Vistula
The Vistula is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers, of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in the south of Poland, above sea level in the Silesian Beskids, where it begins with the White Little 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 of six main branches.
The river has many associations with Polish culture, history and national identity. It is Poland's most important waterway and natural symbol, flowing through its two main cities, and the phrase "Land on the Vistula" can be synonymous with Poland. Historically, the river was also important for the Baltic and German peoples.
The Vistula has given its name to the last glacial period that occurred in northern Europe, approximately between 100,000 and 10,000 BC, the Weichselian glaciation.
Etymology
The name Vistula first appears in the written record of Pomponius Mela in AD40. Pliny in AD77 in his Natural History names the river Vistla. The root of the name Vistula is often thought to come from Proto-Indo-European *weys-: 'to ooze, flow slowly', and similar elements appear in many European river-names, Svislach.In writing about the river and its peoples, Ptolemy uses Greek spelling: Ouistoula. Other ancient sources spell the name Istula. Ammianus Marcellinus referred to the Bisula in the 380s. In the sixth century Jordanes used Viscla.
The Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to the Wistla. The 12th-century Polish chronicler Wincenty Kadłubek Latinised the river's name as Vandalus, a form presumably influenced by Lithuanian vanduõ 'water'. Jan Długosz in his Annales seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae contextually points to the river, stating "of the eastern nations, of the Polish east, from the brightness of the water the White Water...so named", perhaps referring to the White Little Vistula.
In the course of history the river has borne similar names in different languages: ; ; ; ; and.
Geography
The Vistula can be divided into three parts: upper, from its sources to Sandomierz; central, from Sandomierz to the confluences with the Narew river and the Bug river; and bottom, from the confluence with 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
| Agglomeration | Tributary |
| Wisła | river source: Biała Wisełka and Czarna Wisełka |
| Ustroń | |
| Skoczów | Brennica |
| Strumień | Knajka |
| Goczałkowice-Zdrój | |
| Czechowice-Dziedzice | Biała |
| Brzeszcze | Vistula, Soła |
| Oświęcim | Soła |
| Zator | Skawa |
| Skawina | Skawinka |
| Kraków | Sanka, Rudawa, Prądnik, Dłubnia, Wilga |
| Niepołomice | |
| Nowe Brzesko | |
| Nowy Korczyn | Nida |
| Opatowiec | Dunajec |
| Szczucin | |
| Połaniec | Czarna |
| Baranów Sandomierski | Babolówka |
| Tarnobrzeg | |
| Sandomierz | Koprzywianka, Trześniówka |
| Zawichost | |
| Annopol | Sanna |
| Józefów nad Wisłą | |
| Solec nad Wisłą | |
| Kazimierz Dolny | Bystra |
| Puławy | Kurówka |
| Dęblin | Wieprz |
| Magnuszew | |
| Wilga | Wilga |
| Góra Kalwaria | Czarna |
| Karczew | |
| Otwock, Józefów | Świder |
| Konstancin-Jeziorna | Jeziorka |
| Warsaw | Żerań canal |
| Łomianki | |
| Legionowo | |
| Modlin | Narew |
| Zakroczym | |
| Czerwińsk nad Wisłą | |
| Wyszogród | Bzura |
| Płock | Słupianka, Rosica, Brzeźnica, Skrwa Lewa, Skrwa Prawa |
| Dobrzyń nad Wisłą | |
| Włocławek | Zgłowiączka |
| Nieszawa | Mień |
| Ciechocinek | |
| Toruń | Drwęca, Bacha |
| Solec Kujawski | |
| Bydgoszcz | Brda |
| Chełmno | |
| Świecie | Wda |
| Grudziądz | |
| Nowe | |
| Gniew | Wierzyca |
| Tczew | |
| Mikoszewo, Gdańsk | Szkarpawa, Martwa Wisła |
Delta
The river forms a wide delta called Żuławy Wiślane, or the "Vistula Fens" in English. 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 Kwidzyn, 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 over 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.
- 1242: The Stara Wisła cut an outlet to the sea through the barrier near Mikoszewo where the Vistula Cut is now; this gap later closed or was closed.
- 1371: The Danzig Vistula became bigger than the Elbing Vistula.
- 1540 and 1543: Huge floods depopulated the delta area, and afterwards the land was resettled by Mennonite Germans, and economic development followed.
- 1553: By a plan made by Danzig and Elbing, a channel was dug between the Vistula and the Nogat at Weissenberg. As a result, most of the Vistula water flowed down the Nogat, which hindered navigation at Danzig by lowering the water level; this caused a long dispute about the river water between Danzig on one side and Elbing and Marienburg on the other side.
- 1611: Great flood near Marienburg.
- 1613: As a result, a royal decree was issued to build a dam at Biała Góra, diverting only a third of the Vistula's water into the Nogat.
- 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War and 1655–1661 Second Northern War: In wars involving Sweden the river works at Biała Góra were destroyed or damaged.
- 1724: Until this year the Vistula in Danzig flowed to sea straight through the east end of the Westerplatte. This year it started to turn west to flow south of the Westerplatte.
- 1747: In a big flood the Vistula broke into the Nogat.
- 1772: First Partition of Poland: Prussia got control of the Vistula delta area.
- 1793: Second Partition of Poland: Prussia got control of more of the Vistula drainage area.
- 1830 and later: Cleaning the riverbed; eliminating meanders; re-routing some tributaries, e.g. the Rudawa.
- 1840: A flood caused by an ice-jam formed a shortcut from the Danzig Vistula to the sea, a few miles east of and bypassing Danzig, now called the Śmiała Wisła or Wisła Śmiała. The Vistula channel west of this lost much of its flow and was known thereafter as the Dead Vistula.
- 1848 or after: In flood control works the link from the Vistula to the Nogat was moved 4 km downstream. In the end, the Nogat got a fifth of the flow of the Vistula.
- 1888: A large flood in the Vistula delta.
- 1889 to 1895: As a result, to try to stop recurrent flooding on the lower Vistula, the Prussian government constructed an artificial channel about east of Danzig, known as the Vistula Cut from the old fork of the Danzig and Elbing Vistulas straight north to the Baltic Sea, diverting much of the Vistula's flow. One main purpose was to let the river easily flush floating ice into the sea to avoid ice-jam floods downstream. This is now the main mouth of the Vistula, bypassing Gdańsk; shows only a narrow new connection with water-control works with the old westward channel. The name Dead Vistula was extended to mean all of the old channel of the Vistula below this diversion.
- 1914–1917: The Elbing Vistula and the Dead Vistula were cut off from the new main river course with the help of locks.
- 1944–1945: Retreating WWII German forces destroyed many flood-prevention works in the area. After the war, Poland needed over ten years to repair the damage.