Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Is the Danube river navigable?
The Danube flows through many cities, including four national capitals (shown below in bold), more than any other river in the world. Ordered from the source to the mouth they are:
The Danube is navigable by ocean ships from the Black Sea to Brăila in Romania and by river ships to Kelheim, Bavaria, Germany; smaller craft can navigate further upstream to Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. About 60 of its tributaries are also navigable.
Postwar discussion of the Danube River was begun by the United States in 1945 when President Truman proposed at the Potsdam Conference that freedom of navigation should be assured on Europe's inland waterways. Britain and France were concerned with reestablishing their prewar positions as members of the European Commission of the Danube.
In 1947, the Paris peace treaties signed with Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria guaranteed free navigation.The foreign ministers of Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States stipulated that:
Navigation on the Danube shall be free and open for the nationals, vessels of commerce and goods of all states, on a footing of equality in regard to port and navigation charges and conditions for merchant shipping. The foregoing shall not apply to traffic between ports of the same state.
"Danube" is an Old European river name derived from a Proto-Indo-European "*dānu". Other river names from the same root include the Dunaj, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr, Dysna, Tana and Tuoni. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, "dānu" means "fluid, drop", in Avestan, the same word means "river". In the Rigveda, "Dānu" once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers." The Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, which is most likely derived from the word for the river in Swedish and German, "Donau". Its Sámi name "Deatnu" means "Great River". It is possible that "dānu" in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": "Dnieper" and "Dniestr", from "Danapris" and "Danastius", are presumed to continue Scythian "*dānu apara" "far river" and "*dānu nazdya-" "near river", respectively.
The county lies on a low plain, between the Prut River in the East, the Siret River in the West and South-West. They both flow into the Danube which forms the border with Tulcea County in the South-East.Due to the relief, the majority of the population in the rural areas work in agriculture. Fishing is another profitable occupation along the Danube and the Siret River. Galați is Romania's second harbour after Constanța, the navigable channel on the Danube allowing the passage of large ships. In Galați there exist the biggest metallurgical complex in Romania – the Mittal-Sidex Complex. Also the second biggest shipyard can be found also at Galați allowing ships up to 55,000 tdw to be built.
Danube was laid out in 1899, and named after the Danube, a European river. A post office called Danube has been in operation since 1903.
The Main is navigable for shipping from its mouth at the Rhine close to Mainz for to Bamberg. Since 1992, the Main has been connected to the Danube via the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the highly regulated Altmühl river. The Main has been canalized with 34 large locks () to allow CEMT class V vessels () to navigate the total length of the river. The 16 locks in the adjacent Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the Danube itself are of the same dimensions.
Scholars who reject the continuity theory emphasize that the Romanian names of the large rivers show that the Romanians did not directly inherit them from their Latin-speaking ancestors. According to Vékony (who promotes the immigrationist theory), the Romanian name of the Danube evinces that the Romanians' ancestors lived far from this large river, because otherwise they must have preserved its Latin name, "Danuvius". He also emphasizes that the hypothetical "*Donaris" form is not attested in written sources and "Istros" was the river's native name. According to Schramm, the early Slavs adopted the East Germanic name of the Danube, showing that a predominantly Gothic-speaking population inhabited the territory between the Slavs' homeland and the Lower Danube before the Slavs approached the river in the 5th century. Vékony proposes that the Romanians adopted the river's Cuman name, "Dunay", when they reached the Danube during their northward expansion around 1100. In Schramm's view, the phonetic changes from ""s"" to ""ʃ"" in the names of five large rivers also contradict the continuity theory, because Latin did not contain the latter consonant, thus only non-Romanized natives could transmit it to the peoples who settled in the north-Danubian regions after the Romans abandoned them. Similarly, historian László Makkai says that the change from ""a"" to ""o"" shows that a Slavic-speaking population mediated the ancient names of three large rivers to modern populations (including Romanians), because this vowel shift is attested in the development of the Slavic languages, but is alien to Romanian and other tongues spoken along the rivers. Linguists (including some proponents of the continuity theory) also accept a Slavic mediation which is undeniable in specific cases.
