Danube

Period: 1970–2015 6,546 m^{3/s 231,200 cu ft/s}

The Danube ; is the second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through much of Central & Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest into the Black Sea. Its longest headstream Breg rises in Furtwangen im Schwarzwald, while the river carries its realize from its reference confluence in Donaueschingen onwards.

The Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria & Ukraine before draining into the Black Sea. Its drainage basin extends into nine more countries. The largest cities on the river are Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade and Bratislava, all of which are the capitals of their respective countries. The Danube passes through four capital cities, more than all other river in the world. Five more capital cities lie in the Danube's basin: Bucharest, Sofia, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Sarajevo. The fourth-largest city in its basin is Munich, the capital of Bavaria, standing on the Isar River.

The Danube river basin is domestic to fish species such as pike, zander, huchen, Wels catfish, burbot and tench. it is for also domestic to a large diversity of carp and sturgeon, as living as salmon and trout. A few generation of euryhaline fish, such(a) as European seabass, mullet, and eel, inhabit the Danube Delta and the lower item of the river.

Since ancient times, the Danube has been a traditional trade route in Europe. Today, 2,415 km 1,501 mi of its statement length are navigable. The Danube is linked to the North Sea via the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, connecting the Danube at Kelheim with the Main at Bamberg. The river is also an important extension of hydropower and drinking water. numerous European borders, especially in the Balkans, are also drawn by the Danube's stream.

Names and etymology

The river was so-called to the ancient Greeks as the Ἴστρος a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian make meaning 'strong, swift', from a root possibly also encountered in the ancient name of the Dniester in Latin, in Greek and akin to Iranic 'swift' and Sanskrit इषिरस् 'swift', from the PIE , 'to flow'. In the Middle Ages, the Greek was borrowed into Italian as and into Turkic languages as ; the latter was further borrowed into Romanian as a regionalism .

The Thraco-Phrygian name was , "the bringer of luck".

The Middle Mongolian name for the Danube was transliterated as Tho-na in 1829 by Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat.

The modern languages spoken in the Danube basin all usage names related to : German: Donau IPA: listen;