Danube delta

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Danube Delta - Landsat satellite photo (2000)

The Danube Delta (Delta Dunării in Romanian), split between Dobrogea, Romania and Odessa Oblast, Ukraine, is the largest and best preserved of European deltas, with an area of 3446 km², after the Volga Delta. The delta is located around the area where the Danube River flows into the Black Sea.

Contents

1 Geography
2 Nature
3 Inhabitants
4 History
5 See also
6 External links

Geography

Every year, the alluvium deposited by the Danube increases the width of the Delta by around 40 meters, making it extremely dynamic. Near Tulcea, the Danube is divided in three river branches before it flows into the Sea: Chilia, Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe (Saint George), but many other channels split the Delta into areas with reed, marshes and forests, some of which are flooded during the spring and autumn.

Currently there are two man-made navigation channels across the Danube Delta. Both of them are Romanians'. In 2004, Ukraine inaugurated work on the Bistroe Channel that will provide additional navigable link from the Black Sea to the Ukrainian section of the Danube Delta. The European Union advised Ukraine to shut it down, because it's likely to damage the wetlands of the Delta. The Romanian side said it may sue Ukraine at the International Court of Justice. Under the presidency of Kuchma Ukraine was responding that Romania is just afraid of competition that the new channel will bring, and was working on the channel construction. Under the presidency of Yuschenko, who visited Romania in 2005, both sides agree that professionals should decide the fate of the channel. In the long-run, Ukraine plan to build a navigation channel, if not through Bistroe Channel then through another channel.

Image from the Danube Delta

In 1991, Danube Delta became part of the World Heritage List, and, together with 812 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.

Nature

It hosts over 1,200 varieties of plants, 300 species of birds as well as 45 freshwater fish species in its numerous lakes and marshes. The Danube Delta has been entered onto the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites (1991) and Biosphere reserves. Around 2,733 km² of it are strictly protected areas.

This is the place where millions of birds from different places of Earth (European, Asian, African, Mediteraneean) come to rest and eat during the migration seasons. Many others hatch here.

Around 2,500 years ago, as Herodotus says that the Danube was divided in seven branches.

Inhabitants

Around 15,000 people live in the Delta, most of them are living off fishing with their traditional wooden kayaks. It includes a community of Lippovans which are descendants of the Old Rite Followers who left Russia in 1772 to avoid religious persecutions. The main center of Lippovan community in the Ukrainian part of Danube Delta is Vilkovo.

History

Starting with the 15th century, the Danube Delta was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Paris of 1856 which ended the Crimean War, Danube Delta together with two districts of Southern Bessarabia was included in the Principality of Moldavia and was established an international commission which made a series of works to help navigation. In 1859, it became part of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia and later Romania.

External links

[Danube Delta World Heritage Site]
from Wikitravel
() [Birds of the Danube Delta]
() [Danube Delta: Photo Gallery]
() [www.deltadunarii.ro]
() [Navigable Channel recent development]]
() [UK Travel Agent specialising in the Danube Delta]]

World Heritage Sites in Romania