From the Black Forest to the Black Sea

Where does the Danube take us?

Explore the river through documented cities, landscapes and projects along its course, from the headwaters to the Danube Delta.

Choose a place on the map or from the list.

The river and tributaries follow generalized Natural Earth lines. The source omits the Chilia branch and leaves an approximately 11 km gap before segments towards Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe; no connectors are added. Dots mark settlements, not ports.

Projects about this stretch

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Budapest

Middle Danube

Projects connected with this place

A drop in the Danube: source to Black Sea in about 32 days
About a month in an average year: three weeks in flood, two months in drought. Send a drop down the Danube, from the Black Forest to Sulina, on a clock built from measured current speeds.

Search checks titles, descriptions and search terms; it does not confirm that every result takes place here.

01 / Follow the river

Upper Danube

The source and upper river

From the Black Forest, the Danube crosses several countries before reaching Vienna and Bratislava. The map follows its general course; it is not a navigation route.

A drop in the Danube: source to Black Sea in about 32 days
About a month in an average year: three weeks in flood, two months in drought. Send a drop down the Danube, from the Black Forest to Sulina, on a clock built from measured current speeds.
Why does the Danube have two ancient names?
Herodotus calls the whole river Ister; Strabo cuts it at the cataracts, Danuvius above, Ister below. Each ancient author draws the name boundary elsewhere.
The longest river in Romania
The Danube, Mureș and Olt can all be the right answer, depending on the definition: 1075 km on Romanian territory, 761 km among rivers without the fluviu, 615 km entirely inside Romania. The full twelve-river ranking, drawn to scale.

02 / Follow the river

Middle Danube

Towns on the middle Danube

Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade mark a stretch where cities, transport and the river’s changing names meet. Choose a place to open related projects.

A drop in the Danube: source to Black Sea in about 32 days
About a month in an average year: three weeks in flood, two months in drought. Send a drop down the Danube, from the Black Forest to Sulina, on a clock built from measured current speeds.
Why does the Danube have two ancient names?
Herodotus calls the whole river Ister; Strabo cuts it at the cataracts, Danuvius above, Ister below. Each ancient author draws the name boundary elsewhere.
Danube Cruise Selector: Routes, Companies and Seasons on the Romanian Leg
One Romanian Danube as the base, sold six ways by three companies (one detours to the sea): an 11-day cruise-tour, an 8-day short sailing, 12-day / 14-night full transits. Route, company and season compared, with sailing months and dated fares, so you leave with a route plus a company plus a month.

03 / Follow the river

Iron Gates and the Danube Gorge

The Iron Gates and gorge

Between Baziaș and Drobeta-Turnu Severin, the river enters a gorge. Projects here explore the landscape, crossings, settlements and traces of history on both banks.

Danube Cazane gorge: Orsova cruises, museum, 2026 fares and hours
The Danube gorge with published fares: Orsova cruises T5/T6 (80–120 lei), charter 720 lei, Iron Gates Museum (40 lei). Hours and measured drives.
The gorge that swallowed an island
At the Cazane narrows the Danube squeezes to some 150 metres and digs some 53 deep: the Roman road with the plaque of year 100, the face of Decebalus carved in 1993–2004, and Ada Kaleh island with its 511 people, drowned by the dam. Raise the water from the Roman level to today's lake, in schematic 3D.
The Turkish island under the Danube
A few hundred people lived on Ada Kaleh until the late 1960s. The island is rebuilt in 3D in its real gorge; you lower the Danube by 25 metres, walk it, and watch it pulled down and covered by the reservoir.
Tabula Traiana in the Danube Gorge: what it says and how it was lifted 20 metres in 1969
Trajan's inscription of AD 100, word by word, and the 260-tonne block lifted 20 metres in 1969 before the Iron Gates lake.

04 / Follow the river

Lower Danube

The lower Danube

The Borcea branch, port towns and wetlands link the river with the plain and the Black Sea. Projects follow local history, farming and the ways water reaches communities.

