approximately 300
tributaries of the Danube are navigable. The principal ones, in the order in
which they merge with the Danube, include the Lech, Isar, Inn, Morava, Váh, Raab
(Rába), Drava (Drau), Tisza, Sava, Siret, and Prut. The Danube basin, more than
777,000 sq km (more than 300,000 sq mi) in area, includes parts of Germany,
Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. Important cities on the
river include Ulm, Regensburg, and Passau, in Germany; Linz and Vienna, in
Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; Budapest, Hungary; Belgrade, Serbia; and Galaţi
and Brăila, in Romania. Canals link the Danube to the Main, Rhine, and Odra
(Oder) rivers, providing a commercial route between the Black and North seas.
The Danube Valley between Linz and Vienna, Austria, is noted for its beautiful
scenery.
Several countries have built dams and hydroelectric power
plants on the Danube. In the early 1970s the Iron Gate hydroelectric project was
completed as a joint effort between the governments of Romania and the former
Yugoslavia. Located at the Iron Gate gorge on the border of Romania and Serbia
(which inherited Yugoslavia’s portion of the project when that country dissolved
in 1991 and 1992), the project includes a dam and two power plants. The
construction of the Gabčíkovo dam, located in southern Slovakia, began in the
1980s and was completed in late 1992.
The Danube has always been an important route between
western Europe and the Black Sea. It formed, in the 3rd century ad, the northern boundary of the Roman
Empire in southeastern Europe. Early in the Middle Ages Goths, Huns, Avars,
Slavs, Magyars, and other migratory peoples crossed the Danube on their way to
invade the Roman, and later the Byzantine, Empire. It served as an artery for
the Crusaders into Byzantium (Constantinople) and from there to the Holy Land;
later it eased the advancement (beginning at the end of the 14th century) of the
Ottomans into western and central Europe. In the 19th century it became an
essential link between the growing industrial centers of Germany and the
agricultural areas of the Balkan Peninsula. At that time, most of the river’s
middle and upper course lay within the Austrian Empire; the lower part belonged
to the decaying Ottoman Empire. As Ottoman control over the Balkans weakened,
Austria and the other European powers moved to prevent Russia from acquiring the
strategic Danube delta.
By the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), which ended
the Crimean War, a European commission was established to control the delta. The
commission made a number of changes in the delta and in the lower reaches of the
river beneficial to navigation. The Treaty of Versailles (1919), concluding
World War I, confirmed the European commission, and set up another one to
control the Danube above the delta. During World War II (1939-1945) the
commissions were abolished by Nazi Germany, which controlled all of the river
from 1940 to 1944. After the war the Communist-bloc nations bordering the river
formed a new Danube Commission, headquartered at Budapest. Austria was admitted
in 1960 and West Germany in 1963.
In the late 1970s the Czechoslovak and Hungarian
governments launched the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric project on the
section of the Danube that formed the boundary between the two countries. The
project called for the construction of two major dams, one at Nagymaros in
Hungary, and the other at Gabčíkovo in eastern Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia).
However, in 1989 Hungary abandoned the project, claiming that the dams and the
network of canals and reservoirs surrounding them would change the flow of the
river and thus damage the surrounding environment. Czechoslovakia proceeded with
the construction of the Gabčíkovo dam, despite angry protests from the Hungarian
government, which demanded that the international boundary between the two
countries be redrawn to reflect the Danube’s northward shift. Slovakia inherited
the dispute when it became an independent country in January 1993. That year,
the Slovak and Hungarian governments referred the dispute to the International
Court of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands, for mediation. In 1997 the court
ruled that both countries had violated the original hydroelectric project
agreement and ordered them to compensate one another and continue
negotiations.
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