Talk:Rhine

Comments

"At the end of World War I the Rhineland was subject to the Treaty of Versailles, which created lots of bitterness in Switzerland, and was one of the many reasons for World War II. The reoccupation of the Rhineland by Nazi Germany increased Hitler's popularity in Germany. " Is this quoted from someone's grade 10 history project? Celtic renos is credited all over the Internet as signifying "raging flow." Does it? Are there any Celtic cognates to support this reading? Here would be the entry to discuss it. (Not ignorant me, needless to say.) Wetman 22:05, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I put the correct etymology. A cognate of Rhine is old Irish rian ("the sea"), but there are no cognates in modern Celtic languages. Hardouin 17:30, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

An anonymous user has added a reference which I think may be vandalism, so I'm removing it. If it's not vandalism, please can someone clarify and restore it if necessary ? Thanks GeraldH 13:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Meuse as a tributary of the Rhine?

This article lists the River Meuse as being a tributary of the Rhine. Yes, there is some intermixing of the waters in the lower reaches, but the Maas (Meuse) remains a separate river with its own mouth in the Hollandsch Diep, doesn't it? One of the Rhine's mouths is the IJssel, but no Maas/Meuse water flows there, for instance. I think there should at least be a note explaining that the Maas/Meuse is a "partial tirbutary" or somesuch (is there a real word for this situation?). Perhaps it should state that the two rivers share a common delta (in the list of tributaries, I mean; it's already in the main text), rather than demoting the Maas to a mere unqualified tributary. --Stemonitis 09:26, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The most famous example of this is the Brahmaputra-Ganges delta. Ideally, we should have a worldwide policy for this. I think that rivers that share a delta are generally considered as one river system, but you are right that there's a difference to a plain old tributary. So marking it a "partial tributary" seems a good idea. I would argue however that it makes no sense to separate the Rhine basin from the Meuse basin (to which basin does the area of the shared delta belong?!). I believe (can anybody confirm this?) the number given (185,000 km²) does indeed include the Meuse. --Chl 22:03, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And while I'm here, wouldn't it make more sense to list all the tributaries together (noting which side they enter from), rather than separating the left-bank tributaries from the right-bank tributaries? --Stemonitis 09:26, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Railway bridges

There are railway bridges at Mainz and Koblenz, but I'd have to check what the nearest stations are. If someone happens to have that information to hand... Alai 04:52, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Outstanding

This article is getting to be outstanding. I can't think of any other encyclopedia that puts this info at your fingertips.Botteville 00:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC) It would be appropriate to add a section dedicated to the many legends and myths of the Rhein River. There are an abundance of books and articles on this topic that can be listed as references. The myths and legends are just as important as the history when it comes to the culture of the region.

Commercial Traffic on the Rhine

It would be interesting if someone were to add a few paras on the use of the Rhine by commercial barge traffic. I am surprised to learn that these barges can travel when the water depth is as low as 85cm! is this right? And what are the effects of low water levels on traffic? Bearfoot 23:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I would also like to see some more explanation about its economical importance. Commercially it's probably Europe's most important river.

Prehistory

I was just wondering if there really is a need for all of the subheadings under "prehistory"; the majority of them aren't even in use. -T. Desloges (6 January 2006)

Please clarify what in fact is meant here by "before present", present in the real sense of the word or the constantly becoming more ridiculous use by geologists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.4.214.28 (talk) 17:06, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Geography Vandalism

Someone needs to fix the geography section.

fixed ---Sluzzelin 09:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Breisach

Moved Breisach from 'large cities' to the smaller ones. And even that is debattable...but considering it was somewhat historically important, I don't remove it entirely. --Doc Tsiolkovski 16:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Rhein -> Rhine