The Danube at low water, 1840–2026: how often the river has been this low
Daily Danube flow at Orșova since 1840, 183 years: between June and September no day had fallen under 1,440 m³/s. In 2026, INHGA bulletins give 1,300 in August and 1,250 in September. Enter a flow from the news and see how often the river has been that low.
How high does the water reach where you live?
Type your village or town, drop the pin on your house and see the European flood model: 10-, 100- and 500-year floods on the Danube, Siret and Prut. Then raise the Danube at the Galați gauge and watch in 3D where the water goes. In Romanian and English.
Izmail Fortress: what remains beside the Danube
At Izmail on the Danube, military plans show an old fortress, a new one and a river front. Suvorov's assault of 11/22 December 1790 did not end the site's history: the defences were rebuilt, then dismantled after the 1856 peace. Set the plans beside today's traces: the mosque with its diorama and the park-museum.
Where was Stephen's Chilia? A port, two banks
Stephen the Great captured Chilia in January 1465; the port passed to the Ottomans in 1484. But where was the Chilia he captured — at Chilia Veche on the Romanian bank, or at Kiliia in Ukraine? Switch banks and compare the evidence: names, finds, plans, published interpretations — no prefabricated answer.

05 / Follow the river

The Delta

The arms and the Delta

At Tulcea, the river divides into arms that flow towards the Black Sea. Choose a place to find projects about the Delta’s formation, birds and Sulina.

Danube Delta: ARBDD permits, Navrom Tulcea–Sulina timetables, 2026 fares
The Delta access permit (5/15/30 lei), car, boat, fishing and photo permits, plus Navrom timetables from Tulcea to Sulina, Sfântu Gheorghe and Mila 23.
Birds of the Delta: Seasons, Species, and Ethics
See when 24 Delta birds migrate or nest, explore three suggested trips, and read the visitor guidelines. The guide has no current population estimates and cannot predict what you will see.
The Growing Delta: Romania's Youngest Land
Five thousand years ago this was a Black Sea bay. Fly over the fan, in 3D, and see how the Danube filled it lobe by lobe: three arms, four lobes, old shorelines and a time machine showing the growth — and its braking after the Iron Gates dams. In Romanian and English.
The Sulina arm: ten cuts and a lighthouse left far from the sea, 1856–1902
Sail the Sulina arm as it was before 1868, then watch the European Commission of the Danube cut ten bends and shorten it by 21.9 km, while the shore moved away from the old lighthouse.

Browse every Danube project

The Danube, source to sea · 37 projects

The complete collection

Projects with a direct geographic, historical or hydrological connection to the Danube and its regions.

