Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Danube River

Starting point is 00:00:00 Located in central and eastern Europe is one of the continent's longest and most important rivers, the Danube. For thousands of years, the Danube has been a vital river for commerce and agriculture, and it's served as a natural boundary for empires and kingdoms. Today, it's still vitally important to the ten countries it flows through, and it has become one of the top tourist attractions in Europe. Learn more about the Danube River and the important role that it's played in history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

Starting point is 00:00:53 It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. I've done several episodes now on the Great Rivers of the World. Each river is very different based on its geography. The Nile, for example, cuts through a desert and has allowed an entire civilization to develop along its banks. The Mississippi and Yangtze rivers are economic powerhouses. The Congo and Amazon rivers are enormous rivers that have proven almost impossible to tame.

Starting point is 00:01:31 The Danube is altogether different than all of the other rivers that I've covered so far. The Danube is the second largest river in Europe by both length and discharge, behind the Volta. Whereas the Volga is entirely in Russia, the Danube flows through 10 different countries. The Danube is 2,860 kilometers, or 1,77 miles long. As far as the world's great rivers go, it ranks only 44th. Of its total length, only 2,415 kilometers or 1,501 miles are actually navigable. The Danube starts in Germany near the town of Donau Eshingen in the Black Forest, an elevation of 1,078 meters or 3,537 feet above sea level. From that point, it flows through

Starting point is 00:02:19 Bavaria into Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and also forming a very tiny bit of border with Moldova and also a little bit of Ukraine in the Delta. If you include the entire Danube Basin and all of its tributaries that flow into it, it encompasses 19 countries. It flows into the western part of the Black Sea in the Danube Delta. It is unique in that it flows roughly west to east, and the direction of its flow allows the river to serve as a valuable transportation route for inland countries to reach the sea. Some of the oldest evidence of humans in Europe comes from the Danube River Basin. Collectively, the various cultures from the region are known as the Danubian cultures. The linear pottery culture

Starting point is 00:03:07 can be found there, which is a catch-all term to describe the people who had similar pottery styles, and live from about 5,500 to 4,500 BC. The Vincia culture in Serbia existed from the 6th to 3rd millennium BC, and the Vucidal culture in Croatia also existed around the 3rd millennium BC as well. Most famously, the Danube served as the border of the Roman Empire. The Danube, along with the Rhine River, were natural borders that separated the Romans from the barbarians beyond. Eventually, under Emperor Trajan, Rome did cross the Danube to conquer Dacia, which is mostly

Starting point is 00:03:43 modern-day Romania, but the river and its defenses still served as the border further to the west. After the empire fell in the west, much of the area was still under the control of the Byzantine Empire in the east. The name Danube comes from the Latin word for the river Danubius. All of the countries along the river today use some form of the Latin word as the name of the river. In German, it's known as the Donau. In Czech and Slovak, it's known as the Dunai. In Hungarian, it's the Dunah. And in Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian, it's known as the Dunav. Around the 6th century, the Slavic migration brought Slavic people south to the Danube Basin, and these people were the ancestors of the modern Southern Slavic people, such as the Serbs and Bulgarians.

Starting point is 00:04:26 The medieval people saw the rise of powerful states along the Danube. These included the Kingdom of Hungary and the Bulgarian Empire, as well as the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The river facilitated trade, cultural exchange, and military campaigns, influencing the development of medieval European civilization. During the early modern period, starting in about the 14th and 15th centuries, and lasting through the 19th century, the Danube was a hotly contested region. Primarily it was the Ottomans against various groups at one time or another, including the Kingdom of Serbia, the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Habsburg monarchy.

Starting point is 00:05:04 One of the main routes for the Ottoman expansion into Europe was along the Danube River. It made the transportation of men and equipment easy, and many of the important capital cities and castles were along the river. The borders of Europe were drawn up in the 19th and 20th centuries to create the countries that we know today. Of the ten countries that border or have the river running through them, four have their capital cities on the banks of the Danube. Budapest-Tungaria, Bratislava Slovakia, Viena, Austria, and Belgrade, Serbia. With that, I'd now like to briefly travel down the river,

Starting point is 00:05:38 starting in Germany, and describe the different sections of the river and a few of its highlights. The river experiences over 1,000 meters of vertical drop, most of which occurs in Germany and Austria. This makes the upper sections of the river ideal for hydroelectric dams. Germany and Austria have 59 dams in the first 1,000 kilometers of the river, with an average of one dam every 17 kilometers. The dams on just the Danube provide Austria with 20% of its total electricity. Three of the most important cities in Germany that are on the Danube include Alm, Ingolstadt, and Regensburg. In Austria, the first major city is Linz. Located between the towns of milk and Krems, just upriver from Vienna, is the Wachau Valley. It is a lovely wine-growing

Starting point is 00:06:27 region and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it was one of my last trips before the pandemic in December of 2019. The highlight of the valley has to be the Melk Abbey in the town of Melk. The Abbey of Melk was an important center of learning since its founding in the 11th century. The next major stop is Vienna, or as it's known in German, Vien. It's located on the site of a former Roman military camp known as Vindobona. Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is just 51, downstream from Vienna. The city grew up around Bratislava Castle, which sits on a strategic plateau overlooking the river. A little over 200 kilometers downstream is Budapest. As with Vienna, Budapest is the location of a former Roman military settlement known as a Quincum.

