Danube

 ( International Rivers Of Europe ) 

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• Germany
• Donaueschingen in the State of Baden-Württemberg – rivers Brigach and Breg join to form the Danube
• Tuttlingen in Baden-Württemberg
• Tuttlingen in Baden-Württemberg
• Sigmaringen in Baden-Württemberg
• Riedlingen in Baden-Württemberg
• Munderkingen in Baden-Württemberg
• Ehingen in Baden-Württemberg
• Erbach, Baden-Württemberg in Baden-Württemberg
• Ulm in Baden-Württemberg
• Neu-Ulm in Bavaria
• Günzburg in Bavaria
• Dillingen an der Donau in Bavaria
• Donauwörth in Bavaria
• Neuburg an der Donau in Bavaria
• Ingolstadt in Bavaria
• Kelheim in Bavaria
• Regensburg in Bavaria
• Straubing in Bavaria
• Deggendorf in Bavaria
• Passau in Bavaria
• Austria
• Linz, capital of Upper Austria
• Krems in Lower Austria
• Tulln in Lower Austria
• 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').
• Slovakia
• Bratislava – capital of Slovakia
• Komárno
• Štúrovo
• Hungary
• Mosonmagyaróvár
• Győr
• Komárom
• Esztergom
• Visegrád – This section of the river is also called Danube Bend.
• Vác
• Szentendre
• Göd
• Dunakeszi
• Budapest – capital of Hungary, the largest city and the largest agglomeration on Danube (about 3,300,000 people).
• Szigetszentmiklós
• Százhalombatta
• Ráckeve
• Adony
• Dunaújváros
• Dunaföldvár
• Paks
• Kalocsa
• Baja
• Mohács
• Croatia
• Vukovar
• Ilok
• Serbia
• Apatin
• Bačka Palanka
• Čerević
• Futog
• Veternik
• Novi Sad – regional capital of Vojvodina
• Sremski Karlovci
• Zemun
• Belgrade – capital of Serbia
• Pančevo
• Smederevo
• Kovin
• Veliko Gradište
• Golubac
• Donji Milanovac
• Kladovo
• Bulgaria
• Vidin
• Lom
• Kozloduy
• Oryahovo
• Nikopol
• Belene
• Svishtov
• Ruse
• Tutrakan
• Silistra
• Romania
• Moldova Nouă
• Orșova
• Drobeta-Turnu Severin
• Calafat
• Bechet
• Dăbuleni
• Corabia
• Turnu Măgurele
• Zimnicea
• Giurgiu
• Oltenița
• Călărași
• Fetești
• Cernavodă
• Hârșova
• Brăila – limit of the maritime sector of the Danube
• Galați – largest port on the Danube
• Isaccea
• Tulcea
• Sulina
• Moldova
• Giurgiulești
• Ukraine
• Reni
• Izmail
• Kiliia
• Vylkove

• Ada Kaleh Island
• Ostrovul Mare, Gogoșu
• Balta Ialomiței
• Belene Island
• Csepel Island
• Čakljanac Island
• Donauinsel
• Forkontumac
• Great Brăila Island
• Great War Island
• Island of Mohács
• Koh Chang Island, Sremski Karlovci
• Kozloduy Island
• Margaret Island
• Ostrovo (Kostolac)
• Ostrovul Ciocănești
• Ostrovul Mare, Islaz
• Paradajz
• , Novi Sad
• Island of Šarengrad
• Szigetköz
• Island of Szentendre
• Vardim Island
• Island of Vukovar
• Žitný ostrov

• 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 0.12% (1200 ppm), from Passau to Devín Gate the gradient lessens to 0.06% (600 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 0.006% (60 ppm).
• Lower Section: From Iron Gate to Pătlăgeanca, with average gradient as little as 0.003% (30 ppm).
• Delta: From Pătlăgeanca to Sulina, where the Danube meets the Black Sea. The river splits into three main distributaries.

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 . 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 Canyon that forms part of the boundary between Serbia and Romania; it contains the Iron Gate I Hydroelectric Power Station dam, followed at about 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 .

