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The Lower Danube · what stood here

The Great Brăila Wetland: the island under the wheat

Between Brăila and Măcin lay a wetland the size of a small county: 149,000 hectares of lakes, channels and willow forest, yielding 5,117,567 kilograms of carp (Brateș and the Brăila Estate) in a single year. Diked in the 1960s, the wetland is wheat fields today — and the lakes' outlines only still show here, above the crops. Scroll: the Danube rises back over the island, and at the end you search your lake by name.

Scroll: you travel back, towards the 1910 survey.

Marius Comper · 3 October 2026

The survey

Antipa measures the wetland

In 1910 Grigore Antipa published the survey of the Danube's inundated region — the plan this page rebuilds the wetland from. The island between the arms, from Piua Petrei to Brăila, covered 87,642 hectares, of which 14,349 hectares of open water at low water, and stretched up to 22 kilometres wide. Nine estates shared it, 3 of them the State's.

The richest fishery lay in the lakes of the Brăila Estate, the island's downstream half: Șerbanu, Scurtu, Orzea, Rușeava, Lungulețele, Gemenele, Ulmul. A canal some 24 kilometres long, the Filipoiu, drained the whole region — the largest catches of fish were taken in it.

The rowing

Among the willows, by boat

The Brăila-born Panait Istrati left the wetland's voice. At dawn, from the window: “beside her, Chira and I watched the daybreak that already lit the wetland with its forest of willows”. And on the Danube, in the boat: “a dream breeze blew over the Danube.” The Turk's ship loaded goods “on the other side of the Danube, on the Măcin arm” — the wetland's eastern arm. (Rendered from the Romanian edition used; Istrati wrote in French.)

You row the channel between Lunguleț and Șerban, among willows and reeds. The ride is illustrative, paced by your scroll: the maps give the channels and lakes, not the speed of the boats of old.

The flood

Much water, much fish

“Only in 1906, after the higher waters of 1905 too, did the carp begin to multiply and reproduce again,” Antipa wrote — and the figures back him: in 1906–1907 the Brateș waters and the Brăila Estate gave 3,020,352 kilograms of large carp, up from 321,140 a year earlier — 9.4 times more. In 1907–1908 they rose to 5,117,567 kilograms, and at Crapina from 179,300 to 540,302 and then to 1,194,533 kilograms.

“Our waters yield an output which, as fisheries, far exceeds the output of all similar fisheries in Europe,” Antipa wrote. The State-run fishery alone returned a net revenue of over 1,000,000 lei; the 1906 reeds, rushes and hay added 267,889 lei, the willow forest some 40,000 lei a year.

The dikes

The wetland closes

The Danube's link with the wetland broke beginning with 1960: whole reaches were cut with dikes, drained and turned into farm polders. The diking, draining and deforestation of the 1960s and 1970s wiped the wetland off the map — 79% of the floodplain from Calafat to Isaccea left the natural regime, some 4,400 square kilometres. The dike drawn here is schematic: it follows the pre-dike banks, not the project line.

The dikes were raised in the 1950s–60s partly with detainee labour, in the camps around the wetland — Ostrov, Salcia and the rest — after Andrei Muraru's Dictionary of the Prisons, via the cited synthesis; the details remain to be checked in the archive. Antipa had opposed total diking as early as 1910, when — after Gâștescu — a promulgated law demanded total diking; a century later the geographer Petre Gâștescu's figures on the lost floodplain prove him right.

Today

Fields off the lakebeds

Today the Great Brăila Island covers about 710 square kilometres, of which about 681.3 farmland — 94.6% — guarded by a 23.5-kilometre dike. Two communes, Mărașu and Frecăței, hold some 5,000 people. Our outline traced on the natural pre-dike banks measures 807 square kilometres: the dike cut the meadow, not just the waters.

The glowing outlines are the 9 lakes from the old maps, with crops growing today on their beds: Șerban, Lunguleț, Ulmul, Noroaele, Ratu, Orza, Rotund, Lupoiu, Tărmuroiul. What fish the wetland would yield today was nowhere measured that we could find — the page shows Antipa's figures and says that.

What survived

Balta Mică: 11%

West of the island, Balta Mică a Brăilei is what escaped: 17,529 hectares delimited in 2003 as a nature park — 11% of the former wetland and 0.5% of the former Lower Danube floodplain, from Silistra to the Prut. The park administration speaks today of 24,123 hectares: two published figures, both recorded here.

The park holds 7 islands — from Harapu, 242 hectares, to Insula Mică, 9,727 — separated by 7 arms with 149 kilometres of watercourse, with 52 inner lakes: 4,466 hectares of aquatic habitats and 10,709 terrestrial. A Ramsar wetland since June 2001, a Natura 2000 site since 2008, with 206 bird species and 218 higher plants. It is visited by boat, on water trails, from the visitor centre on the Danube embankment.

Look for yourself

Pick the year, then turn the island with mouse or finger. The wheel, the two-finger pinch or the + and − buttons zoom. The flood button raises and lowers the spring waters over the island.

The map knows the 9 pre-dike lakes, within ±150 metres of trace and georeference error. Areas are measured on our traced polygons; the “diked farmland” verdict follows from position inside the diked island, today 94.6% farmland.

The wetland in figures

Every number comes from our measurements on the plans or from the sources below; method and errors follow in the next section.

