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Koblenz
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Rhine River Koblenz, Germany
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Rhine River Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, on the Rhine River in Koblenz, Germany.

Koblenz

Germany
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Also known as: Coblenz, Confluentes
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Koblenz, city, Rhineland-Palatinate Land (state), western Germany. It lies at the junction of the Rhine and Moselle (Mosel) rivers (hence its Roman name, Confluentes) and is surrounded by spurs from the Eifel, Hunsrück, Westerwald, and Taunus mountains. A Roman town founded in 9 bce, it was a Frankish royal seat in the 6th century and was given to the archbishops of Trier in 1018 by the Holy Roman emperor Henry II. It was chartered in 1214. After passing to Prussia in 1815, it was the capital (1824–1945) of the Prussian Rhine Province. After World War I it was the seat of the Inter-Allied Control Commission for the Rhineland (1919–29). Although most of Koblenz was destroyed in World War II, many of its historic buildings have been restored, the reconstruction giving the city a spacious, modern appearance.

Koblenz, Germany
Koblenz, Germany

Koblenz has long been a major commercial centre, and it is also an important military post and administrative centre. Its diverse industries include the manufacture of aluminum products, data-processing equipment, screws, shock absorbers, brakes, and paper products and the brewing of beer. Printing is also important. Other industries are clustered on the city’s outskirts, and the rebuilt harbour on the Moselle is one of the larger mid-Rhine petroleum ports. The surrounding countryside, rich in woods and lakes, makes the city a hub of river traffic and a popular base for conferences and tourists. Weindorf (“Wine Village”), on the banks of the Rhine, is a focal point for the promotion of the German wine trade.

The Ehrenbreitstein Fortress and suburb across the Rhine were incorporated into Koblenz in 1937. A castle, first built on the site in the 11th century, passed to the archbishops of Trier in the 12th century; destroyed by the French in 1801 after a four-year siege, it was rebuilt (1816–32) into one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. Ehrenbreitstein now houses a history and folklore museum. The old fortress on the Moselle (1280–87) and the rebuilt Electoral Palace (1780–86) formerly belonged to the electors of Trier. Medieval churches include St. Castor’s (836) and the Liebfrauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) and St. Florin’s (both 12th century). The town hall (1690–1700) was once a Jesuit college. Other notable buildings include the rebuilt Deutschherrenhaus (1216), the Metternich house, where Austrian statesman Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859) was born, and the municipal theatre (1787).

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The Moselle is crossed by the Baldwin Bridge (built by the elector Baldwin in 1343), and the point of land at the junction of the Rhine and Moselle, the Deutsches Eck (German Corner), was dedicated to German reunification in 1953. Koblenz has several educational establishments, including the University of Koblenz-Landau and a number of technical institutes and federal and state administrative institutions. The Middle Rhine Museum contains an important collection of art and historical artifacts. Pop. (2003 est.) 107,608.

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Rhine River
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Rhine, Rhône, and Seine river basins and their drainage network
Explore the Rhine River valley's waterfalls and hillside vineyards
Rhine River Bonn, Germany: Rhine River
Maintaining a historical castle
Laufenburg, Germany Rhine Falls
Observe a farmer toiling in a hillside grape vineyard along the Rhine River at Europe's northernmost point
Katz Castle; Sankt Goarshausen; Rhine River Cologne, Germany Rhine River; Leiden, Netherlands Rhine River Arnhem Basel Bonn Rhine River: Bonn region beam Germany: Cologne Cathedral Cologne, Germany Cologne, Germany Diessenhofen Rhine River Königswinter Konstanz Lorelei Lustenau Rhine River at Lorelei Rhine River at Rüdesheim Worms, Germany
The importance of Rotterdam: Europe's largest seaport
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Rhine River
Rhine River summary
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Tower Bridge over the Thames River in London, England. Opened in 1894. Remains an Important Traffic Route with 40,000 Crossings Every Day.
Guess the City by Its River Quiz
water glass on white background. (drink; clear; clean water; liquid)
Water and its Varying Forms
Rhine, Rhône, and Seine river basins and their drainage network
Rhine, Rhône, and Seine river basins and their drainage network

