TheVistula (/ˈvɪstjʊlə/;Polish:Wisła[ˈviswa]ⓘ) is the longest river inPoland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at 1,047 kilometres (651 miles) in length.[1][2] Itsdrainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers 193,960 km2 (74,890 sq mi), of which 168,868 km2 (65,200 sq mi) is in Poland.[3]
The river has many associations withPolish culture, history and national identity. It is Poland's most important waterway and naturalsymbol, flowing through its two main cities (Kraków andWarsaw), and the phrase "Land on the Vistula" (Polish:kraj nad Wisłą) can be synonymous with Poland.[5][6][7] Historically, the river was also important for theBaltic and German (Prussian) 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, theWeichselian glaciation.
In writing about the river and its peoples,Ptolemy uses Greek spelling:Ouistoula. Other ancient sources[which?] spell the nameIstula.Ammianus Marcellinus referred to theBisula (Book22) in the 380s. In the sixth centuryJordanes (Getica5 & 17) usedViscla.
The Anglo-Saxon poemWidsith refers to theWistla.[9] The 12th-century Polish chroniclerWincenty KadłubekLatinised the river's name asVandalus, a form presumably influenced byLithuanianvanduõ 'water'.Jan Długosz (1415–1480) in hisAnnales 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" (Alba aqua),[10] perhaps referring to the White Little Vistula (Biała Wisełka).[citation needed]
The Vistula rises in the southernSilesian Voivodeship close to the tripoint involving theCzech Republic andSlovakia from two sources: Czarna ("Black") Wisełka at altitude 1,107 m (3,632 ft) and Biała ("White") Wisełka at altitude 1,080 m (3,540 ft).[11] Both are on the western slope ofBarania Góra in theSilesian Beskids in Poland.[12]
The Vistula can be divided into three parts: upper, from its sources toSandomierz; central, from Sandomierz to the confluences with theNarew river and theBug river; and bottom, from the confluence with Narew to the sea.
The Vistula river basin covers 194,424 square kilometres (75,068 square miles) (in Poland 168,700 square kilometres (65,135 square miles)); its average altitude is 270 metres (886 feet)above sea level. In addition, the majority of its river basin (55%) is 100 to 200 m above sea level; over3⁄4 of the river basin ranges from 100 to 300 metres (328 to 984 feet) in altitude. The highest point of the river basin is at 2,655 metres (8,711 feet) (Gerlach Peak in theTatra mountains). 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 (right-hand to left-hand side) is 73–27%.
The river forms a wide delta calledŻuławy Wiślane, or the "Vistula Fens" in English. The delta currently starts aroundBiała Góra nearSztum, about 50 km (31 mi) from the mouth, where the riverNogat splits off. TheNogat also starts separately as a river named (on this map[14])Alte Nogat (Old Nogat) south ofKwidzyn, but further north it picks up water from a crosslink with the Vistula, and becomes adistributary of the Vistula, flowing away northeast into theVistula Lagoon (Polish: Zalew Wiślany) 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 theLeniwka.
Various causes (rain, snow melt,ice jams) 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 (Figure 7, on page 812 atHistory of floods on the River Vistula) 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 (Frisches Haff) was bigger and nearly continuous with theDrausen See.[15]
As with someaggrading rivers, the lower Vistula has been subject to channel changing.
Near the sea, the Vistula was diverted sideways by coastal sand as a result oflongshore drift and split into an east-flowing branch (the Elbing (Elbląg) Vistula, Elbinger Weichsel, Szkarpawa, flows into the Vistula Lagoon, now for flood control closed to the east with a lock) and a west-flowing branch (the Danzig (Gdańsk) Vistula, Przegalinie branch, reached the sea in Danzig). Until the 14th century, the Elbing Vistula was the bigger.
1242: The Stara Wisła (Old Vistula) 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 byMennonite Germans, and economic development followed.[15]
1553: By a plan made by Danzig andElbing, a channel was dug between the Vistula and the Nogat at Weissenberg (nowBiała Góra). 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 andMarienburg 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.
1724: Until this year the Vistula in Danzig flowed to sea straight through the east end of theWesterplatte. This year it started to turn west to flow south of the Westerplatte.
1747: In a big flood the Vistula broke into the Nogat.
1830 and later: Cleaning the riverbed; eliminating meanders; re-routing some tributaries, e.g. theRudawa.
1840: A flood caused by an ice-jam[15] formed a shortcut from the Danzig Vistula to the sea (shown asDurchbruch v. J 1840 (Breakthrough of year 1840), on this map[14]), a few miles east of and bypassing Danzig, now called the Śmiała Wisła or Wisła Śmiała ("Bold Vistula"). The Vistula channel west of this lost much of its flow and was known thereafter as the Dead Vistula (German:Tote Weichsel; Polish:Martwa Wisła).