There are three artificial waterways built on the Danube: the Danube-Tisa-Danube Canal (DTD) in the Banat and Bačka regions (Vojvodina, northern province of Serbia); the Danube-Black Sea Canal, between Cernavodă and Constanța (Romania) finished in 1984, shortens the distance to the Black Sea by ; the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal is about , finished in 1992, linking the North Sea to the Black Sea. A Danube-Aegean canal has been proposed.

River cruise on the Danube is a popular sightseeing activity, especially between Passau, Germany, to Budapest, Hungary.

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 along the river.

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.

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.

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. The erosion of the Upper Rhine valley led to stream capture; waters from the Alps changed their direction and began feeding the Rhine. Today's upper Danube is thus an underfit stream. 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 sinks into these underground channels at two locations in the Swabian Alb, which are referred to as the Donauversickerung (Danube Sinkhole). Most of this water resurfaces only south at the Aachtopf, Germany's wellspring with the highest flow, an average of , north of Lake Constance—thus feeding the Rhine. The European Water Divide applies only for those waters that pass beyond this point, which only occurs during the days of the year when the Danube carries enough water to survive the sinkholes in the Donauversickerung.

Since such large volumes of underground water erode much of the surrounding limestone, it is predicted that the Danube upper course will one day disappear entirely in favor of the Rhine, an event called Stream capture.

The hydrological parameters of Danube are regularly monitored in Croatia at Batina, Dalj, Vukovar and Ilok.

Darius the Great, king of Persia, crossed the river in the late 6th century BCE to invade European Scythia and to subdue the Scythians.

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 BCE.

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 37 CE 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 Roman 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 abandoned by emperor Aurelian.

Avar Khaganate used the river as their southeastern border in the 6th century.

File:Trajan's Bridge Across the Danube, Modern Reconstruction.jpg|The oldest bridge across the Danube, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus between 103 and 105 Common Era, directed by Trajan, modern Serbia and Romania File:Mária Valéria´s bridge.jpg|At Esztergom and Štúrovo, the Danube separates Hungary from Slovakia. File:Vena 06.jpg|The Danube in Vienna File:Danube at belene.jpg|The Danube between Belene and Belene Island, Bulgaria File:Frozen Danube Reichsbrücke.JPG|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. File:Bratislavaminorflood.jpg|Bratislava does not usually suffer major floods, but the Danube sometimes overflows its right bank.

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. Dacia Preistorica , Nicolae Densusianu (1913).

The most important wars of the Ottoman Empire along the Danube include the Battle of Nicopolis (1396), the Siege of Belgrade (1456), 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).

In the 19th century the beaver was hunted to extinction along the Danube in Bavaria. The Beluga sturgeon population also collapsed, Danube sturgeons had been commercially exploited for meat and caviar since the 5th century BC. River regulation schemes commenced in the 19th century and continued into the 20th century. The Danube river has a total of 18 major dams, including Melk and Freudenau in Vienna.

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 Engelszell Abbey 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 of which was seen as the twin town of Vienna during the times of the Austria-Hungary. Since Ancient Rome, famous emperors and their retinue traveled on and along the Danube and used the river for travel and transportation. While traveling 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 Crusades 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 were 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.

• Naturpark Obere Donau (Germany)
• Donauauen zwischen Neuburg und Ingolstadt (Germany) – map
• Nature protection area Donauleiten (Germany)
• Nationalpark Donau Auen (Austria) – map
• Chránená krajinná oblasť Dunajské luhy (Slovakia) – map
• Danube-Ipoly National Park (Hungary) – map
• Danube-Drava National Park (Hungary) – map
• Naturalpark Kopački Rit (Croatia) – map
• Gornje Podunavlje Nature Reserve (Serbia) – map
• Fruška Gora National Park (Serbia)
• Koviljsko-petrovaradinski rit Nature Reserve (Serbia)
• Great War Island Nature Reserve (Serbia)
• Đerdap National park (Serbia)
• Iron Gates Natural Park (Romania)
• Persina Nature Park (Bulgaria) – map
• Kalimok-Brushlen Protected Site (Bulgaria) – map
• Srebarna Nature Reserve (Bulgaria) – map
• Măcin Mountains Natural Park (Romania)
• Balta Mică a Brăilei Natural Park (Romania)
• Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (Romania) – map
• Danube Biosphere Reserve in Ukraine