Galați is located in southeastern Romania. Its coordinates are latitude 45 ° 27 'north and longitude 28 ° 02' east. Its area is . Galați lies in the southern part of the Moldavian Plateau on the left (west) bank of the Danube river at the junction of the Siret River (west) and the Prut River (east), near Lake Brates. It is from the Black Sea. The nearest town is Brăila, to the south. Galați is built on three geological terraces. One lies beneath "Valley City", with elevations between . The other two, which make a fan shape, have elevations of (the site of the old town, now the city centre) and (the site of the modern city) respectively.
The Danube river is considered the "life-blood" of Galați. The Danube is the second longest river in Europe ), with an average flow of per second in the Galați section. After the Siret River, the largest tributary in Romania, joins the Danube, the flow is . After the Prut River joins the Danube, the flow becomes . The Danube river flows have significant seasonal variation. The maximum flows occur in May; . The minimum flows occur during the summer; .
As early as 1847 the following definition can already be found in the "Universallexikon des Großherzogtums Baden" (Universal Lexicon of the Grand Duchy of Baden): “Danube, the biggest river of Germany, rises at the Martinskapelle in a wild and lonely area of the Black Forest, is called Brege at its origin and forms the river Danube in Donaueschingen where it is unified with the Brigach." (German original: „Donau, der größte Fluß Deutschlands, entspringt bei der Martinskapelle in einer wilden und einsamen Gegend des Schwarzwaldes, heißt am Anfang Brege… und bildet erst in Donaueschingen, wo sie sich mit der Brigach vereinigt, die Donau.“)
The Transylvanian Plateau, high, is drained by the Mureș, Someș, Criș, and Olt rivers, as well as other tributaries of the Danube. This core of historical Transylvania roughly corresponds with nine counties of modern Romania. The plateau is almost entirely surrounded by the Eastern, Southern and Romanian Western branches of the Carpathian Mountains. The area includes the Transylvanian Plain. Other areas to the west and north are widely considered part of Transylvania. In common reference, the Western border of Transylvania has come to be identified with the present Romanian-Hungarian border, settled in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, though geographically the two are not identical.
The modern Danube Delta began to form after 4000 BCE in a bay of the Black Sea, when the sea rose to its present level. A sandy barrier blocked the Danube bay where the river initially built its delta. Upon filling the bay with sediment, the delta advanced outside this barrier-blocked estuary after 3500 BCE, building several successive lobes: the St. George I (3500–1600 BCE), the Sulina (1600–0 BCE), the St. George II (0 BC–present) and the Chilia or Kilia (1600 CE–present). Several other internal lobes were constructed in the lakes and lagoons bordering the Danube Delta to the north (Chilia I and II) and toward the south (Dunavatz). Much of the alluvium in the delta and major expansion of its surface area in the form of lobes resulted from soil erosion associated with the clearing of forests in the Danube basin during the 1st and 2nd millennium. Geologist Liviu Giosan told "The New York Times":
The name "Dniester" derives from Sarmatian "dānu nazdya" "the close river." The Dnieper, also of Sarmatian origin, derives from the opposite meaning, "the river on the far side". Alternatively, according to Vasily Abaev "Dniester" would be a blend of Scythian "dānu" "river" and Thracian "Ister", the previous name of the river, literally Dān-Ister (River Ister). The Ancient Greek name of Dniester, "Tyras" ("Τύρας"), is from Scythian "tūra", meaning "rapid." The names of the Don and Danube are also from the same Indo-Iranian word "*dānu" "river". Classical authors have also referred to it as "Danaster." These early forms, without -"i"- but with -"a"-, contradict Abaev's hypothesis. Edward Gibbon refers to the river both as the Niester and Dniester in his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".