1848 or after: In flood control works the link from the Vistula to the Nogat was moved 4 km (2.5 miles) downstream. In the end, the Nogat got a fifth of the flow of the Vistula.
1889 to 1895: As a result, to try to stop recurrent flooding on the lower Vistula, the Prussian government constructed an artificial channel about 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) east of Danzig (now named Gdańsk), known as the Vistula Cut (German:Weichseldurchstich; Polish:Przekop Wisły) (ref map[14]) 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;Google Earth 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 (Szkarpawa) 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.
In the city the river divides into several separate branches that reach the Baltic Sea at different points, the main branch reaches the sea atWesterplatte
Widespread flooding along the Vistula River in south-eastern Poland
According to flood studies carried out by Zbigniew Pruszak, who is the co-author of the scientific paperImplications of SLR[16] and further studies carried out by scientists attending Poland's Final International ASTRA Conference,[17] and predictions stated by climate scientists at the climate change pre-summit inCopenhagen,[18] it is highly likely most of the Vistula Delta region (which is below sea level[19]) will be flooded due to thesea level rise caused by climate change by 2100.
The history of the River Vistula and its valley spans over 2 million years. The river is connected to the geological period called theQuaternary, 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.[20]
As the principal river of Poland, the Vistula is also in the centre of Europe. Three principal geographical and geological land masses of the continent meet in its river basin: theEastern European Plain, Western Europe, and the Alpine zone to which the Alps and theCarpathians 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 theNorth 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.[21]
Vistula is navigable from the Baltic Sea toBydgoszcz (where theBydgoszcz Canal joins the river). It can accommodate modest river vessels ofCEMT 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 aroundKraków, 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 theNarew–Bug–Mukhovets–Pripyat–Dnieper waterways were considered. The shifting economic importance of parts of Europe may make this option more likely.
In July 1997, the Vistula River basin was struck by one of the largest floods in modern Polish history, an event commonly referred to as theGreat Flood of 1997, or theMillennium Flood (Powódź tysiąclecia). Prolonged heavy rainfall over the Upper Vistula catchment and its tributaries caused extreme discharges andovertopping of embankments. Peak flows on the Upper Vistula reached magnitudes not previously observed in the instrumental record, leading to the breaching and failure of hundreds of kilometres oflevees. The flood exposed weaknesses in existinghydraulic infrastructure along the Vistula. Reservoirs in the basin were unable to absorb the extreme inflows, since many had been designed primarily for water supply or power generation rather than flood retention. About 1,100 kilometres of flood embankments were damaged or weakened, particularly in the middle and lower reaches of the river. Inadequate forecasting and limitedhydrometric coverage further reduced the effectiveness of warning systems.[24]
The 1997 flood also highlighted long-standing structural vulnerabilities in the embankments of the Lower Vistula. A comprehensive study by Makowski (1998) documented the historical development of levees betweenToruń andBiała Góra, presenting hydrological records from 1817–1995 and an assessment of the geotechnical properties of dikes and their foundations. The work emphasised recurring weaknesses such as unsteady seepage and localised failure zones, many of which were reactivated during extreme floods.[25] Following the disaster, recommendations included the modernisation and raising of embankments, the construction of additional flood retention reservoirs and drypolders, and the improvement of forecasting systems usingradar andtelemetry.[24][26]
The recommendations arising from the 1997 flood led to a series of large-scalecivil engineering andflood management programmes in the Vistula basin. The most significant was the Oder–Vistula Flood Management Project (OVFMP). Preparatory work began in 2013 and the programme was formally launched in 2015 with an estimated budget of €1.2 billion. It was financed through theInternational Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank),the Council of Europe Development Bank, theEU Cohesion Fund and the Polish state budget. The project’s objective was to increase protection against floods for communities in theOder River and Upper Vistula river basins and to strengthen the institutional capacity of public administration inflood risk management. Its scope covered the middle and lower Oder, the Nysa Kłodzka valley, and the Upper Vistula including the areas of Kraków, Sandomierz and Tarnobrzeg, alongside tributary catchments such as the Raba and San. Beneficiaries were estimated at over 15 million people, including around 122,000 living in 1-in-100 year flood zones.[26][27][28]
The programme includes the construction and modernisation offlood embankments, polders,pumping stations and reservoirs, together with non-structural measures such as improved forecasting and early warning systems. It also integrates active and passive measures, for example combining dikes with overflow areas and dry polders to create “space for the river,” as well as wetland restoration to absorb flood waves and enhance biodiversity.[26]