Rhine River

river, Europe
Also known as: Lower Rhine River, Renos River, Rhein River, Rhenus River, Rhin River, Rijn River
Written by
Alice F.A. Mutton
Former Reader in Geography, Queen Mary College, University of London. Author of Western Europe in Colour: An Advanced Regional Geography.
Alice F.A. Mutton,
Karl A. Sinnhuber
Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. Author of Germany, Its Geography and Growth.
Karl A. Sinnhuber•All
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German:
Rhein
French:
Rhin
Dutch:
Rijn
Celtic:
Renos
Latin:
Rhenus
On the Web:
University of Minnesota - University Digital Conservancy - The Rhine Action Program: Restoring Value to the Rhine River (PDF) (June 07, 2025)
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Rhine River, river and waterway of western Europe, culturally and historically one of the great rivers of the continent and among the most important arteries of industrial transport in the world. It flows from two small headways in the Alps of east-central Switzerland north and west to the North Sea, into which it drains through the Netherlands. The length of the Rhine was long given as 820 miles (1,320 km), but in 2010 a shorter distance of about 765 miles (1,230 km) was proposed. An international waterway since the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, it is navigable overall for some 540 miles (870 km), as far as Rheinfelden on the Swiss-German border. Its catchment area, including the delta area, exceeds 85,000 square miles (220,000 square km).

Explore the Rhine River valley's waterfalls and hillside vineyards
Explore the Rhine River valley's waterfalls and hillside vineyardsLearn about the picturesque Rhine River valley.
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The Rhine has been a classic example of the alternating roles of great rivers as arteries of political and cultural unification and as political and cultural boundary lines. The river also has been enshrined in the literature of its lands, especially of Germany, as in the famous epic Nibelungenlied. Since the time when the Rhine valley became incorporated into the Roman Empire, the river has been one of Europe’s leading transport routes. Until the 19th century the goods transported were of high value but relatively small in volume, but since the second half of the 19th century the volume of goods conveyed on the river has increased greatly. The fact that cheap water transport on the Rhine helped to keep prices of raw materials down was the main reason the river became a major axis of industrial production: one-fifth of the world’s chemical industries are now manufacturing along the Rhine. The river was long a source of political dissension in Europe, but this has given way to international concern for ecological safeguards as pollution levels have risen; some 6,000 toxic substances have been identified in Rhine waters.

Rhine River
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Rhine RiverThe Rhine River flowing through Germany.
Bonn, Germany: Rhine River
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Bonn, Germany: Rhine RiverThe Rhine River in Bonn, Germany.
Maintaining a historical castle
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Maintaining a historical castleDiscussion of castles along the Rhine River, with a look at their upkeep.
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Laufenburg, Germany
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Laufenburg, GermanyThe city of Laufenburg on the Rhine River in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

No other river in the world has so many old and famous cities on its banks—Basel, Switzerland; Strasbourg, France; and Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, Germany, to name a few—but there are also such industrial cities as Ludwigshafen and Leverkusen in Germany that pollute the waters and mar the scenic attraction of the riverbanks. Nonetheless, the middle Rhine (the section between the German cities of Bingen and Bonn), with such steep rock precipices as the Lorelei crag and numerous castles, still presents breathtaking vistas and attracts tourists. This is the Rhine of legend and myth, where the medieval Mouse Tower (Mausturm) lies at water level near Bingen and the castle of Kaub stands on an island in the river. The Alpine section of the Rhine lies in Switzerland, and below Basel the river forms the boundary between western Germany and France, as far downstream as the Lauter River. It then flows through German territory as far as Emmerich, below which its many-branched delta section epitomizes the landscapes characteristic of the Netherlands.

Physical features

Physiography

Rhine Falls
Rhine FallsRhine Falls, on the upper Rhine River near Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

The Rhine rises in two headstreams high in the Swiss Alps. The Vorderrhein emerges from Lake Toma at 7,690 feet (2,344 metres), near the Oberalp Pass in the Central Alps, and then flows eastward past Disentis to be joined by the Hinterrhein from the south at Reichenau above Chur. (The Hinterrhein rises about five miles west of San Bernardino Pass, near the Swiss–Italian border, and is joined by the Albula River below Thusis.) Below Chur, the Rhine leaves the Alps to form the boundary first between Switzerland and the principality of Liechtenstein and then between Switzerland and Austria, before forming a delta as the current slackens at the entrance to Lake Constance. In this flat-floored section the Rhine has been straightened and the banks reinforced to prevent flooding. The Rhine leaves the lake via its Untersee arm. From there to its bend at Basel, the river is called the Hochrhein (“High Rhine”) and defines the Swiss-German frontier, except for the area below Stein am Rhein, where the frontier deviates so that the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen are entirely within Switzerland. Downstream the Rhine flows swiftly between the Alpine foreland and the Black Forest region, its course interrupted by rapids, where—as at Laufenburg (Switzerland) and Säckingen and Schwörstadt (Germany)—barrages (dams) have been built. In this stretch the Rhine is joined by its Alpine tributaries, the Thur, Töss, Glatt, and Aare, and by the Wutach from the north. The Rhine has been navigable between Basel and Rheinfelden since 1934.

