Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Rhine
Summary
The Rhine (raɪn ) is one of the major European rivers. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, and Swiss-German borders. After that the Rhine defines much of the Franco-German border, after which it flows in a mostly northerly direction through the German Rhineland. Finally in Germany, the Rhine turns into a predominantly westerly direction and flows into the Netherlands where it eventually empties into the North Sea. It drains an area of 9,973 sq km and its name derives from the Celtic Rēnos. There are also two German states named after the river, North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
The International Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine Basin (CHR) and EUWID contend that the river could experience a massive decrease in volume, or even dry up completely, within the next 30 to 80 years, as a result of the climate crisis.
Rhine is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe (after the Danube), at about , with an average discharge of about .
The Rhine and the Danube comprised much of the Roman Empire's northern inland boundary, and the Rhine has been a vital navigable waterway bringing trade and goods deep inland since those days. The various castles and defenses built along it attest to its prominence as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire. Among the largest and most important cities on the Rhine are Cologne, Rotterdam, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Strasbourg, Arnhem, and Basel.
The variants of the name of the Rhine (Latin Rhenus; French Rhin, Italian Reno, Romansh Rain or Rein? /i, Dutch Rijn, Alemannic Ry, Ripuarian Rhing) in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, which was adapted in Roman-era geography (1st century BC) as Greek Ῥῆνος (Rhēnos), Latin Rhenus.
The spelling with Rh- in English Rhine as well as in German Rhein and French Rhin is due to the influence of Greek orthography, while the vocalization -i- is due to the Proto-Germanic adoption of the Gaulish name as *Rīnaz, via Old Frankish giving Old English Rín, Old High German Rīn, early Middle Dutch (1200) Rijn (then also spelled Ryn or Rin).
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.