Vistula


The Vistula, the longest and largest river in Poland, is the 9th-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage-basin area of the Vistula is, of which is located within Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in the south of Poland, above sea level in the Silesian Beskids, where it begins with the Little White Vistula and the Black Little Vistula.
It flows through Poland's largest cities, including Kraków, Sandomierz, Warsaw, Płock, Włocławek, Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Świecie, Grudziądz, Tczew and Gdańsk. It empties into the Vistula Lagoon or directly into the Gdańsk Bay of the Baltic Sea with a delta and several branches.
The river is often associated with Polish culture, history and national identity. It is the country's most important waterway and natural symbol, and the term "Vistula Land" can be synonymous with Poland.

Etymology

The name was first recorded by Pomponius Mela in AD40 and by Pliny in AD77 in his Natural History. Mela names the river Vistula, Pliny uses Vistla. The root of the name Vistula is Indo-European *u̯eis- 'to ooze, flow slowly' and is found in many European river-names. The diminutive endings -ila, -ula, were used in many Indo-European languages, including Latin.
In writing about the Vistula River and its peoples, Ptolemy uses the Greek spelling Ouistoula. Other ancient sources spell it Istula. Ammianus Marcellinus refers to the Bisula ; note the absence of the -t-. Jordanes uses Viscla, while the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to it as the Wistla. 12th-century Polish chronicler Wincenty Kadłubek Latinised the river-name as Vandalus, a form presumably influenced by Lithuanian vanduõ 'water', while Jan Długosz in his Annales seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae called the Vistula 'white waters', perhaps referring to the White Little Vistula : "a nationibus orientalibus Polonis vicinis, ob aquae candorem Alba aqua ... nominatur."
Over the course of history the river possessed several names in different languages such as Wießel, Wijsel, ווייסל and Висла.

Geography

The Vistula can be divided into three parts: upper, from its sources to Sandomierz; center, from Sandomierz to the confluences with the Narew and Bug; and bottom, from the confluence with the Narew to the sea.
The Vistula river basin covers ; its average altitude is above sea level. In addition, the majority of its river basin is 100 to 200 m above sea level; over of the river basin ranges from in altitude. The highest point of the river basin is at . One of the features of the river basin of the Vistula is its asymmetry—in great measure resulting from the tilting direction of the Central European Lowland toward the northwest, the direction of the flow of glacial waters, and considerable predisposition of its older base. The asymmetry of the river basin is 73–27%.
The most recent glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch, which ended around 10,000 BC, is called the Vistulian glaciation or Weichselian glaciation in regard to north-central Europe.

Major cities

AgglomerationTributary
Wisła river source: Biała Wisełka and Czarna Wisełka
Ustroń
SkoczówBrennica
StrumieńKnajka
Goczałkowice-Zdrój
Czechowice-DziedziceBiała
BrzeszczeVistula, Soła
OświęcimSoła
ZatorSkawa
SkawinaSkawinka
Kraków Sanka, Rudawa, Prądnik, Dłubnia, Wilga
Niepołomice
Nowe Brzesko
Nowy KorczynNida
OpatowiecDunajec
Szczucin
PołaniecCzarna
Baranów SandomierskiBabolówka
Tarnobrzeg
SandomierzKoprzywianka, Trześniówka
Zawichost
AnnopolSanna
Józefów nad Wisłą
Solec nad Wisłą
Kazimierz DolnyBystra
PuławyKurówka
DęblinWieprz
Magnuszew
WilgaWilga
Góra KalwariaCzarna
Karczew
Otwock, JózefówŚwider
Konstancin-JeziornaJeziorka
WarsawŻerań canal
Łomianki
Legionowo
ModlinNarew
Zakroczym
Czerwińsk nad Wisłą
WyszogródBzura
PłockSłupianka, Rosica, Brzeźnica, Skrwa Lewa, Skrwa Prawa
Dobrzyń nad Wisłą
WłocławekZgłowiączka
NieszawaMień
Ciechocinek
ToruńDrwęca, Bacha
Solec Kujawski
BydgoszczBrda
Chełmno
ŚwiecieWda
Grudziądz
Nowe
GniewWierzyca

Delta

The river forms a wide delta called the Żuławy Wiślane. The delta currently starts around Biała Góra near Sztum, about from the mouth, where the river Nogat splits off. The Nogat also starts separately as a river named Alte Nogat south of Marienwerder, but further north it picks up water from a crosslink with the Vistula, and becomes a distributary of the Vistula, flowing away northeast into the Vistula Lagoon with a small delta. The Nogat formed part of the border between East Prussia and interwar Poland. The other channel of the Vistula below this point is sometimes called the Leniwka.
Various causes have caused many severe floods of the Vistula down the centuries. Land in the area was sometimes depopulated by severe flooding, and later had to be resettled.
See for a reconstruction map of the delta area as it was around the year 1300: note much more water in the area, and the west end of the Vistula Lagoon was bigger and nearly continuous with the Drausen See.

