DANUBE

Geography of the Danube

The Danube River, German Donau, Slovak Dunaj, Hungarian Duna, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian Dunav, Romanian Dunărea, Ukrainian Dunay and in Turkish the Tuna river, is the second longest river in Europe after the Volga.
Classified as an international waterway, it originates in the town of Donaueschingen —which is in the Black Forest of Germany— at the confluence of the rivers Brigach and Breg. The Danube then flows southeast, passing through 4 capital cities,  for some 1,770 miles (2,850 km) to its mouth on the Black Sea.   

Once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire , the river passes through or touches the borders of 10 countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

The Danube is navigable by ocean ships from the Black Sea to Brăila in Romania and by river ships to Kelheim, Bavaria, Germany; smaller craft can navigate further upstream to Ulm, Württemberg, Germany.
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 3,500 km.

History

The Danube basin was the area of some of the earliest human cultures.  Many places of the 6th to 3rd millennium B.C.  are sited along the Danube  f.i. Vučedol culture (Vukovar, Croatia), Vinča culture (Vinča, Serbia) & (Lempinski Vir, Serbia).
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.
The river was one of the Roman Empire's frontiers; Trajan build the first bridge on the Danube near now Orseva.



The oldest bridge across the Danube, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus between 103-105 CE, directed by Trajan, connected modern Serbia and Romania.


Avars used the river as their southeastern border in the sixth century.

Between the late 14th and late 19th centuries, the Ottoman Empire competed first with the Kingdom of Hungary and later with the Austrian Habsburgs for controlling the Danube, which formed the northern border of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Many of the Ottoman–Hungarian Wars (1366–1526) and Ottoman–Habsburg wars (1526–1791) were fought along the river.
The most important wars of the Ottoman Empire along the Danube include the Battle of Nicopolis (1396), the Battle of Mohács (1526), the first Turkish Siege of Vienna (1529), the Siege of Esztergom (1543), the Long War (1591–1606), the Battle of Vienna (1683), the Great Turkish War (1683–1699), the Crimean War (1853–1856) and the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878).

Danube delta

The Danube Delta has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991. Its wetlands support vast flocks of migratory birds.
The Danube Delta  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, is situated in Ukraine (Odessa Oblast). The approximate surface is 4,152 km²).

 The Danube Delta hosts over 300 species of birds as well as 45 freshwater fish species in its numerous lakes and marshes.