What is the Rhine?

Rhine, German Rhein, river of Europe, the most important waterway in central and western Europe. Rising in eastern Switzerland, the Rhine flows northwestward through L. Constance, then west across the Swiss Plateau to Basel and the Rhine Falls. From Basel it winds through the Upper Rhine Plain to the fortified cities of Bingen and Koblenz. Downstream from Bingen the river valley is known as the Rhine Gorge. Between Koblenz and Bonn, the Rhine is met by its largest tributary, the Moselle River, then meanders across the North German Plain to the Netherlands, where it takes a northwesterly course past Rotterdam to meet the North Sea near Hoek van Holland.

A major source of hydroelectric power, the Rhine has been navigable from Switzerland downstream for millennia. The river’s importance as an industrial waterway, however, was diminished by silt deposits at its mouth. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large-scale dredging operations and port improvements were completed to allow large ocean-going ships access to the Rhine as far upstream as Duisburg-Ruhrort in the industrialized Ruhr region. In the Netherlands the river channel was deepened and widened in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The construction of several major canals linked the Rhine to the rivers Danube, Main, Elbe, and Weser, as well as to the Baltic Sea.

The cities along the Rhine are rich in history and culture. Of particular note are Basel; Strasbourg, France; and Koblenz, famous for the Deutsches Eck (“German Corner”) headland, where the Moselle flows into the Rhine. Downstream from Koblenz the Rhine valley is marked by numerous hilltop castles and vineyards, including the Marksburg and the Lorelei Rock, a famed promontory with an overhanging mass of slate. The Rhine is also associated with the legends of the Germanic hero Siegfried and the Nibelungenlied, a 12th-century epic poem.