Rhine - Geography.

Rhine - Geography. I INTRODUCTION Rhine (German Rhein; French Rhin; Dutch Rijn; ancient Rhenus), one of the principal rivers of Europe. Rising in eastern Switzerland, the Rhine flows 1,320 km (820 mi) in a generally northwestern direction through or adjoining Austria, Liechtenstein, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, to its mouth on the North Sea. It is formed high in the Swiss Alps by the Vorderrhein and the Hinterrhein, which join near the town of Chur. The Rhine drains an area of 220,000 sq km (85,000 sq mi), larger than North Carolina and South Carolina combined. Its major tributaries are the Aare (Aar), Neckar, Main, Lahn, Ill, Mosel, Ruhr, and Lippe. Because of the huge volume of freight and number of passengers carried on it, the Rhine is one of the most important commercial inland waterways in the world. The river has greatly influenced the history, culture, and economy of Europe from Roman days to the present. II COURSE OF THE RHINE The Rhine begins as a tumultuous Alpine stream churning through deep gorges, and because it is fed by the meltwaters of snow and glaciers, it has a maximum volume in spring and summer. Although the river's flow is moderated somewhat as it passes through the Bodensee (Lake of Constance), the river remains a torrent westward to Basel, Switzerland. Near the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen it is 185 m (600 ft) wide and plunges 23 m (75 ft) over a spectacular waterfall, the Rheinfall. At Basel the river turns north and enters the Rhine Graben, a flat-floored rift valley lying between the Vosges on the west and the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) on the east. Strasbourg, France, a focal point for merging water routes from the Paris Basin, is located at the valley's northern extremity. With the junction of the Main River at Mainz, in Germany, the Rhine's seasonal regime becomes more stabilized. Along its course from Bingen to Bonn, the river has cut the deep, steepsided Rhine Gorge through the Rhineland Plateau. This picturesque gorge, with terraced vineyards and castle-lined cliffs, has often been called the "heroic Rhine," renowned in history and romantic literature. Near the town of Sankt Goar is the Lorelei, the great face of rock that inspired the famous lyric Die Lorelei (1823) by the German poet Heinrich Heine. Here the Rhine is 150 m (480 ft) wide and 23 m (75 ft) deep. Downstream from Bonn, the river crosses Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen) state, which has a population of 17 million and accounts for approximately one-third of the country's industrial production. Leading cities on the stream's banks are Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Duisburg. Along the Ruhr River, a small right-bank tributary of the Rhine, is one of the world's greatest concentrations of industrial activity (see Ruhr). At the Netherlands frontier, the Rhine is 655 m (2,150 ft) wide. From this point it divides into two parallel distributaries, the Lek and the Waal, as it crosses a wide, marshy plain and a great delta as it heads toward the North Sea. These two main channels were closed off by the Delta Project, completed in 1986, which built sluices and alternate channels for the river's runoff. The main link from the Rhine to the North Sea is the New Waterway, which established Rotterdam as the leading port in continental Europe when it was constructed in 1872. Much of this delta area is at or below sea level, but diking has enabled it to become one of the most densely populated and important economic regions on the continent. III NAVIGATION AND COMMERCE The Rhine is navigable from its mouth to Basel, a distance of 800 km (500 mi). The principal rivers of Western Europe, including the Seine, Elbe, Ems, Rhône, and Saône, are linked to it by canals. In 1992 an important canal link to the Danube River was completed, through the Main River, which opened up shipping between the North Sea and Black Sea. The Rhine drains an area noted for its mineral, industrial, and agricultural wealth, and has been open to international navigation since 1868 by terms of the Mannheim Convention. Modern technology now allows 24-hour navigation on the Rhine and the transport of heavier loads, including coal, iron ore, grain, potash, petroleum, iron and steel, timber, and other commodities. This industrial and commercial wealth has also caused problems, however. In 1976, because of severe pollution, the Dutch, French, Luxembourg, Swiss, and West German governments signed a treaty aimed at cleaning up the river. Despite problems of compliance, the Rhine was gradually improving. Then, in 1986, a massive chemical spill from a plant in Basel reversed ten years of progress. Nearly 30 tons of toxic waste, including fungicides and mercury, entered the Rhine. The spill, called the greatest nonnuclear disaster in Europe in a decade, killed 500,000 fish and forced the closing of water systems in West Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Further calamity struck the Rhine in the mid-1990s, when record-setting floods swamped the region twice in the space of 13 months. In December 1993 shipping came to a halt and 60,000 people were forced to evacuate when the river crested its banks, inundating many cities' business districts. The flooding caused ten deaths and an estimated $1 billion damage. In late January 1995, heavy rains and warm temperatures swelled the Rhine again, eclipsing 1993 levels and forcing more than 250,000 people to flee their homes in the Netherlands. The river's depth exceeded 10 m (35 ft) in Cologne, Germany, the greatest depth recorded there in over two centuries. Large parts of the river were again closed to commercial traffic, this time for over a week, and preliminary damage estimates surpassed $2 billion. Officials and scientists speculated that the flooding may have been partially a result of human factors such as deforestation, the straightening of the Rhine for commercial purposes, and the greenhouse effect. Contributed By: Bruce E. Adams Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.