The subject of this article has an English language name (Rhine) and as this is the English language encyclopedia, we should use that name. Previously the article rather than arbitrarily adopted the German language name (Rhein), ignoring the fact that the river is shared between several nations, each with their own name for it. So I have changed all the occurrences I found. The exception to this is where the article is actually talking about the name of the river, where the actual name in question should be used. Ironically the only cases I found where this applied were talking about the name in the Netherlands, where Rhein is less acceptable to the locals than Rhine. So in these cases, I've changed the name to 'Rijn'. -- Chris j wood 15:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have confronted the user, a German nationalist, with his edits. I don't expect him to reply, but if he does it should have little value. Thanks for removing his edits.Rex 19:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Who the hell would move this article to "Rhein"? That's like moving Munich to "München", or Carlsbad to Karlovy Vary... oh wait. Antman -- chat 20:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Karlovy Vary is entry in the encyclopedia Britannica, stop your war, and being disruptive against consensus. ≈Tulkolahten≈^≈talk≈ 12:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about? Do you even know what consensus means? Antman -- chat 17:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Stop being uncivil ! ≈Tulkolahten≈^≈talk≈ 19:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd remind you that harassment is incivility, as is following someone and commenting on all of their comments. Antman -- chat 01:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This page should be Rhine not Rhine (river). There is no reason for the current ridiculous disambiguation page at Rhine, which reflects an American perspective. --Grahamec 15:05, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

First of all, it's ridiculous to suggest that this is an American perspective. According to my American perspective, you're absolutely right, and the disambig is not only inappropriate but also potentially vandalism, because it would take an incredibly skewed point of view to suggest that this parapsychologist Rhine is anywhere close to the Rhine in terms of notability. To assume good faith, perhaps this user did not understand "Other uses..." and did not read any of the rules about moving pages. But let's not jump to point the finger at Americans. Sheesh. Feeeshboy 02:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry a bit flippant.--Grahamec 03:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, may I add, that this inappropriate move has created a huge mess in that some 2000 pages in the mainspace alone link to Rhine, and now will get stuck on this useless disambig, whereas fewer than 50 pages in total link to Joseph Banks Rhine. Feeeshboy 02:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Support proposed move, for reasons set out by users above.--Grahamec 03:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. The river is the primary usage, and what would be the target of the overwhelming majority of searches. I would suggest that this move should be reverted as a controversial move, and re-proposed. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 05:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. Who is Joseph Banks Rhine? -- User:Docu

Support. What Docu said. Pfly 06:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. The river is obviously the primary usage, and this move should be reverted ASAP. Re-proposal is useless IMO. Markussep ^Talk 07:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed from Rhine (river) to Rhine as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 09:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Basel incident and pollution, merge from River Rhine Pollution: November 1986

I removed the section about the Basel pollution incident of 1986 because it was badly written, poorly sourced, and inappropriately placed; however, I suggest that the information in River Rhine Pollution: November 1986 be placed somewhere, perhaps under a section called "Pollution", "Ecology", or "Environmental History", as this info is definitely important, and there are ample online sources for this. It seems that no "Merge from" tag was added to start a discussion on this, so I'll add one. Feeeshboy 01:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"Most Important"

I think the phrase Most Important could be a bit bias and not very encyclopedia like. Perhaps somebody should consider changing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.1.189.157 (talk) 21:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that most important is a difficult measure - however, I came here after I unsuccesfully googled 'list of rivers by population' 'list of rivers by GDP' these are the classic metrics of importance in social science. By population I would guess it would be dominated by the big Chinese rivers Yangtzee et al. the indian rivers, congo, niger, nile, mississippi, colorado, rhine and donau. Other than missing the amazon I feel this list would pretty appropriately capture most important. 1. human population lives within a days walk of the river 2. GDP by this human population 3. river biodiversity (#of species) This I feel like are good measures, that fit within the encyclopedia mindset. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.225.93.142 (talk) 14:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Basin

The Rhine's basin also comprises all of Luxembourg and at least the Belgian municipality of Attert plus some of the Eastern Cantons with the river Our. Also see this map. Belgium and Luxembourg belong in the list of basin countries in the upper right table.Wakari07 (talk) 01:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Navigation

