The Aare () or Aar () is the main tributary of the High Rhine (its discharge even exceeds that of the latter at their confluence)[
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Its total length from its source to its junction with the Rhine comprises about ,
There are more than 40 hydroelectric plants along the course of the Aare.[
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The hydronymy dates to at least the La Tène period, and it is attested as Nantaror "Aare valley" in the Berne zinc tablet.
The name was Latinized as Arula/ Arola/ Araris.
Course
The Aare rises in the great Aargletschers (Aare Glaciers) of the Bernese Alps, in the canton of Bern and west of the Grimsel Pass.[ The Aare leaves the Grimselsee just to the east to the Grimsel Hospiz, below the Grimsel Pass, and then flows northwest through the Haslital, forming on the way the magnificent Handegg Waterfall, , past Guttannen.
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Right after Innertkirchen it is joined by its first major tributary, the Gamderwasser. Less than later the river carves through a limestone ridge in the Aare Gorge ().[ A little past Meiringen, near Brienz, the river expands into Lake Brienz. Near the west end of the lake it indirectly receives its first important tributary, the Lütschine, by the Lake of Brienz. It then runs across the swampy plain of the Bödeli (Swiss German diminutive for ground) between Interlaken and Unterseen before flowing into Lake Thun.]
Near the west end of Lake Thun, the river indirectly receives the waters of the Kander, which has just been joined by the Simme, by the Lake of Thun. Lake Thun marks the head of navigation.[ On flowing out of the lake it passes through Thun, and then flows through the city of Bern, passing beneath eighteen bridges and around the steeply-flanked peninsula on which the Old City is located. To the south of the Old City peninsula is the , a weir which provides water for the small Matte hydroelectric power plant. River swimming in the Aare is popular in Bern, and the river is sometimes full of bathers on summer days. The river soon changes its northwesterly flow for a due westerly direction, but after receiving the Saane or La Sarine it turns north until it nears Aarberg. There, in one of the major Swiss engineering feats of the 19th century, the Jura water correction, the river, which had previously rendered the countryside north of Bern a swampland through frequent flooding, was diverted by the Aare-Hagneck Canal into the Lac de Bienne. From the upper end of the lake, at Nidau, the river issues through the Nidau-Büren Canal, also called the Aare Canal,][ and then runs east to Büren. The lake absorbs huge amounts of eroded gravel and snowmelt that the river brings from the Alps, and the former swamps have become fruitful plains: they are known as the "vegetable garden of Switzerland".
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From here the Aare flows northeast for a long distance, past the ambassador town Solothurn
Tributaries
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Limmat (after and northeast of Brugg, and northwest of Baden)
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Reuss (after and northeast of Brugg, and northwest of Baden)
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Aabach (coming from Seetal, in Wildegg)
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Suhre (after and north of Aarau)
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Aabach (from the left in Aarau)
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Stegbach
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Dünnern (in Olten)
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Wigger (right before Aarburg)
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Murg (before, west of Murgenthal)
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(Grosse) Emme (after, east of Solothurn)
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Lake of Bienne
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La Suze (in Biel/Bienne, right next to the outflow)
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Zihlkanal
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Saane/La Sarine (after, west of Wohlensee)
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Gürbe (in Muri bei Bern)
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Zulg (west of Steffisburg)
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Lake Thun
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Lake Brienz
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Lütschine (at the end of Lake Brienz, right next to the outflow)
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Gadmerwasser (right after, northwest of Innertkirchen)
Reservoirs
Incidents
On May 26, 2022, Indonesia West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil's eldest child, Emmeril Kahn Mumtadz,
See also
Notes
Footnotes
External links
