Information:

 

On the rhine: General information

The Rhine river with a length of about 1320 km is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe. Since roman times when the rhine river marked the northern border of the roman empire it is an important trading route. The Rhine is navigable for a length of about 885 km and flows through Swiss, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands and is a boundary river of France and Liechtenstein. The spring of the rhine is in the canton of Graubuenden in the Swiss Alps, from the source to the estuary it is divided in the following parts:

rhine-map Lower Rhine Middle Rhine Upper Rhine High Rhine Lake Constance Alps Rhine Headwaters of the Rhine

 

 

Headwaters

 

Alps Rhine

Near Tamins the vorder rhine and hinter rhine unify to the alps rhine, which changes its direction near Chur towards north. The length of the alps rhine is around 100km, flowing between 599 and 396m above sea level. The estuary of the alps rhine in the Lake Constance forms an inland delta, bounded by the old rhine in the east and the lower rhine breakthrough (unterer Rheindurchstich) in the east. This landscape is called rhine delta and is an important nature and bird conservation area in Austria.

Lake Constance

The Lake Constance consists of the Lake Superior (Obersee), the Lake inferior (Untersee) and the Lake Rhine (Seerhein) in the northern Alps foreland. These two independent lakes are connected by the river rhine and bordered by Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

It is situated 395 above sea level and with an area of 571km Central Europe's third largest freshwater lake after Lake Balaton and Lake Geneva. The widest point is 14km and it measures 63km length, the greatest depth is 252m.

High Rhine

The term High Rhine (Hochrhein) has come up in the 19th century, especially geologists where anxious to define the High Rhine from the Upper Rhine. This part of the rhine river begins at the outflow of the Lake Constance near Stein am Rhein and ends at the beginning of the Upper Rhine in Basel, passing a height difference from 395m to 252m above seal level.

 

Upper Rhine

The Upper Rhine starts at Basel around rhine kilometre 170 and ends at Bingen after 350km at rhine kilometre 520. The rhine river is canalised most of its way from Basel downstream to Iffezheim, passing 10 canal locks and water gates with a total height difference of 134 m in 180km.

The first larger city on the rhine river is Basel, at the beginning of the rhine rift, an about 300km long and 40km wide valley where the rhine copes a height difference from 252m to 76m above sea level.

 

Middle Rhine

 

There are about 40 fortresses and castles on a 65km long stretch between Koblenz and Bingen, the biggest concentration of castles in such a small area worldwide. These fortification had been built by Landgraves, Dukes, Counts, and the archbishopric of Cologne, Mainz and Trier on strategic positions to collect river toll duties, making the middle rhine valley a long contested region. Although their positions on hilltops where chosen for strategic reasons they also had representative status.

 

Lower Rhine

 

The lower rhine begins at the estuary of the river Sieg near Bonn at a height of 50m above sea level. The most important tributaries o he lower rhine are the rivers Ruhr and Lippe. The riverbanks are intense populated and industrialised, especially in Cologne, Duesseldorf and the rest of the Ruhr area. The biggest inland harbour of europe is in Duisburg, the longest suspension bridge of germany is in Emmerich, where the rhine river is about 400m wide.

 

The biggest cities on the rhine and its Rhine kilometre (Rheinkilometer) and riverside positions are:

rhine-map

The most important tributaries of the rhine river are:

Hotels

Hotels in Germany are distinguished in different quality ratings from one to five stars. The participation in this system is optional. About 10% of the hotel rooms are ranged with one or two stars, 60% are three star hotels, 28% of the hotels have 4 stars, and the remaining 2% are luxury hotels rated with 5 stars.

To give you a more detailed look we put the requirements for hotels that participate in this quality rating system on our hotels site.

Rhine water levels

You can get an overview on the actual rhine water levels (and some other data) from ELWIS - the `Electronic Waterway Information System`. Another source for rhine water levels is the flooding/ high water information service from the federal state Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany.

The flood/ high water level I marks the beginning of a special flooding report system, flood level II stops any shipping movements on the section of the rhine river where the flooding occurs. Below is a list with the flood levels of the most important rhine river water levels, together with the highest water levels that occurred in history:

Basel-Rheinhalle

Maxau

 

Speyer

 

Mannheim

 

Worms

 

Mainz

 

Bingen

 

Kaub

 

Koblenz

 

Andernach

Bonn

 

Cologne

 

Duesseldorf

 

Wesel

 

Emmerich