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37 projects

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History along the banks
Fishers and farmers at the Iron Gates: who grew up elsewhere?
As farming began, teeth indicate more people raised in a different geological area. Nine sites on the gorge’s relief map, with sample phases, DNA, diet and precise sources.
History along the banks
Constantine the Great's bridge at Sucidava: 2,437 metres across the Danube, from AD 328
Choose a pace and walk its whole length — 2,437 metres, a mile and a half — on a to-scale drawing, while Trajan's bridge, drawn underneath, ends at less than half.
History along the banks
Where was Stephen's Chilia? A port, two banks
Stephen the Great captured Chilia in January 1465; the port passed to the Ottomans in 1484. But where was the Chilia he captured — at Chilia Veche on the Romanian bank, or at Kiliia in Ukraine? Switch banks and compare the evidence: names, finds, plans, published interpretations — no prefabricated answer.
History along the banks
Izmail Fortress: what remains beside the Danube
At Izmail on the Danube, military plans show an old fortress, a new one and a river front. Suvorov's assault of 11/22 December 1790 did not end the site's history: the defences were rebuilt, then dismantled after the 1856 peace. Set the plans beside today's traces: the mosque with its diorama and the park-museum.
The arms and delta
What was the Great Brăila Wetland? A map of the lost waters
Between Brăila and Măcin lay a wetland of 149,000 hectares, yielding 5,117,567 kilograms of carp (Brateș and the Brăila Estate) in a single year. Diked in the 1960s, it is wheat fields today; only Balta Mică, 11%, survives as a nature park. Raise the Danube over the island and search your lake.
Journeys and crossings
First railway in Romania: 1854 or 1869? Oravița–Baziaș, Bucharest–Giurgiu and the three meanings of “first”
The press calls two different lines “the first railway in Romania”. Choose what “first” means and watch the answer change, then ride the real 1854 track, which leaves today’s Romania and comes back.
The river and its water
The longest river in Romania
The Danube, Mureș and Olt can all be the right answer, depending on the definition: 1075 km on Romanian territory, 761 km among rivers without the fluviu, 615 km entirely inside Romania. The full twelve-river ranking, drawn to scale.
The river and its water
How high does the water reach where you live?
Type your village or town, drop the pin on your house and see the European flood model: 10-, 100- and 500-year floods on the Danube, Siret and Prut. Then raise the Danube at the Galați gauge and watch in 3D where the water goes. In Romanian and English.
History along the banks
The Hills Made of Houses: more than a thousand years of Gumelnița, from 406 radiocarbon dates
Between 4900 and 3800 BC on the Lower Danube, people built their houses one on top of another until their villages became mounds. A clock drawn from 406 radiocarbon dates, the gold of Varna, four people raised elsewhere and what has actually been found under Bucharest, in Romanian and English.
The river and its water
Why does the Danube have two ancient names?
Herodotus calls the whole river Ister; Strabo cuts it at the cataracts, Danuvius above, Ister below. Each ancient author draws the name boundary elsewhere.
The river and its water
Who owns the water?
At Cernavodă, cooling water follows a physical route. On 2 September, CNSU approved a temporary, modular and reversible plan activated at 1.58 m in the CNE intake basin; on 3 September, INHGA reported 1,500 m³/s at Baziaș and the Energy Ministry said there were no conditions to discuss reopening in the next ten days.
The river and its water
A drop in the Danube: source to Black Sea in about 32 days
About a month in an average year: three weeks in flood, two months in drought. Send a drop down the Danube, from the Black Forest to Sulina, on a clock built from measured current speeds.
The river and its water
Thirty centimetres of cyanide
On the night of 30 January 2000, the Aurul dam burst and the cyanide plume set off down 2,000 kilometres of rivers. Measured numbers town by town, from Baia Mare to the delta, and the Strasbourg judgment.
Journeys and crossings
The canal dug twice
From the pick brigades of 1949 to the ships through locks of 1984: the decision, the camp-site, the silence and the second dig, with a canal profile map and a lock-keeper console.
Journeys and crossings
Danube Cruise Selector: Routes, Companies and Seasons on the Romanian Leg
One Romanian Danube as the base, sold six ways by three companies (one detours to the sea): an 11-day cruise-tour, an 8-day short sailing, 12-day / 14-night full transits. Route, company and season compared, with sailing months and dated fares, so you leave with a route plus a company plus a month.
The river and its water
Where does the rain here go? — The path of rain
At Arad, the Mureș flows west: through the Tisza, then into the Danube and the Black Sea. Search for a river or pick a place to follow the water, then discover the land that feeds it.
The river and its water
The frozen Danube at Tulcea, 1836–2016
At Tulcea, ice on the Danube was logged for 180 winters in a row: four winters in five froze before 1950, 10 in 66 after. Type your family's birth years and the river replays every winter of your lives.
History along the banks
UNESCO counted 277 points along Rome's Dacian frontier. Only a few can be visited, with a ticket.
A map of Roman archaeological sites open to the public in Romania, including Porolissum, Drobeta and Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, with opening hours, tickets and sources.
History along the banks
The Turkish island under the Danube
A few hundred people lived on Ada Kaleh until the late 1960s. The island is rebuilt in 3D in its real gorge; you lower the Danube by 25 metres, walk it, and watch it pulled down and covered by the reservoir.
The arms and delta
Danube Delta: ARBDD permits, Navrom Tulcea–Sulina timetables, 2026 fares