Below Basel the Rhine turns northward to flow across a broad, flat-floored valley, some 20 miles wide, held between, respectively, the ancient massifs of the Vosges Mountains and Black Forest uplands and the Haardt Mountains and Odenwald (Oden Forest) upland. The main tributary from Alsace is the Ill, which joins the Rhine at Strasbourg, and various shorter rivers, such as the Dreisam and the Kinzig, drain from the Black Forest. Downstream, the regulated Neckar, after crossing the Oden uplands in a spectacular gorge as far as Heidelberg, enters the Rhine at Mannheim; and the Main leaves the plain of lower Franconian Switzerland for the Rhine opposite Mainz. Until the straightening of the upper Rhine, which began in the early 19th century, the river described a series of great loops, or meanders, over its floodplain, and today their remnants, the old backwaters and cutoffs near Breisach and Karlsruhe, mark the former course of the river.

Tower Bridge over the Thames River in London, England. Opened in 1894. Remains an Important Traffic Route with 40,000 Crossings Every Day.
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Observe a farmer toiling in a hillside grape vineyard along the Rhine River at Europe's northernmost point
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Observe a farmer toiling in a hillside grape vineyard along the Rhine River at Europe's northernmost pointA hillside vineyard along the Rhine River.
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Katz Castle; Sankt Goarshausen; Rhine River
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Katz Castle; Sankt Goarshausen; Rhine RiverKatz Castle, overlooking Sankt Goarshausen and the middle Rhine River, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

The middle Rhine is the most spectacular and romantic reach of the river. In this 90-mile (145-km) stretch the Rhine has cut a deep and winding gorge between the steep, slate-covered slopes of the Hunsrück mountains to the west and the Taunus Mountains to the east. Vineyards mantle the slopes as far as Koblenz, where the Moselle River joins the Rhine at the site the Romans called Confluentes. On the right bank, the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein dominates the Rhine where the Lahn tributary enters. Downstream the hills recede, the foothills of the volcanic Eifel region lying to the west and those of the Westerwald (Wester Forest) to the east. At Andernach, where the ancient Roman frontier left the Rhine, the basaltic Seven Hills rise steeply to the east of the river, where, as the English poet Lord Byron put it, “the castle crag of Dachenfels frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine.”

Cologne, Germany
Cologne, GermanyNight view of Cologne, Germany, on the Rhine River.

Below Bonn the valley opens out into a broad plain, where the old city of Cologne lies on the left bank of the Rhine. There the river is spanned by the modern Severin Bridge and by the rebuilt Hohenzollern railway bridge, which carries the line from Aachen to Düsseldorf and the Ruhr industrial region. Düsseldorf, on the right bank of the Rhine, is the dominant business centre of the North Rhine–Westphalia coalfield. Duisburg, which lies at the mouth of the Ruhr River, handles the bulk of the waterborne coal and coke from the Ruhr as well as imports of iron ore and oil.

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Rhine River; Leiden, Netherlands
Rhine River; Leiden, NetherlandsOld Rhine River at Leiden, Netherlands.

The last section of the Rhine lies below the frontier town of Emmerich in the delta region of the Netherlands. There the Rhine breaks up into a number of wide branches, such as the Lek and Waal, farther downstream called the Merwede. With the completion of the huge Delta Project in 1986—constructed to prevent flooding in the southwestern coastal area of the Netherlands—all main branches of the Rhine were closed off; sluices and lateral channels now allow river water to reach the sea. Since 1872, however, the New Waterway Canal, constructed to improve access from the North Sea to Rotterdam, has been the main navigation link between the Rhine and the sea; along this canal was built Europoort, one of the world’s largest ports.

Alice F.A. MuttonKarl A. Sinnhuber
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