A key element of the post-1997 strategy was the completion of new multi-purpose reservoirs. The most prominent was theŚwinna Poręba Reservoir on the Skawa River, a Vistula tributary, which entered service in 2017 after decades of delay. Operated together with the existingSoła cascade andDobczyce reservoir, Świnna Poręba provides substantial flood storage as well as water supply and hydropower.[29] In addition to structural works, the flood also accelerated the modernisation of hydrological monitoring and early warning systems in the basin. Automatic telemetry stations, radar-based precipitation measurements, andGIS flood hazard mapping were introduced to improve forecasting and preparedness.[30]
Studies published in 2017 reviewed water resources and management challenges across the river, reporting evidence of more frequent droughts and low-water periods, including record low levels atToruń in 2015. Studies also noted changes in the river’s seasonal rhythm, with spring high waters arriving earlier and summer flows becoming lower. In the delta, researchers described saltwater moving further inland and changes in river branches such as theMartwa Wisła andWisła Śmiała, with the conclusion that managing the river now requires balancing the risks of both major floods and recurring drought.[31]
Large parts of the Vistula Basin were occupied by the Iron AgeLusatian andPrzeworsk cultures in the first millennium BC. Genetic analysis indicates that there has been an unbroken genetic continuity[clarification needed] of the inhabitants over the last 3,500 years.[32] The Vistula Basin along with the lands of theRhine,Danube,Elbe, andOder came to be calledMagna Germania by Roman authors of the first century AD.[32] This does not imply that the inhabitants were "Germanic peoples" in the modern sense of the term;Tacitus, when describing theVenethi,Peucini andFenni, wrote that he was not sure if he should call them Germans, since they had settlements and they fought on foot, or ratherSarmatians since they have some similar customs to them.[33]Ptolemy, in the second century AD, would describe the Vistula as the border betweenGermania andSarmatia.
Vistula River used to be connected to theDnieper River, and thence to theBlack Sea via theAugustów Canal, a technological marvel with numeroussluices contributing to its aesthetic appeal. It was the first waterway inCentral Europe to provide a direct link between the two major rivers, the Vistula and theNeman. It provided a link with theBlack Sea to the south through theOginski Canal,Dnieper River, Berezina Canal, andDvina River. The Baltic Sea– Vistula– Dnieper– Black Sea route with its rivers was one of the most ancient trade routes, theAmber Road, on which amber and other items were traded fromNorthern Europe to Greece, Asia,Egypt, and elsewhere.[34][35]
The Vistula estuary was settled bySlavs in the seventh and eighth century.[36] Based on archeological and linguistic findings, it has been postulated that these settlers moved northward along the Vistula River.[36] This however contradicts another hypothesis supported by some researchers saying theVeleti moved westward from the Vistula delta.[36]
A number ofWest SlavicPolish tribes formed small dominions beginning in the eighth century, some of which coalesced later into larger ones. Among the tribes listed in theBavarian Geographer's ninth-century document was theVistulans (Wiślanie) in southern Poland. Kraków andWiślica were their main centres.
ManyPolish legends are connected with the Vistula river and thebeginnings of Polish statehood. One of the most enduring is that aboutPrincess Wandaco nie chciała Niemca (who rejected the German).[37] According to the most popular variant, popularized by the 15th-century historianJan Długosz,[38] Wanda, daughter ofKing Krak, became queen of the Poles upon her father's death.[37] She refused to marry a German prince Rytigier (Rüdiger), who took offence and invaded Poland, but was repelled.[39] Wanda however committedsuicide, drowning in the Vistula River, to ensure he would not invade her country again.[39]
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.[40]
In the 14th century the lower Vistula was controlled by theTeutonic Knights Order, invited in 1226 byKonrad I of Masovia to help him fight the pagan Prussians on the border of his lands. In 1308 the Teutonic Knightscaptured the Gdańsk castle and murdered the population.[41] Since then the event is known asthe Gdańsk slaughter. The Order had inheritedGniew fromSambor II, thus gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Vistula.[42] Many granaries and storehouses, built in the 14th century, line the banks of the Vistula.[43] In the 15th century the city ofGdańsk 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 byPomeranians, but Gdańsk soon became a starting point for German settlement of the largely fallow Vistulan country.[44]
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.[45]
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 centre of crafts and manufacturing, and the most autonomous of the Polish cities.[46] Other towns were negatively affected by Gdańsk's near-monopoly in foreign trade. During the reign ofStephen Báthory Poland ruled two mainBaltic Sea ports: Gdańsk[47] controlling the Vistula river trade andRiga controlling theWestern Dvina trade. Both cities were among the largest in the country. Around 70% the exports from Gdańsk were of grain.[45]
Grain was also the largest export commodity of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The volume of traded grain can be considered a good and well-measured proxy for the economic growth of the Commonwealth.
