Douro | EPFL Graph Search

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 GraphSearch.

The Douro (UKˈdʊərəʊ,_ˈdʊəruː, USˈdɔːruː,_ˈdɔːrəʊ,_ˈdəʊru, ˈdo(w)ɾu; Duero ˈdweɾo; Mirandese: Douro [ˈdowɾʊ]; Durius) is the highest-flow river of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in the Spanish province of Soria, meanders south briefly then flows generally west through the northern part of the Meseta Central in Castile and León into northern Portugal. Its most plentiful tributary (carrying a larger discharge than the Douro at their meeting) is the right-bank Esla river. At Douro's mouth at Porto, the second largest city of Portugal, the river meets the Atlantic Ocean. The scenic Douro railway line runs close to the river. Adjacent areas produce port (a mildly fortified wine) and other agricultural produce. A small tributary of the river has the Côa Valley Paleolithic Art site which is considered important to the archaeological pre-historic patrimony, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Within Spain, it flows through the middle of the autonomous community of Castile and León, with the basin spanning through the northern half of the Meseta Central. The latter includes wine producing areas such as the Ribera del Duero DOP. The Latin name Durius might have been a Celtic name before overwhelming Romanization of Iberia. If so the Celtic root could be *dubro- (in that family of languages the final vowel sound often changes with context, as in Latin).. If so, the -b-, which there is no trace of, would not have disappeared like in Gaulish *dubron (plural dubra) > French place-names Douvres and the English place-name Dover (Dubris 3rd / 4th century) called Douvres in French, Dobra (Spain), Tauber (Germany, Dubra-gave 807) and in Gaelic : Old Irish dobur "water" and river name Dobhar in Ireland and Scotland. Modern Welsh dŵr "water" is cognate with modern Breton dour and Cornish dur "water" and result of a later typical Brittonic evolution of *dubro-, unknown in the Continental Celtic languages. The possible origin is the hydronymic root *dur-, which is Pre-Indo-European or Pre-Celtic.

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.

Related publications (1)

Related concepts (28)

Guadiana

The Guadiana River (ˌɡwɑːdiˈɑːnə, also USɡwɑːdˈjɑːnə, ɡwaˈðjana, ɡwɐðiˈɐnɐ), is an international river defining a long stretch of the Portugal-Spain border, separating Extremadura and Andalusia (Spain) from Alentejo and Algarve (Portugal). The river's basin extends from the eastern portion of Extremadura to the southern provinces of the Algarve; the river and its tributaries flow from east to west, then south through Portugal to the border towns of Vila Real de Santo António (Portugal) and Ayamonte (Spain), where it flows into the Gulf of Cádiz.

Douro

Ebro

The Ebro (Spanish and ˈeβɾo; Ebre ˈeβɾə) is a river of the north and northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain. It rises in Cantabria and flows , almost entirely in an east-southeast direction. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea forming a delta in the Province of Tarragona, in southern Catalonia. In the Iberian peninsula, it ranks second in length after the Tagus and second in discharge volume, and drainage basin, after the Douro. It is the longest river entirely within Spain; the other two mentioned flow into Portugal.

Inland Empire: réconciliation autour du Douro (Porto, P)

Maxime Duvoisin

The cities of Porto and Gaia have grown exponentially towards the seaside, but mainly to the inland. The river Douro, being the sheer existence of the two cities, has been left to an absolute state of lethe. The Douro River has become an amorphous element, despite its endless possibilities to generate invigorating new urban forms. The bridges of Porto and Gaia are symmetrical both on the long and short sections, meaning that they impose themselves to the terrain. They obey mainly to constructive directives, and ignore the differences between the two margins. This forces both cities to constant periods of mutual adaptation between urban form and crossing. This leads us to one of the problems in the urban shape of the two cities: the lack of an intermediate scale. The river and the bridges represent the huge scale and the secular fabric that struggles between hills and water lines represent the very small scale. The aim of the project is to connect both cities by their margins, proposing a new treatment for the banks of the Douro River. The choice of the site goes in the way of a de-congestion of traffic on bridge Luis Ist and to provide an effective connection between both cities' up and downtowns, merging the local with the metropolitan scale. An inhabited bridge is a model of density working to stimulate urbanity, being an element of urban communication, and a vector of sociability and development. This project gives a new role to the river, by supporting new activities, enhancing public space and new mobility.

2008