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The Neman (based on Russian spelling), Nioman (Belarusian), Nemunas (Lithuanian), Niemen (Polish), or Memel (German), is a river in Europe that rises in central Belarus and flows through Lithuania then forms the northern border of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia's western exclave, which specifically follows its southern channel. It drains into the Curonian Lagoon, narrowly connected to the Baltic Sea. The long Neman is a major river. It flows generally west to Grodno within of the Polish border, north to Kaunas, then westward again to the sea.
The largest river in Lithuania, and the third-largest in Belarus, it is navigable for most of its length. It starts from two small headwaters merging about southwest of the town of Uzda – about southwest of capital city Minsk. Only , an eastward meander, contributes to the Belarus–Lithuania border. Thereafter the river includes notable loops along a minor tectonic fault.
Its drainage basin settled in the late Quaternary to be roughly along the edge of the last glacial sheet so dates to about 25,000 to 22,000 years BC. Its depth varies from in its upper courses to in the lower basin.
The river has lent its name to the Neman Culture, a Neolithic archaeological subculture.
In German language, the part of the river flowing through historic Prussia has been called die Memel at least since about 1250, when Teutonic Knights built Memelburg castle and the town of Memel at the mouth of the Curonian Lagoon, naming it after the indigenous name of the river, Memel. The city of Memel, now in Lithuania, is known today as Klaipėda (confusingly, another city of Memel was on the Dange River, now called the Danė). In German road maps and lexika, only the section within Prussia (starting at Schmalleningken) was named Memel; the bulk of the river was Niemen.
The border between the State of the Teutonic Order and Lithuania was fixed in 1422 by the Treaty of Lake Melno and remained stable for centuries. The Treaty of Tilsit between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I was signed on a raft in the river in 1807. Napoleon's crossing at the outset of the 1812 French invasion of Russia is described in War and Peace and also mentioned in Pan Tadeusz. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles made the river the border separating the Memel Territory from German East Prussia as of 1920. At that time, Germany's Weimar Republic adopted the Deutschlandlied as its official national anthem. In the first stanza of the song, written in 1841, the river is mentioned as the eastern border of a (then politically yet-to-be united) Germany:
| Von der Maas bis an die Memel, Von der Etsch bis an den Belt | From the Meuse to the Memel, From the Adige to the Little Belt |
Lithuanians refer to Nemunas as "the father of rivers" ( Nemunas is a masculine noun in Lithuanian). Countless companies and organizations in Lithuania have "Nemunas" in their name, including a folklore ensemble, a weekly magazine about art and culture, a sanatorium, and numerous guest houses and hotels. Lithuanian and Polish literature often mention the Nemunas. One of the most famous poems by Maironis starts:
| Where the Šešupė runs, where the Nemunas flows |
| That's our homeland, beautiful Lithuania |
Smaller rivers and rivulets in Lithuania with names morphologically derived or cognate are the Nemunykštis, Nemuniukas, Nemunynas, Nemunėlis and Nemunaitis.
The etymology is disputed: some say that "Nemunas" is an old word meaning "a damp place",Aleksandras Vanagas. Lietuvių hidronimų etimologinis žodynas. 227 psl., – Vilnius: Mokslas, 1981. while others that it is "mute, soundless river" (from nemti, nėmti "to become silent", also memelis, mimelis, mėmė "slow, worthless person"). The name is possibly derived from the Finnic word niemi "cape".Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński. O pochodzeniu i praojczyźnie Słowian. – Poznań, 1946.
Art critics praised its depiction in the paintings by Michał Kulesza.
Lithuania has tabled local plans to dredge it, below Kaunas, to make it more consistently usable.
The largest cities on the river are Grodno in Belarus, Alytus and Kaunas in Lithuania, and Sovetsk in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. The river basin has a population of 5.4 million inhabitants. Industrial activities in the section include metal processing, chemical industries, pulp and paper production, and manufacturing of building materials, as well as food-processing plants. In Lithuania, the city of Kaunas, with about 400,000 inhabitants, is the country's principal user of the river; the local industries that impact the river are hydropower generation, machinery, chemical, wood processing and paper production, furniture production, textile and food-processing. In Kaliningrad, industrial centers near the river include Sovetsk and Neman, which have large pulp and paper production facilities.
Above Kaunas a dam was built in 1959 to serve the Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant. The resulting Kaunas Reservoir () is the largest such lake in Lithuania. It occupies ; its length is ; its greatest depth is . The reservoir is a popular destination for Lithuanian .
The Augustów Canal, built in the 19th century, connects Neman to Vistula river.
Its tributaries have borne stone loach, three-spined stickleback, Cyprinid, Brown trout, , gudgeon, Common dace and European chub.
Atlantic salmon migrated upstream to spawn; however, dams on the river, most of them built in the 20th century, have depleted them. The dam at Kaunas does not provide fish ladders. The spawning season took place in the fall. Ethnographic studies, from before the dams, state night fishing, using torches and , was a common technique.
Co-operation which would be beneficial is complicated by the geographical split between three nations but water quality improvement initiatives are underway.
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