Channel changes

As with some aggrading rivers, the lower Vistula has been subject to channel changing.
Near the sea, the Vistula was diverted sideways by coastal sand as a result of longshore drift and split into an east-flowing branch and a west-flowing branch. Until the 14th century, the Elbing Vistula was the bigger.
List of right and left tributaries with a nearby city, from source to mouth:

Climate change and the flooding of the Vistula delta

According to flood studies carried out by Professor Zbigniew Pruszak, who is the co-author of the scientific paper Implications of SLR and further studies carried out by scientists attending Poland's Final International ASTRA Conference, and predictions stated by climate scientists at the climate change pre-summit in Copenhagen, it is highly likely most of the Vistula Delta region will be flooded due to the sea level rise caused by climate change by 2100.

Geological history

The history of the River Vistula and its valley spans over 2 million years. The river is connected to the geological period called the Quaternary, in which distinct cooling of the climate took place. In the last million years, an ice sheet entered the area of Poland eight times, bringing along with it changes of reaches of the river. In warmer periods, when the ice sheet retreated, the Vistula deepened and widened its valley. The river took its present shape within the last 14,000 years, after the complete recession of the Scandinavian ice sheet from the area. At present, along with the Vistula valley, erosion of the banks and collecting of new deposits are still occurring.
As the principal river of Poland, the Vistula is also in the center of Europe. Three principal geographical and geological land masses of the continent meet in its river basin: the lowland Eastern Europe a shield, and the Alpine zone of high mountains to which the Alps and the Carpathians belong. The Vistula begins in the Carpathian mountains. The run and character of the river were shaped by ice sheets flowing down from the Scandinavian peninsula. The last ice sheet entered the area of Poland about 20,000 years ago. During periods of warmer weather, the ancient Vistula, "Pra-Wisła", searched for the shortest way to the sea—thousands of years ago it flowed into the North Sea somewhere at the latitude of contemporary Scotland. The climate of the Vistula valley, its plants, animals, and its very character changed considerably during the process of glacial retreat.

Navigation

The Vistula is navigable from the Baltic Sea to Bydgoszcz. The Vistula can accommodate modest river vessels of CEMT class II. Farther upstream the river depth lessens. Although a project was undertaken to increase the traffic-carrying capacity of the river upstream of Warsaw by building a number of locks in and around Kraków, this project was not extended further, so that navigability of the Vistula remains limited. The potential of the river would increase considerably if a restoration of the East-West connection via the Narew-Bug-Mukhovets-Pripyat-Dnieper waterways were considered. The shifting economic importance of parts of Europe may make this option more likely.

Historical relevance

Large parts of the Vistula Basin were occupied by the Iron Age Lusatian and Przeworsk cultures in the first millennium BC.
Genetic analysis indicates that there has been an unbroken genetic continuity of the inhabitants over the last 3,500 years.
The Vistula Basin along with the lands of the Rhine, Danube, Elbe, and Oder came to be called Magna Germania by Roman authors of the 1st century AD. This does not imply that the inhabitants were "Germanic peoples" in the modern sense of the term;
Tacitus, when describing the Venethi, Peucini and Fenni, wrote that he was not sure if he should call them Germans, since they had settlements and they fought on foot, or rather Sarmatians since they have some similar customs to them.
Ptolemy, in the 2nd century AD, would describe the Vistula as the border between Germania and Sarmatia.
The Vistula river used to be connected to the Dnieper River, and thence to the Black Sea via the Augustów Canal, a technological marvel with numerous sluices contributing to its aesthetic appeal. It was the first waterway in Central Europe to provide a direct link between the two major rivers, the Vistula and the Neman. It provided a link with the Black Sea to the south through the Oginski Canal, Dnieper River, Berezina Canal, and Dvina River. The Baltic Sea- Vistula- Dnieper- Black Sea route with its rivers 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.
once stood here.
The Vistula estuary was settled by Slavs in the 7th and 8th century. Based on archeological and linguistic findings, it has been postulated that these settlers moved northward along the Vistula river. This however contradicts another hypothesis supported by some researchers saying the Veleti moved westward from the Vistula delta.
A number of West Slavic Polish tribes formed small dominions beginning in the 8th century, some of which coalesced later into larger ones. Among the tribes listed in the Bavarian Geographer's 9th-century document was the Vistulans in southern Poland. Kraków and Wiślica were their main centers.
Many Polish legends are connected with the Vistula and the beginnings of Polish statehood. One of the most enduring is that about princess Wanda co nie chciała Niemca. According to the most popular variant, popularized by the 15th-century historian Jan Długosz, Wanda, daughter of King Krak, became queen of the Poles upon her father's death. She refused to marry a German prince Rytigier, who took offence and invaded Poland, but was repelled. Wanda however committed suicide, drowning in the Vistula river, to ensure he would not invade her country again.