There should be something about navigation on the Rhine, including the treaties governing it. --JensMueller (talk) 23:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Picture

Since this is the English language encyclopedia, shouldn't the map at the top be replaced with one in English? If anyone could find one of equal/better quality in English, it would be greatly appreciated. -Supergeek1694 (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I noticed the same thing. There isn't a good map on Wikimedia Commons of the Rhine, however there is a good map of Europe that could be cropped in and the river highlighted. I do not have a Wikimedia account, but I could update the photo if someone else uploads. Here is the map http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_map_CIA_2005_large.jpg —Zujine|talk 02:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Etymology

The name of the Rhine comes from Old High German: Rhine, which, in turn, comes from Middle High German: Rin, from the Proto-Indo-European root *reie- ("to move, flow, run").[2] The Reno River in Italy shares the same etymology.

This is confusing. The chronology is wrong. It says that the Old High German name is derived from the Middle High German name. Should it not be the other way? And it should be mentioned that the "h" in "rh" is a newer, Greek imitation. --195.0.221.197 (talk) 02:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that too. Rhine neither was Old or Middle High German, acc. to the online etymology dictionary. The latter does say that the English word is derived from modern High German "Rhein", which I find doubtful, as Anglo-Saxons undoubtedly had a name for the river when they arrived in Great Britain (well before the GErman word took its current shape). It seems valid to point at the old Gaulish name, which predates the population of the Rhine area (except for the Frisian parts) by Germanic tribes and the Roman invasions. I've also added the Greek origin of the h. Afasmit (talk) 23:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

"River Manche"

The term "River Manche" has been used to describe the Rhine's course after confluance with the Thames or the Seine during the last glaciation. Is this accurate and worth mentioning?--128.240.229.3 (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Correction of length

In the German Wikipedia there was a lively discussion from 27 to 30 January, 2010, (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Rhein#Ist_der_Rhein_k.C3.BCrzer_als_gedacht.3F) which led to changes in several lengths given in that article (http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhein&diff=69998827&oldid=69988227). In particular, the total length was changed from 1324 km to 1235.6 km (767.77 mi). The origin of the error is discussed in at least two newspaper articles:

• Kölner Stadtanzeige, 26 January 2010, http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/1264185779944.shtml
• Süddeutsche Zeitung, 27 March 2010, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/981/507145/text/

Another modern online source that might be considered semi-official is from the Ministerium für Umwelt, Forsten, und Verbraucherschutz of Rheinlandpfalz (http://www.wasser.rlp.de/servlet/is/1193/). They give a total length of 1249 km.

A number of encyclopedias also give values in this range:

• Herder 1854: 156 (deutsche?) Meilen - 1155 km
• Pierers Universal Lex. 1862: 150 geogr. Meilen - 1111 km
• Meyers Gr. Konv. Lex. 1911: 1225 km
• Brockhaus Kl. Konv. Lex. 1911: 1218 km

The suspicion is that someone somewhere along the line accidentally changed 1230 to 1320, but the error might also be related to the longer length before "corrections" of the course made between 1817 und 1876 (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinbegradigung).

I corrected this article and also List_of_rivers_by_length#List_of_rivers_longer_than_1000_km. Are there still other articles where the length of the Rhine shows up?

--Art Carlson (talk) 11:13, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

According to the German Wikipedia, the Rhine is 1,233 km in length (not 1,236). --Eleassar ^{my talk} 22:51, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

?? There are still discussions there about the last couple km this way or that, but the current version says "Länge 1.235,6 km" in the infobox and "Gesamtlänge von ungefähr 1235 km" under Grunddaten. --Art Carlson (talk) 06:37, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Not really. The article currently says "Der Rhein hat eine Gesamtlänge von ungefähr 1233 km[1][2][3][4]" which is also the length given in the infobox.[1] --Eleassar ^{my talk} 18:08, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

My bad, but weird anyway. You are citing http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein, while I was citing http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhein (cause I took a shady shortcut to get there). Don't know why there are two versions, but your address makes more sense and also claims to be newer. I'll change it to 1233. --Art Carlson (talk) 20:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Question about units

