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Vistula River
The Vistula (; ; ), is the longest river in Poland at 1,047 km (678 miles) in length. It drains an area of 194,424 km˛ (75,067 sq. miles), of which 168,699 km˛ (65,135 sq. miles) lies within Poland (over half the area of the country) [1]. The Vistula has its source in the south of the country, at Barania Góra (1220 m high) in the Silesian Beskids (western part of Carpathian Mountains) where it starts with the White Little Vistula (Bia?a Wise?ka) and the Black Little Vistula (Czarna Wise?ka). It then continues to flow over the vast Polish plains, passing several large Polish cities along its way, including Kraków, Sandomierz, Warsaw, P?ock, W?oc?awek, Toru?, Bydgoszcz, ?wiecie, Grudzi?dz, Tczew and Gda?sk. With a delta and several branches (Leniwka, Przekop, ?mia?a Wis?a, Martwa Wis?a, Nogat and Szkarpawa) it empties into the Vistula Lagoon, or directly into the Gda?sk Bay of the Baltic Sea.
Origins of the name VistulaIt is not known whether the root of the name Vistula is Indo-European or pre-Indo-European. The diminutive endings -ila, -ula, were used in many Indo-European language groups, among them Germanic (see Attila, a "little father" in Gothic) but also in Latin (see Ursula, a "little female bear") which makes it difficult to establish its origin in the Vistula name. The name was first recorded by Pliny in AD 77 in his Natural History. He uses Vistula (4.52, 4.89) with an alternative spelling, Vistillus (3.06). The Vistula River ran into the Mare Suebicum, which is today known as the Baltic Sea. In writing about the Vistula River and its peoples, Ptolemy uses the Greek spelling, "Ouistoula". Other ancient sources spell it "Istula". Pomponius Mela refers to the "Visula" (Book 3) and Ammianus Marcellinus to the "Bisula" (Book 22), both of which names lack the -t-. The definitive reference is probably Jordanes (Getica 5 & 17), who uses "Viscla". The Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to it as the "Wistla". For centuries, the river was well-known in Germany and surrounding countries by the German name Weichsel (in medieval German documents spelled Wissel, Wixel etc.). The most recent glaciations of the Pleistocene epoch, which ended around 10,000 BCE, is called Weichsel glaciation in regard to northern central Europe. The Russian tsarist administration called the Kingdom of Poland the "Vistula province" after the January Uprising, from 1867 to 1917. HistoryAncient settlementIn the millennium before the birth of Christ, the Vistula basin was settled by Germanic tribes, most notably the Suebi and Burgundians, and around the delta itself by the Eastern Germanic Goths (see also Gothiscandza, Oksywie culture, Wielbark culture). The Vistula region, along with the lands of the Rhine, Danube, Elbe, and Oder, came to be known as Magna Germania by the first century AD. The Lower Vistula would remain Germanic territory until 1945. Ptolemy, in the second century AD, would write of the Vistula as the border between Germania and Sarmatia. To the east of the Vistula were found Baltic-speaking tribes, generally identified with the historical Aestians: Galindians, Sudovians and Borusci. It has not been verified whether any Slavic tribes were settled along the Vistula at that time. 
Vistula valley east of Toru? The Vistula river used to be connected to the Dnieper River, and thence to the Black Sea. The Baltic-Sea--Vistula--Dnieper--Black-Sea water route was one of the most ancient trade-routes, the Amber Road, on which amber and other items were traded from Northern Europe to Greece, Asia, Egypt, and elsewhere. World War IIThe Second World war was sparked by conflict over the mouth of the Vistula. The formerly-German city of Danzig (today Gda?sk) lies at the mouth of the river, where the Vistula meets the Baltic. German desire to fully incorporate that city into Germany thus connecting East Prussia to the rest of Germany, and Polish designs on the city to give them a seaport, sparked the outbreak of war in September 1939. The Upper Vistula changed hands from time to time, but after the emergence of Poland in 966, became solidly Polish (Slavic) territory. The past two millennia saw Germanics pushing east and south along the Vistula as the Slavs pushed north and west, with neither ever attaining sustained domination over the entire river basin. This was changed after the postwar expulsions of Germans from the area by Stalin. In 1945, the victorious Stalin changed the longstanding Germanic-Slavic balance of the Vistula Basin by means of ethnic cleansing (a tactic employed by the Soviet Union across their empire). In 1945, all Germans from the Vistula basin (along with those in East Prussia and the Oder basin) were expelled from their homes, and their property seized. Ever since 1945, the entire Vistula basin has thus been Polish-dominated territory for the first time in history. Today, the Vistula is part of the Polish heartland, a far cry from being "the eastern reaches of Germany/germania" as it had been since the Iron Age. The eastern border of Germany was shifted west by Stalin to the artificial Oder-Neisse Line. Navigation
Map of Vistula Upstream of Warsaw, a project was undertaken to enlarge the capacity of the river by building a number of locks in Cracow area; this project was never prolonged further downstream, so that the navigability of the Vistula remains problematic. The potential of the river in the decades to come would increase considerably if a restoration of the East-West connection via the Narew - Bug - Mukhovets - Pripyat - Dnieper waterways would be considered. The shifting economic importance parts of Europe may make this option interesting. Towns and tributaries<gallery> Image:Wodospad Wiselka Biala.jpg|Bia?a Wise?ka Image:Wisla powodz 2004.jpg|Vistula flooding south of Warsaw, 2004 Image:Plock bridge.jpg|Bridge across the Vistula in P?ock </gallery> Near Kwidzy? Vistula is divided onto two separate branches that constitute the river delta:
Right tributaries
Lake Morskie Oko, White Dunajec Springs
Left tributariesList of left tributaries with a nearby city
See alsoReferences
als:Weichsel ar:??????? bn:???????? ??? be-x-old:????? bg:????? ca:Vístula cs:Visla cy:Afon Vistula da:Wis?a de:Weichsel et:Wis?a el:????????? es:Vístula eo:Vistulo eu:Vistula fr:Vistule fy:Wisla gl:Río Vístula ko:??? ? hr:Visla id:Sungai Vistula is:Visla it:Vistola he:????? jv:Kali Wis?a csb:Wis?a sw:Vistula (mto) la:Vistula lv:Visla lt:Vysla hu:Visztula mk:????? mr:?????????? ??? nl:Wis?a (rivier) ja:????? no:Wis?a nn:Wis?a nds:Wießel pl:Wis?a pt:Rio Vístula ro:Vistula ru:????? sq:Visla simple:Vistula sk:Visla sl:Visla szl:Wisua sr:????? fi:Veiksel sv:Wis?a tr:Vistül uk:????? zh:???? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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