File:Gornje Podunavlje.jpg|Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve in Serbia File:Golubac Fortress (град Голубац).jpg|Golubac Fortress in Đerdap National park, Serbia

• The Danube is mentioned in the title of a famous waltz by Austrian composer Johann Strauss, The Blue Danube Waltz ( On the Beautiful Blue Danube). This piece is well known across the world and is also used widely as a lullaby. The Waves of the Danube () is a waltz by the Romanian composer Iosif Ivanovici (1845–1902); as the Anniversary Song, it has been performed by many vocalists, such as Al Jolson, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Lynn, Tom Jones, and countless others. It is most commonly known as the Anniversary Waltz, though that is actually a different song and melody. Joe Zawinul wrote a symphony about the Danube called Stories of the Danube. It was performed for the first time at the 1993 Anton Bruckner festival, at Linz.
• The Danube figures prominently in the Mila Rodino, as a symbolic representation of the country's natural beauty. In Lithuanian folklore songs, the appearance of Danube (Dunojus, Dunojėlis) is more common than the appearance of the longest Lithuanian river Neman.
• The German and Austrian tradition of landscape painting, the Danube school, developed in the 16th century Danube valley by artists who worked autonomously.
• One of Claudio Magris's masterpieces is called Danube (). The book, published in 1986, is a large cultural-historical essay, in which Magris travels the Danube from the first sources to the delta, tracing the European ethnic and cultural heritage, literary and ideological history.
• The Great Danube Adventure was published in 1838 as epic travel diary.
• 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 short story "The Willows" mostly takes place on the river.

• In the Star Trek universe, the Danube-class runabout is a type of starship used by the Federation Starfleet, featured prominently in the series.
• Miklós Jancsó's film the Blue Danube Waltz (1992)

• 2006 European floods
• Black Sea drainage basin
• Between the Woods and the Water, a travel book telling of a Danubian journey in 1934
• Danube Monarchy
• Danubian Principalities
• Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River
• The Ister, 2004 film
• List of cities and towns on the river Danube
• List of crossings of the Danube

• Lóczy, Dénes. The Danube: Morphology, Evolution, and Environmental Issues. In Avijit Gupta, ed., Large Rivers: Geomorphology and Management. 2nd Ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2022, pp. 335–367. ISBN 9781119412601
• Sommerwerk, Nike, Jurg Bloesch, Christian Baumgartner, Thomas Bittl, Dubravka Cerba, Bela Csanyi, Grigore Davideanu, Martin Dokulil, Georg Frank, Iulia Grecu, Thomas Hein, Vladimir Kovac, Ilulian Nichersu, Tibor Mikuska, Karin Pall, Momir Paunovic, Carmen Postolache, Maja Rakovic, Cristina Sandu, Martin Schneider-Jacoby, Katharina Stefke, Klement Tockner, Ion Toderas, and Laurentia Ungureanu. The Danube River Basin. In Klement Tockner, Christiane Zarfl, and Christopher T. Robinson (eds.), Rivers of Europe, 2nd Ed. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier, 2022, pp. 83–181. ISBN 978-0-08-102612-0

• (2025). 9780198609674, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198609674

• (2025). 9781780277783, Birlinn. ISBN 9781780277783

• (2025). 9781784293321, Heron Books. ISBN 9781784293321

• Danube watershed map and information from the World Resources Institute
• Danube Panorama Project
• сайт о Дунае
• Danube and the sport of rowing
• Danube image pool on Flickr
• Danube Tourist Commission
• International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River
• Description of the Danube estuary in June 1877, The Times of London
• Old maps of the Danube, Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, The National Library of Israel