The owner of afolwark usually signed acontract 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, withriver ports andgranaries. 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 12 kilometres (7 miles) east of Gdańsk (German name:Danzig)—known as theVistula Cut (German:Weichseldurchstich; Polish:Przekop Wisły)—that acted as a huge sluice, diverting much of the Vistula flow directly into theBaltic. As a result, the historic Vistula channel through Gdańsk lost much of its flow and was known thereafter as the Dead Vistula (German:Tote Weichsel; Polish:Martwa Wisła). German states acquired complete control of the region in 1795–1812 (see:Partitions of Poland), as well as during the World Wars, in 1914–1918 and 1939–1945.
Almost 75% of the territory of interbellum Poland was drained northward into the Baltic Sea by the Vistula (total area ofdrainage basin of the Vistula within boundaries of the Second Polish Republic was 180,300 km2 (69,600 sq mi), theNiemen (51,600 km2 [19,900 sq mi]), theOder (46,700 km2 [18,000 sq mi]) and theDaugava (10,400 km2 [4,000 sq mi]).
Vistula River in Warsaw near the end of the 16th century. The right side shows theSigismund Augustus bridge built 1568–1573 by Erazm Cziotko (c. 500 m (1,600 ft) long).[49]
ThePolish September campaign included battles over control of the mouth of the Vistula, and of the city of Gdańsk, close to the river delta. During theInvasion of Poland (1939), after the initial battles inPomerelia, the remains of the Polish Army of Pomerania withdrew to the southern bank of the Vistula.[51] After defendingToruń for several days, the army withdrew further south under pressure of the overall strained strategic situation, and took part in the mainbattle of Bzura.[51]
TheAuschwitz complex of concentration camps was at the confluence of the Vistula and theSoła rivers.[52] Ashes of murdered Auschwitz victims were dumped into the river.[53]
DuringWorld War II prisoners of war from the NaziStalag 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.[citation needed]
The 1944Warsaw 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.[54] However, the Soviets let down the Poles, stopping their advance at the Vistula and branding the insurgents as criminals in radio broadcasts.[54][55][56]
After the war in late 1946, the former AustrianSS memberAmon Göth was sentenced to death and hanged on 13 September at theMontelupich Prison in Kraków, not far from the site of thePłaszów camp, the camp of which he was commandant throughoutThe Holocaust. His remains were cremated and the ashes thrown in the Vistula River.[57]
^"Vistula River".pomorskie.travel. Archived fromthe original on 13 August 2018. Retrieved13 August 2018.Vistula - the most important and the longest river in Poland, and the largest river in the area of the Baltic Sea. The length of Vistula is 1047 km.
^Zbigniew Pruszaka; Elżbieta Zawadzka (2008). "Potential Implications of Sea-Level Rise for Poland".Journal of Coastal Research.242:410–422.doi:10.2112/07A-0014.1.S2CID130427456.
^Makowski, J. (1998).Dolna Wisła i jej obwałowania. Historyczne kształtowanie, obecny stan i zachowanie w czasie znacznych wezbrań. Część druga: odcinek od Torunia do Biała Góra [The Lower Vistula and its embankments: Historical formation, current state, and behaviour during major floods. Part two: the section from Toruń to Biała Góra]. Biblioteka Naukowa Hydrotechnika (in Polish). Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo IBW PAN.ISBN8385708278.
^Marszelewski, Włodzimierz, ed. (2017).Zasoby i perspektywy gospodarowania wodą w dorzeczu Wisły [Resources and perspectives of water management in the Vistula basin]. Monografie Komisji Hydrologicznej PTG (in Polish). Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika.ISBN978-83-231-3943-0.
^"The Uprising remained the ultimate symbol of Communist betrayal and bad faith for Poles."John Radzilowski."Warsaw Uprising". ww2db.com. Retrieved25 March 2010.
^"The Warsaw Rising was termed a 'criminal organization'"Radzilowski, John (2009). "Remembrance and Recovery: The Museum of the Warsaw Rising and the Memory of World War II in Post-communist Poland".The Public Historian.31 (4):143–158.doi:10.1525/tph.2009.31.4.143.
^Crowe, David (2004).Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind the List (First ed.). Westview Press.ISBN978-0813333755.
![Vistula River in Warsaw near the end of the 16th century. The right side shows the Sigismund Augustus bridge built 1568–1573 by Erazm Cziotko (c. 500 m (1,600 ft) long).[49]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aHogenberg_View_of_Warsaw.jpg)
![Kierbedź Bridge over the Vistula in Warsaw (c. 1900). This framework bridge was constructed by Stanisław Kierbedź in 1850–1864. It was destroyed by the Germans in 1944.[50]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aKierbed%25C5%25BA_Bridge_(1900).jpg)
