1. Introduction

Since I am working as a Cruise Manager on European Waterways but mostly on the Danube River, I once decided to create this homepage to share all my knowledge and passion about the Danube River. I was reading a lot of books and did a lot of research in the last couple of years but with this homepage I do not want to provide information what you would be anyway able to research or read on Wikipedia or in any book. From my own experience, cruising with a lot of people up- and downstream the Danube River, I learned that not all information are essential to get a good and comprehensive picture of this beautiful river.

Fascinating to me is that the Danube River was the longest river in Europe before the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Since then it is the Volga with a length of 3,692 kilometers (2,294 miles). When you consider the river Breg as source river, the Danube River is 2,888 kilometers (1,794 miles) long. Compared with all rivers the Danube River is only the 40^th longest river in the world but there is no other river which connects so many different countries from its source in Donaueschingen to its mouth at the Black Sea.

2. Rivers in general

The sources of rivers are often in highly elevated areas. Rivers flow downhill from their sources to their mouths at the sea. On their way they flow through many different types of terrain and transport sediments through the processes of erosion and deposition. At the sea the river deposits its sediments and creates a delta. Fresh water and salt water compound in these deltas, which are some of the most iologically productive areas in the world.

3. Where to find the source of the Danube River?

In 15 BC Tiberius Claudius Nero (42 BC-37 AD), Roman Emperor (14-37 AD), led the campaign through the Upper Rhine Valley to the Lake Constance to compel the Celts into subjugation. The conquering Romans advanced even further to the north and discovered the headwaters of the Danube River.

The headwaters of the Danube River are situated in the Swabian Jura in a so called Karst-Area, a unique landscape that results from the weathering of bedrock types that are soluble in water. These bedrock types are primarily limestone. Rainwater slowly infiltrates cracks in limestone, dissolving the rock and enlarging the openings and caves. Unique and sensitive ecosystems are created. The Karst-Area is characterized by a lack of surface streams and a subsurface network. The subsurface network has developed under stable conditions, consistent temperature and humidity, over thousands of years.

The question where to find the genuine source of the Danube River has kept scholars busy for centuries. Is it in Donaueschingen, in St. Georgen or in Furtwangen? Fact is that all three towns are situated in the Black Forest, in the district of Schwarzwald-Baar, in Baden-Württemberg, one of the 16 federal states, in the southwestern part of Germany.

Today this question has definitely been settled. The Danube River begins at the confluence of the two headstreams Breg and Brigach near Donaueschingen in the Black Forest.

In 1538 the Cosmographer Sebastian Münster (1488-1552), one of the most eminent German humanists and all-round scholars, marked the source of the Danube River with a quadrangle on a map and inscribed it with "fons danubii". Furthermore he described the Donaubach as "Danuvius" and explained Donaubach and Brigach form the Danube River. Therefore the kilometrage of the Danube River started at the confluence of these rivers in this time.

In 1544 the Geographer and Mathematician Heinricht Loriti "Glarean" (1488-1563) declared that the Danube River is formed by the rivers Brigach and Breg.

4. Where does the name come from?

The Romans were the only people ever to control the entire length of the Danube from its source in the Black Forest to the point where the river flows into the Black Sea. The river formed the northern border of the Roman Empire and was fortified to keep out the Germans or better known the Barbarians. Both the Romans and the Germans worshipped the Danube as a God. The Romans regarded him as male and called him "Danubius", from which we clearly derive the English name for the river. The Germans regarded the river as a female and called her "Donau". Nobody can be sure why the Germans decided that the Danube was female. Nor do we really know why "the Rhine" is masculine. It has long been a matter of conjecture and much heated debate.