The Balkan Peninsula is bounded by the Adriatic Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea (including the Ionian and Aegean seas) and the Marmara Sea to the south and the Black Sea to the east. Its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has a combined area of about (slightly smaller than Spain). It is more or less identical to the region known as Southeastern Europe.
Bucharest (; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, at , on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of the Danube River and the Bulgarian border.
The German word Aue (variant Au) means "river island, wetland, floodplain, riparian woodland", i.e. a cultivated landscape in a riparian zone. The words Aue and Au occur in a large number of German place names—including Donau, the German word for the Danube River—and refer to forests, meadows, and wetlands in river and stream lowlands and floodplains. The Danube-Auen National Park protects a large area of lowland forests, meadows, wetlands, and other riparian habitat along the Danube just downstream of Vienna.
The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta and flows into the Mediterranean Sea. Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, and nearly all the cultural and historical sites of Ancient Egypt are found along riverbanks.
The Zambezi River and several tributaries of the Congo River have their sources in Angola. A large number of rivers originate in the central uplands, but their patterns of flow are diverse and their ultimate outlets varied. A number flow in a more or less westerly course to the Atlantic Ocean, providing water for irrigation in the dry coastal strip and the potential for hydroelectric power, only some of which had been realized by 1988. Two of Angola's most important rivers, the Cuanza (Kwanza) and the Cunene (Kunene), take a more indirect route to the Atlantic, the Cuanza flowing north and the Cunene flowing south before turning west. The Cuanza is the only river wholly within Angola that is navigable—for nearly 200 kilometers from its mouth- -by boats of commercially or militarily significant size. The Congo River, whose mouth and western end form a small portion of Angola's northern border with Zaire, is also navigable.
Bulgaria occupies a portion of the eastern Balkan peninsula, bordering five countries—Greece and Turkey to the south, Macedonia and Serbia to the west, and Romania to the north. The land borders have a total length of , and the coastline has a length of . Its total area of ranks it as the world's 105th-largest country. Bulgaria's geographic coordinates are 43° N 25° E. The most notable topographical features are the Danubian Plain, the Balkan Mountains, the Thracian Plain, and the Rhodope Mountains. The southern edge of the Danubian Plain slopes upward into the foothills of the Balkans, while the Danube defines the border with Romania. The Thracian Plain is roughly triangular, beginning southeast of Sofia and broadening as it reaches the Black Sea coast.
Romania – unitary semi-presidential republic located in Central-Southeastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea, between Bulgaria and Ukraine. It also borders Hungary, Serbia, and Moldova. It covers 238,391 square kilometres (92,043 sq mi) and has a temperate-continental climate. With 19.9 million inhabitants, it is the seventh most populous member of the European Union. Its capital and largest city, Bucharest, is the sixth largest city in the EU. It encompasses the historical regions of Wallachia (including Dobruja), Moldavia (including Bukovina), Transylvania (including Banat, Maramureș, and Crișana). "Romania" derives from the Latin "romanus", meaning "citizen of Rome".Geography of Romania
Administrative divisions of Romania
The Tennessee River has historically been a major highway for riverboats through the south and today they are still found along the river in abundance. Major ports include Guntersville, Chattanooga, Decatur, and Yellow Creek, and Muscle Shoals. Navigation has contributed greatly to the economic and industrial development of the Tennessee Valley as a whole. The economies of cities like Decatur and Chattanooga would not be as dynamic as they are today, were it not for the Tennessee River. Many companies still rely on the river as a means of transportation for their materials. In Chattanooga, for example, steel is exported on boats, as it is much more efficient than moving it on land. Locks along the Tennessee River waterway provide passage between reservoirs for more than 13,000 recreational craft each year. The Chickamauga Dam, located just upstream from Chattanooga, is currently planned to have a new lock built. However, the project has been delayed due to a lack of funding. The river not only has many economic functions, such as the boat building industry and transportation, but it also provides water and natural resources to those who live near the river. Many of the major ports on the river are connected to a settlement that was started because of its proximity to the river.