The Delta access permit (5/15/30 lei), car, boat, fishing and photo permits, plus Navrom timetables from Tulcea to Sulina, Sfântu Gheorghe and Mila 23.
The river and its water
Danube Cazane gorge: Orsova cruises, museum, 2026 fares and hours
The Danube gorge with published fares: Orsova cruises T5/T6 (80–120 lei), charter 720 lei, Iron Gates Museum (40 lei). Hours and measured drives.
The arms and delta
Birds of the Delta: Seasons, Species, and Ethics
See when 24 Delta birds migrate or nest, explore three suggested trips, and read the visitor guidelines. The guide has no current population estimates and cannot predict what you will see.
History along the banks
Trajan’s Bridge at Drobeta, rebuilt in 3D (AD 103–105)
Cross the Danube on Apollodorus’s bridge, rebuilt on the valley’s real terrain with the river lowered below today’s reservoir, then watch Hadrian and the centuries take it down to the pier stumps. What is known is marked apart from what is rebuilt.
The arms and delta
The Sulina arm: ten cuts and a lighthouse left far from the sea, 1856–1902
Sail the Sulina arm as it was before 1868, then watch the European Commission of the Danube cut ten bends and shorten it by 21.9 km, while the shore moved away from the old lighthouse.
History along the banks
The bridge that taught a country engineering: Cernavodă 1895
Fetești–Cernavodă 1890–95: Saligny, 4,087.95 metres, the longest bridge complex in Europe. Caissons, Gerber consoles, the silver rivet and the 15-locomotive test.
History along the banks
Who were the Greeks who lived in Romania for a thousand years? c. 630 BC – 1914
Miletus, the silver drachma, the AD 100 boundary. Four chapters and a map that silts as you read.
Cities and communities
When Romania Fed England: the Wheat of Brăila, 1843–1852
Ten harvests, two free ports and the 9-foot Sulina bar: how Brăila and Galați came to send hundreds of thousands of quarters of wheat to 1840s London.
History along the banks
Tabula Traiana in the Danube Gorge: what it says and how it was lifted 20 metres in 1969
Trajan's inscription of AD 100, word by word, and the 260-tonne block lifted 20 metres in 1969 before the Iron Gates lake.
History along the banks
Tricule Fortress at Svinița, Romania: ice cut the third tower down in 1924, the Iron Gates lake only covered what was left
Tricule Fortress at Svinița, Romania: three medieval towers in the Danube, one cut down by ice in 1924 from about 12 metres to 3, then covered by the Iron Gates lake. Map, true-scale plan and a profile of tower 3.
History along the banks
He has been thinking for 7,000 years. We still don't know what about.
The Thinker of Hamangia and the Sitting Woman: two fired-clay figurines, seven millennia old, found in a grave at Cernavodă. What we know, what we guess, and what we will never know about them.
The river and its water
The Danube at low water, 1840–2026: how often the river has been this low
Daily Danube flow at Orșova since 1840, 183 years: between June and September no day had fallen under 1,440 m³/s. In 2026, INHGA bulletins give 1,300 in August and 1,250 in September. Enter a flow from the news and see how often the river has been that low.
History along the banks
Cholera in the Romanian lands — The quarantine that stopped the fairs
Three cholera waves — 1831, 1848, 1873 — faced with no cures, by cordons on the Prut and the Danube, quarantines and closed fairs.
History along the banks
A 6,500-year-old village is falling into a lake, piece by piece
At Sultana in south-east Romania, the shore of Lake Mostiștea collapses year by year, taking a 6,500-year-old village with it. By 1923 the mound was already broken in half. The real ground in 3D: the mound today, the trenches, house L2 and its length before the collapse.
Cities and communities
The gorge that swallowed an island
At the Cazane narrows the Danube squeezes to some 150 metres and digs some 53 deep: the Roman road with the plaque of year 100, the face of Decebalus carved in 1993–2004, and Ada Kaleh island with its 511 people, drowned by the dam. Raise the water from the Roman level to today's lake, in schematic 3D.
The arms and delta
The Growing Delta: Romania's Youngest Land
Five thousand years ago this was a Black Sea bay. Fly over the fan, in 3D, and see how the Danube filled it lobe by lobe: three arms, four lobes, old shorelines and a time machine showing the growth — and its braking after the Iron Gates dams. In Romanian and English.
History along the banks
Trajan's Trophy
The Bridge said: Apollodorus across the Danube. The Column said: the wars in a spiral. The Trophy says it differently: the stone tells its years — 109 in the dedication, 1977 in the frame — and the walls tell their people: some 3,800 names on an after-the-battle altar. Climb it stone by stone, in 3D, then grade the legends: Apollodorus, Dio, the commander, the concrete.
Cities and communities
Călărași, the town that bought its own ground
Residents deposited 250,000 lei in 1852, and Călărași was declared a free town. A 1875 settlement recognised the town’s ownership up to the channels of the Borcea and Gâtul Ezerului.

About the collection

The river and tributaries are redrawn from Natural Earth. City points start from the Danube atlas and SIRUTA-linked locality points; for Sulina, the atlas marker fell about 8 km east of town, so the independently checked locality point is used. Markers show settlements, not ports or places to moor. Chapters and filters group projects by documented place or subject. This is not a navigation chart.

Reviewed 2026-10-15 · Collection as text

Sources

Natural Earth · Rivers and lake centreline
River and tributary geometry at 1:10,000,000 scale.
Comisia Dunării · Harta porturilor
Port-infrastructure reference; this page marks cities, not the ports in the register.
Picătura din Dunăre · surse și metodă
Source for city coordinates and the river’s course. Flow times are not reproduced here.
România ta · punctele așezărilor
Settlement points associated with SIRUTA codes, used for Romanian towns. Sulina uses locality code 159767.
Locul zilei · verificarea punctului Sulina
Independent cross-check of Sulina’s town location, about 0.4 km from the settlement point used here.