Main trading artery

For hundreds of years the river was one of the main trading arteries of Poland, and the castles that line its banks were highly prized possessions. Salt, timber, grain, and building stone were among goods shipped via that route between the 10th and 13th centuries.
Castle in Czersk
In the 14th century the lower Vistula was controlled by the Teutonic Knights Order, invited in 1226 by Konrad I of Masovia to help him fight the pagan Prussians on the border of his lands. In 1308 the Teutonic Knights captured the Gdańsk castle and murdered the population. Since then the event is known as the Gdańsk slaughter. The Order had inherited Gniew from Sambor II, thus gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Vistula. Many granaries and storehouses, built in the 14th century, line the banks of the Vistula. In the 15th century the city of Gdańsk gained great importance in the Baltic area as a centre of merchants and trade and as a port city. At this time the surrounding lands were inhabited by Pomeranians, but Gdańsk soon became a starting point for German settlement of the largely fallow Vistulan country.
Before its peak in 1618, trade increased by a factor of 20 from 1491. This factor is evident when looking at the tonnage of grain traded on the river in the key years of: 1491: 14,000; 1537: 23,000; 1563: 150,000; 1618: 310,000.
near the end of the 16th century. The right side shows the Sigismund Augustus bridge built 1568–1573 by Erazm Cziotko.
In the 16th century most of the grain exported was leaving Poland through Gdańsk, which because of its location at the end of the Vistula and its tributary waterway and of its Baltic seaport trade role became the wealthiest, most highly developed, and by far the largest center of crafts and manufacturing, and the most autonomous of the Polish cities. Other towns were negatively affected by Gdańsk's near-monopoly in foreign trade. During the reign of Stephen Báthory Poland ruled two main Baltic Sea ports: Gdańsk controlling the Vistula river trade and Riga controlling the Western Dvina trade. Both cities were among the largest in the country. Around 70% the exports from Gdańsk were of grain.
Grain was also the largest export commodity of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The volume of traded grain can be considered a good and well-measured proxy for the economic growth of the Commonwealth.
in 1641
The owner of a folwark usually signed a contract with the merchants of Gdańsk, who controlled 80% of this inland trade, to ship the grain to Gdańsk. Many rivers in the Commonwealth were used for shipping, including the Vistula, which had a relatively well-developed infrastructure, with river ports and granaries. Most river shipping travelled north, with southward transport being less profitable, and barges and rafts often being sold off in Gdańsk for lumber.
In order to arrest recurrent flooding on the lower Vistula, the Prussian government in 1889–95 constructed an artificial channel about east of Gdańsk —known as the Vistula Cut —that acted as a huge sluice, diverting much of the Vistula flow directly into the Baltic. As a result, the historic Vistula channel through Gdańsk lost much of its flow and was known thereafter as the Dead Vistula. German states acquired complete control of the region in 1795–1812, as well as during the World Wars, in 1914–1918 and 1939–1945.
, 1884
From 1867 to 1917, the Russian tsarist administration called the Kingdom of Poland the Vistula Land after the collapse of the January Uprising.
Almost 75% of the territory of interbellum Poland was drained northward into the Baltic Sea by the Vistula, the Niemen, the Odra and the Daugava.
over the Vistula in Warsaw. This framework bridge was constructed by Stanisław Kierbedź in 1850–1864. It was destroyed by the Germans in 1944.
just before the Second World War.
In 1920 the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War Battle of Warsaw, was fought as Red Army forces commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky approached the Polish capital of Warsaw and nearby Modlin Fortress situated on the mouth of the Vistula.

World War II

The Polish September campaign included battles over control of the mouth of the Vistula, and of the city of Gdańsk, close to the river delta. During the Invasion of Poland, after the initial battles in Pomerelia, the remains of the Polish Army of Pomerania withdrew to the southern bank of the Vistula. After defending Toruń for several days, the army withdrew further south under pressure of the overall strained strategic situation, and took part in the main battle of Bzura.
The Auschwitz complex of concentration camps was at the confluence of the Vistula and the Soła rivers. Ashes of murdered Auschwitz victims were dumped into the river.
During World War II prisoners of war from the Nazi Stalag XX-B camp were assigned to cut ice blocks from the River Vistula. The ice would then be transported by truck to the local beer houses.
The 1944 Warsaw Uprising was planned with the expectation that the Soviet forces, who had arrived in the course of their offensive and were waiting on the other side of the Vistula River in full force, would help in the battle for Warsaw. However, the Soviets let down the Poles, stopping their advance at the Vistula and branding the insurgents as criminals in radio broadcasts.
In early 1945, in the Vistula–Oder Offensive, the Red Army crossed the Vistula and drove the German Wehrmacht back past the Oder river in Germany.