Transylvania is a historical region in central and northwestern Romania. It was part of the Dacian Kingdom (1st–2nd centuries CE), Roman Dacia (2nd–3rd centuries), the Hunnic Empire (4th–5th centuries), the Kingdom of the Gepids (5th–6th centuries), the Avar Khaganate (6th–9th centuries) and the 9th century First Bulgarian Empire. During the late 9th century, western Transylvania was reached by the Hungarian conquerors and later it became part of the Kingdom of Hungary, formed in 1000. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526 it belonged to the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, from which the Principality of Transylvania emerged. During most of the 16th and 17th centuries, the principality was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire; however, the principality had dual suzerainty (Ottoman and Habsburg). In 1690, the Habsburgs gained possession of Transylvania through the Hungarian crown. After 1711 Habsburg control of Transylvania was consolidated, and Transylvanian princes were replaced with Habsburg imperial governors. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the separate status of Transylvania ceased; it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary (Transleithania) as part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. After World War I, Transylvania became part of Romania. In 1940 Northern Transylvania reverted to Hungary as a result of the Second Vienna Award, but it was reclaimed by Romania after the end of World War II.
The Danube is by far Romania's most important river, not only for transportation, but also for the production of hydroelectric power. One of Europe's largest hydroelectric stations is located at the Iron Gates, where the Danube surges through the Carpathian gorges. The Danube is an important water route for domestic shipping, as well as international trade. It is navigable for river vessels along its entire Romanian course and for seagoing ships as far as the port of Brăila. An obvious problem with the use of the Danube for inland transportation is its remoteness from most of the major industrial centres. Moreover, marshy banks and perennial flooding impede navigation in some areas.
The Sava is navigable to larger vessels for between its confluence with the Danube in Belgrade, Serbia and Galdovo Bridge in Sisak, Croatia, upstream from confluence of Sava and Kupa rivers. The confluence marks the westernmost point of the river course designated as a Class IV international waterway in compliance with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's European Agreement on Main Inland Waterways of International Importance (AGN). The classification means that the river course between Sisak and Belgrade is navigable to ships of the maximum length of , the maximum beam of , the maximum draught of and tonnage up to . The Sava River downstream of Sisak, is designated as European waterway E 80-12, branching off from the E 80 waterway spanning the Danube and Le Havre via the Rhine. The largest ports on the Sava River are Brčko and Šamac in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sisak and Slavonski Brod in Croatia, and Šabac and Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia.
The Danube is by far Romania's most important river, not only for transportation, but also for the production of hydroelectric power. One of Europe's largest hydroelectric stations is located at the Iron Gates, where the Danube surges through the Carpathian gorges. The Danube is an important water route for domestic shipping, as well as international trade. It is navigable for river vessels along its entire Romanian course and for seagoing ships as far as the port of Brăila. An obvious problem with the use of the Danube for inland transportation is its remoteness from most of the major industrial centers. Moreover, marshy banks and perennial flooding impede navigation in some areas.
EAEMDR was established as an organization in 1935 under the name “Danube Hydrographical Service” within the structure of the Ministry of Railways. The headquarters were situated in the city of Lom and the responsibilities of the Service were related to the maintenance of the waterway, creation of maps of the Danube River, conduction of hydro meteorological surveys in the Bulgarian section of the river. In 1949, after the ratification of the “Convention for the sailing regime on the Danube River”, the Danube Hydrographical Service passed over to the Ministry of Defense – Danube Fleet. Four years later the service was reinstated as a part of the Ministry of Transport, information technology and communications and the Navigational Waterway Office was established in Ruse. In the year 1955 the organization passed over under the structure of the Bulgarian River Fleet and in the next year the Council of Ministers adopted a decree, by the force of which the Navigational Waterway Office was restructured into the “Administration for the Maintenance of the Navigational Waterway and Exploration of the Danube River” within the Ministry of Transport, Information technology and communications. 
In December 1999 the Administration was transformed into the Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River.