Starting point is 00:07:16 I'm not going to get into too much detail about these three major cities, as they are each worthy of their own episodes, but suffices to say that there are no three national capitals in the world, close to each other as these three, and it's all due to the river. The river then flows south, cutting across Hungary, where it then forms the border between Croatia and Serbia for several hundred kilometers. It then cuts east into Serbia, with the major cities of Novi Sad and Belgrade on its banks. After flowing across Serbia, it then forms the border between Serbia and Romania. This section of the river actually carves gorges through mountains. The river in this section is home to two of the largest hydroelectric plants in all of Europe, the Iron Gate 1 and Iron Gate 2 facilities.

Starting point is 00:08:03 They're joined projects between Serbia and Romania. The Romanian side of the power plant produces 5.24 terawatts annually, while the Serbian side of the power station produces 5.65 terawatts annually. Serbia is considering another smaller dam called the Iron Gate 3. The border between Serbia and Romania very quickly becomes the border between Romania and Bulgaria. After several hundred kilometers of running between the two countries, it then turns north into Romania, where it reaches the Black Sea. It empties into the Black Sea just south of the Ukrainian border with Romania, where the river creates the Danube Delta. The Danube is still a major source of transportation for all of the countries that lie along it. However, it's more important for the landlocked countries along the river than it is for Romania and Bulgaria, which have their own ports on the Black Sea.

Starting point is 00:08:54 transportation along the river is highly susceptible to water levels, which can change in depth dramatically over the course of a year. When there's a lot of rain, it's difficult to navigate the river because it's hard to fit under the bridges. Likewise, when the river is low, it can be hard to travel because some spots are so shallow that nothing can pass. 2022 saw one of the biggest heat waves ever recorded in Europe. It caused water levels on the river to drop so far that sunken ships began appearing that nobody knew were there. there, and this included many German ships from its Black Sea Fleet in World War II. One of the biggest changes in the river in recent years has been the rise in riverboat tourism.

Starting point is 00:09:35 Riverboats are much smaller than ocean-going cruise vessels, often holding only about 100 passengers. These ships can arrive right in the middle of a city and provide immediate access to most tourist sites. One of the things that brought about this boom in riverboat tourism was a project that had been dreamed of for centuries, but was finally completed in 1992. The Rhine-Main-Danub Canal. The other great river in Western Europe is the Rhine River. The idea of connecting the Rhine and Danube rivers goes back to the Emperor Charlemagne in the 8th century.

Starting point is 00:10:08 Connecting major waterways with an inland canal had been done all over the world. The Grand Canal in China connected the Yang Sea and Yellow Rivers. The Erie Canal in the United States connected the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, just as the Chicago Canal connected the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes. The Rhine-Mane-Danub Canal connected the main river, a major tributary of the Rhine, to the Danube. The canal is 171 kilometers or 106 miles long, and it has to rise all the way to 406 meters or 1,332 feet above sea level.

Starting point is 00:10:44 And that is the highest point on Earth, where you can navigate a vessel that can be sailed from the sea. The canal is a total of 16 locks to help raise and lower the ships. The canal starts in the city of Bomberg on the River, Maine, goes through Nuremberg, and finally reaches Kelheim on the Danube River. The canal means that you can travel by ship from the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands all the way across Europe to the Black Sea by water. Determining the economic value of the Danube River is difficult, but if you consider the fact that tens of millions of people relate to the water,

Starting point is 00:11:19 lie on the river for drinking water, plus all of the economic activity along the river, and all of the transportation, tourism, and hydroelectric production, the total economic value of the river would easily be in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year. In addition to all of the economic activity, there are 21 national parks located along the river, multiple world heritage sites, and other protected historical and natural areas. The river has also served as a source of inspiration for artists throughout. the years. The Danube School was a 16th century school of German landscape painting. Johann Strauss composed the blue Danube waltz, which was inspired by the river, and the great

Starting point is 00:11:59 Danube Adventure was one of the earliest travelogues that was published in 1838. What makes the Danube such an important river isn't its size or the amount of water that flows through it, although it is much bigger than most rivers in the world. What makes it special is the history and culture surrounding the river and the many countries along its bank that call it home. home. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise

Starting point is 00:12:42 is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the completionist club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group, or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Danube River

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