The Vilnia (also Vilnelė; , Vilnia ; ) is a river primarily running through Eastern Lithuania. Its source is near the villages of and , 6 km south of Šumskas, nearby to the A3–M7 Medininkai–Kamenny Log border crossing complexes of the Belarus–Lithuania border for approximately 12 kilometers.
Geography
The Vilnia is 79.6 km long
and its basin covers 624 sq. km. The river's steepness is 124.6 metres from the source to the mouth.
For 13 km, its flow marks the Belarus-Lithuania border, and the remaining 69 km are in Lithuania where it flows into the
Neris River at
Vilnius. Eventually, its waters, via the Neris draining into the
Neman River, reach the
Baltic Sea. Its
confluence with the Neris lies within the city of
Vilnius, and the river's name is regarded to have been the source of the city's name.
Sources
The springs along the Vilnia's length contribute to its flow.
Locals refer to the river's starting source as the Holy Stream.
A series of
accessing the river's
, drilled in the early 20th century, remained a major source of potable water for the city into the late 20th century.
Naming
The name of the river derives from the Lithuanian language word
vilnis ("a surge") or
vilnyti ("to surge"). Beneath it stands the Indo-European root wel-/wl- meaning "to roll", "to spin".
, the
diminutive form of the original
hydronym Vilnia, came into popular use in Lithuanian and in Soviet times largely replaced the latter because of
Polish language influence — Poles translated Lithuanian name of the river with such diminutive form (Wilenka).
Fauna
Within the river basin, approximately 30 living species of fish and birds have protected status.
In an effort to restore the upstream migration of
salmonids in the basin, a
fish ladder was constructed on the Vilnia in 2000.
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