Waltzing Down the Danube Trivia Quiz

The Danube is officially the name for the river starting at the point where the Breg and the Brigach meet, east of Donaueschingen. Since the Breg is longer and carries more water than the Brigach, its source near St. Martin's Chapel in the small city of Furtwangen im Schwarzwald (in the Black Forest of Germany) is considered the ultimate source of the Danube by hydrologists. There is a fierce rivalry between Donaueschingen and Furtwangen for the designation of their city as the source of the Danube, with Donaueschingen considering that the source of the Donaubach, flowing from their city into the Brigach, should be considered the 'Donauquelle', or official source. Since 1981, the source in Furtwangen stopped being officially labeled the 'Donauquelle', so politics won out over science in the debate.

To be honest, none of these rivers is very impressive - images of their point of confluence look more like streams than impressive rivers, but things get more exciting downstream! While still in Germany, the Danube travels through Ulm, Regensburg (where it is joined by the Naab and Regen rivers) and Passau (where the Inn and the Ilz add their waters to the flow). This is where the Upper Danube becomes a serious river.

After travelling northeast(ish) through the southern part of Germany, the Danube turns to run to the southeast near the border with Czechia, crossing the border into Upper Austria and flowing in an easterly direction through that state's capital, Linz. Further east, it reaches the Austrian capital, Vienna - by which time it is a much more impressive waterway than we saw in the Black Forest.

Its width of about 300 metres (1,000 feet) makes it clear why so many settlements are along its banks, as it has always been a significant commercial waterway.

Vienna and Bratislava (in the southwest corner of Slovakia) are close enough to be considered by some geographers to be a single metropolitan region, but politically they remain the capitals of their respective nations. Bratislava is also on the border of Hungary, making it the only national capital to have land borders with two other countries. The city is located on both banks of the Danube, and also borders the Morava, at its point of confluence with the Danube. This point, in a region called Devín Gate, marks the beginning of the Middle Danube.

Slovakia may be landlocked, but the Danube, which forms about 170 km of its southern border, provides excellent access to maritime trade.

After flowing along the northern border of Hungary for a while, the Danube turns south to travel through the regional capital of Gyor and then the national capital of Budapest. The Danube runs pretty much through the centre of the country, and Hungary's geographical regions are usually described in terms of the area west of the Danube, the area east of the Tisza, and the area between the two rivers. In earlier times, the Danube marked the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire, and it also formed the western border of the Ottoman Empire.

We have arrived at the starting point of this quiz, in that Budapest was the source of its inspiration. The area where Budapest is located has been inhabited for over 2000 years. The towns of Buda and Óbuda grew on the western bank of the Danube, while Pest developed on the eastern bank. The three were officially amalgamated as Budapest in 1873, with Pest forming about two thirds of the city (which Hungarians commonly refer to as Pest).

The Danube crosses Hungary into the northeast corner of Croatia, through which it travels for a short distance. The city of Vukovar, on the right bank of the Danube (as you travel downstream) near its confluence with the Vuka River, is Croatia's main river port, providing access by water to the Black Sea that is a significant alternative to the Adriatic coastline. Near Vukovar, the Danube becomes a border river between Croatia and Serbia.

The Danube forms the western border of the Serbian province of Vojvodina, before turning east to travel through a number of Serbian cities, including the capital, Belgrade. This stretch of the river, crossing the Great Alföld plain (also called the Great Hungarian Plain), flows across relatively flat land, leading to a wide river that flows at a moderate speed.

The river flows pretty much in an easterly direction through Serbia before reaching the Iron Gates, a gorge on the border with Romania which marks the boundary between the middle and lower reaches of the Danube.

Just after the Danube starts to form the border between Serbia (on the south) and Romania (on the north) it passes through the narrowest part of its route, a series of gorges collectively known as the Iron Gates. These feature towering cliffs, and a series of rapids that have historically made the navigation of this stretch more than a little tricky. The river reaches a narrowest point of 150m in the Great Kazan gorge. This is the start of the Lower Danube.

The Danube flows in an easterly direction along the southern border of Romania before turning northeast and then directly north and then east, where it forms the Danube Delta, the second-largest European river delta (behind the Volga Delta).

While the Danube forms the southern border of Romania, the river's right bank is initially in Serbia, then Bulgaria. It defines the northern border of Bulgaria until, near the Romanian city of Cernavoda, it veers to flow northward. The city of Ruse, located on the river's right bank in Bulgaria's northeast, is the most important of its river ports.

The northward jag of the Danube continues until it reaches the Moldovan city of Galati, where it again turns to head to the east, forming a short stretch of the southern border of Moldova. The Moldovan port of Giurgiulesti, in the southwest extremity of Moldova, gives this landlocked country maritime access to international waters by way of the Black Sea.

The Danube Delta, which is mostly located in Romania, is composed of three main distributary channels, all of which empty into the Black Sea: the Chilia, the Sulina, and the Saint George. The Chilia, also called the Kiliya, is the northernmost of these, and forms the border between Romania and Ukraine.

It is named after two towns on its banks: Kiliya is in Ukraine, Chilia Veche in Romania. The Ukrainian city of Izmail, located on the Danube, was the site of a 1779 battle that led to the Russian Empire recovering the lands extending to the Black Sea from the Ottoman Empire.