MeasureValueSource
Former wetland, after the park administration149,000 habmb.ro, park history
Island measured by Antipa in 1910 / open water at low water87,642 / 14,349 haAntipa 1910, p. 13
Our natural-bank outline / today's diked island807 / c. 710 km²own trace / syntheses
Carp in 1907–1908, Brateș + Brăila Estate5,117,567 kgAntipa 1910, p. 135
Carp in 1906–1907, from the year before321,140 → 3,020,352 kgAntipa 1910, p. 134
Crapina, 1905–1908179,300 → 540,302 → 1,194,533 kgAntipa 1910, p. 135
State-run fishery / lease with the Brăila Estateover 1,000,000 / 613,000 leiAntipa 1910, pp. 100–101
Floodplain out of the natural regime, Calafat–Isaccea79% / c. 4,400 km²Gâștescu 2018
Farmland today on the island / the dike681.3 km² (94.6%) / 23.5 kmsyntheses, circa
Balta Mică today: area / islands / lakes17,529 ha / 7 / 52bmb.ro
The pre-dike firing plan at lakes Șerban and Lunguleț: the white open water, the channels and the surrounding forest.
Șerban and Lunguleț on the pre-dike plan: open water, channels, forest. The trace source, via eHarta.
Page 13 of Regiunea inundabilă a Dunării, 1910: the 87,642 hectares of the Brăila island and the lake list of the Brăila Estate.
Antipa's survey, 1910, page 13: 87,642 hectares and the Brăila Estate lakes. BCU Carol I scan.

How we rebuilt the wetland

The island and lakes from the plans

We started from the 1:20,000 firing plans, pre-dike editions, available georeferenced through eHarta geo-spatial.org: on them the island is still wetland, with lakes, channels and forest. We traced the island outline in 58 points, on the arms' natural banks — 807 square kilometres — and 9 lakes after the names written on the plans: Șerban (1,391 ha), Ulmul (814 ha), Lunguleț (667 ha), Lupoiu and Tărmuroiul (416 ha each), Noroaele (374 ha), Rotund (265 ha), Orza (164 ha), Ratu (81 ha). Positions carry ±150 metres of trace and georeference error; where the northern sheets meet the southern ones, on the eastern arm, the sheets diverge by about 2 kilometres, and the trace bridges them. Our check rule requires every outline point to sit on low ground (under 25 metres in the terrain model), every lake centroid inside the outline, and the outline free of self-intersections. On our sheets the island’s western arm is lettered Cremenea, the eastern one Dunărea Veche; the syntheses call the middle arm Vâlciu.

The four areas

Four numbers, four definitions: 149,000 hectares is the former wetland after the park administration; 87,642 hectares is the island Antipa measured in 1910; 807 square kilometres is our natural-bank outline; about 710 square kilometres is today's diked island. They are never subtracted from each other: each carries its definition.

Water and land

Above the waters, the ground is the Copernicus GLO-30 model. The pre-dike floor is modelled: the traced lakes are deepened 3.5 metres below the local bank, the channels 2 metres — a reconstruction, labelled as such wherever it appears. The scene levels (arms, flood, low water) are set dressing and are nowhere cited as measurements. In Balta Mică the radar reads the willow crowns, hence the high elevations; the 14 drawn waters are the waters mapped in OpenStreetMap, not all 52 of the park's lakes.

What we do not know

Scurtu and Rușeava, from Antipa's list, were not found named on our sheets — they appear in the story, with no point on the map. The fifth name in Antipa's list is illegible in the scan. What fish the wetland would yield today was nowhere measured that we could find, so the page puts no after-the-dikes figure next to the before ones. The sheets' exact print years are unverified — we only know they are pre-dike editions, because they show the wetland, not the fields. The camp details come from a cited synthesis of a book we did not open (Muraru 2008) and remain to be checked in the archive. The Romanian wording of the Istrati quotes is the used file's, with no translator credited.

Sources

Sister page: The Wheat of Brăila (the port and grain trade, 1843–1852).

Questions

How large was the Brăila wetland?

The nature park administration puts the former wetland at 149,000 hectares, of which 17,529 hectares survive under protection — 11%. In 1910 Antipa measured the island between the arms at 87,642 hectares, with 14,349 hectares of open water at low water.

How much fish did the wetland yield?

In 1907–1908 the Brateș waters and the Brăila Estate yielded 5,117,567 kilograms of carp; a year earlier, after high waters, the catch had jumped from 321,140 to 3,020,352 kilograms. Antipa wrote that our waters, as fisheries, far exceed the output of all similar fisheries in Europe.

When did the wetland disappear?

The Danube's link with the wetland broke beginning with 1960, and the diking, draining and deforestation of the 1960s and 1970s wiped the wetland off the map; today about 681 square kilometres of the island are farmland.

Who built the dikes?

The dikes were raised in the 1950s–60s partly with detainee labour, in the camps around the wetland — Ostrov, Salcia and the rest — after Andrei Muraru's Dictionary of the Prisons (2008), via the cited synthesis; the details remain to be checked in the archive.

What survives of the wetland?

Balta Mică a Brăilei, a nature park: 17,529 hectares delimited in 2003 (the administration speaks today of 24,123 hectares), with 7 islands, 7 arms totalling 149 kilometres and 52 inner lakes — 11% of the former wetland.

Where was Lake Șerban?

In the downstream half of the island, among the lakes of the Brăila Estate: on the pre-dike maps it held 1,391 hectares of open water. Today the lakebed is diked farmland — search it above, by name.

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