Why are miles preferred over kilometres in the infobox, where it's the reverse in the article?--345Kai (talk) 19:16, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I had exactly the same remark. Following wikipedia:METRIC, it should be changed. However, when editing the page, the units seem to be in the correct order (length = 1,236 km (768 mi) (contented by 1, 230 km (760 mi))). I guess everything's all right?? MADe (talk) 11:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Edited. Someone used the infobox keys suffixed with "_imperial", which means you enter the imperial measurements and have Wikipedia convert it to metric in parentheses. There is no reason to use imperial measurements for this article of course. 82.139.81.111 (talk) 10:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Navigation?

The article does not contain a single word on river navigation. How far from the mouth is the river navigable? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 03:23, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Short answer,as far as Basel, which has a major river port, that is about 1000 Km. From Basel downstream the Rhine is International Waters and Basel is legally a seaport, see Merchant Marine of Switzerland. I will try and find time to put some of this in the article, unless somebody beats me to it. TiffaF (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC).

Intro

I think the introductory paragraph should state where the river is (beyond just in Europe), with some-thing like either a naming of the countries it runs through or at least saying where it starts and ends or/and the country that it lies in for most of its length. Kdammers (talk) 10:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I think I probably agree with you: the "executive summary" is enhanced by a short route description. Though it might be argued that the route is described at reasonable length (if not always very clearly) further along in the article. Anyway, I just made a stab at it. Feel free to improve on what I wrote. Charles01 (talk) 11:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Sections

The section "Sections" is a translation of the section "Abschnitte" in the German version. HansM (talk) 19:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Query re falling from 77 to 504

The 'Middle Rhine' section currently states that "In this sections the river falls from 77.4 m above sea level to 504 m.".

I must be missing something - surely 77 to 504 is a rise, not a fall? Trafford09 (talk) 06:51, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

the Aar is the major tributary

On the volume figures given in the Rhine article, the Aar is the major tributary (more than half the volume at Basel - 500m**3, which is more than a fifth of the discharge at the Dutch border - ~ 2300m**3, and clearly more than the figure given for the Mosel). The Meuse and the Main are the only rivals, but discharge figures are not given for either. I have amended the wording of the Aar section to emphasize its discharge contribution, also to refer to te Main Neckar etc as other main tributaries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.3.255.103 (talk) 21:08, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Discharge figures for most of the tributaries may be taken from de:Flusssystem des Rheins (Aar: 560m³/s, Meuse: 357m³/s, Mosel: 328m³/s, Main: 225m³/s, Neckar: 145m³/s). Notabene: the discharge at the Dutch border is not the complete discharge. The volume of the Rhine at it's mouth including all distributaries is 2900m³/s. -- WWasser (talk) 07:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Rhine vs Aare main branche

The article states about the confluence of Aare and Rhine: "Nevertheless, the Alpine Rhine is considered the main branch, because it is longer." This seems to me a perfect example of backward reasoning. We try to justify the present by assuming our scientific logic was also how our ancestors thought. In this case it seems very silly. Do we thing they measured the length of the Rhine in those days, to determine which was the longest branch? Off course not! And normally the branch that brings the most water is considered the main branch everywhere, not the longest branch. May I suggest 2 different reasons why the Rhine branch coming from Lake Constance was considered the main branch: 1 This is the steadier branch which in late-summer (when it matters most) is donating more water then the Aare 2 This is the branch which brings clearer water (thanks to Lake Constance being a perfect sediment trap), and rein is also the german word for clean. Maybe the linguists can tell us whether the river was also the origin of this word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.138.221.151 (talk) 09:00, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Ecology

Unfortunately the article lacks any mention of the ecological problems in the post WW2-period and the partial ecological recovery from the 90s on. 2A02:1210:1A51:4E00:695D:E60B:DE75:F18 (talk) 10:22, 22 October 2022 (UTC)