Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What is the origin of the name of the Danube River?
The river was known to the ancient Greeks as the Istros (Ἴστρος) a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian name meaning "strong, swift" (akin to Sanskrit iṣiras "swift"). In Latin, the Danube was variously known as Danubius, Danuvius or as Ister. [3] The Thraco-Phrygian name was Matoas,[4] "the bringer of luck".[5]
"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.[2]
The Boian culture (dated to 4300–3500 BC), also known as the Giuleşti–Mariţa culture or Mariţa culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southeast Europe. It is primarily found along the lower course of the Danube in what is now Romania and Bulgaria, and thus may be considered a Danubian culture.
The Boian culture originated on the Wallachian Plain north of the Danube River in southeastern Romania. At its peak, the culture expanded to include settlements in the Bărăgan Plain and the Danube Delta in Romania, Dobruja in eastern Romania and northeastern Bulgaria, and the Danubian Plain and the Balkan Mountains in Bulgaria. The culture's geographical extent went as far west as the Jiu River on the border of Transylvania in south-central Romania, as far north as the Chilia branch of the Danube Delta along the Romanian border with Ukraine and the coast of the Black Sea, and as far south as the Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea in Greece.
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.
In 2008, the Finnish indie rock band Wiidakko released a song called Tonava (Danube in Finnish) on their second album Asiat joita et voi koskaan saavuttaa.[32] The Danube figures prominently in the Bulgarian National Anthem, as a symbolic representation of the country's natural beauty. In Lithuanian folklore songs appearance of Danube (Dunojus, Dunojėlis) is more common than the appearance of the longest Lithuanian river Neman. The German tradition of landscape painting, the Danube school, was developed in the Danube valley in the 16th century. One of Claudio Magris's masterpieces is called Danube (ISBN1-86046-823-3). The book, published in 1986, is a large cultural-historical essay, in which Magris travels the Danube from the very first sources to the delta, tracing the rich European ethnic and cultural heritage, literary and ideological past and present along the way. Jules Verne's The Danube Pilot (1908) ("Le Pilote du Danube") depicts the adventures of fisherman Serge Ladko as he travels down the river. Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, about a boat excursion on the river, is considered one of the greatest stories in the literature of the supernatural. The river is the subject of the film The Ister (2004) (official site here ). Parts of the German road movie Im Juli take place along the Danube. In Nicolas Roeg's 1980 film Bad Timing, the border crossing over the Danube between Bratislava and Vienna is a recurring site in which the romance between Milena (Teresa Russell), Alex (Art Garfunkel) and Milena's husband Stefan (Denholm Elliot) is played out. In the Star Trek universe, the Danube-class runabout is a type of starship used by the Federation Starfleet, most notably in the Deep Space Nine series. The river is mentioned a great number of times throughout the Earth's Children Saga by Jean M. Auel, especially in the book The Plains of Passage, when the main characters Ayla and Jondalar travel west along this river, which they call the Great Mother River, due to its big size. Miklós Jancsó's film the Blue Danube Waltz (1992) The Hungarian sweet speciality, Duna kavics ("Danube pebbles") is named after the river. A Hungarian folk ensemble, the Danube Folk Ensemble (Duna Művészegyüttes) is named after the river. The group is made up of 30 dancers and musicians. During their performances they show the Hungarian folk music, dance and costumes. There are Hasidic (Chabad Nigunnim) songs called "dunai", dating from around 1800. They are often lullabys and are named after the river Dunay. Farmers around the river used to come to it and sing spiritual songs to thank God for the great beauty which they saw every day.
The Danube Banovina or Danube Banate ( / Дунавска бановина), was a banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of the geographical regions of Srem, Bačka, Banat, Baranja, Šumadija, and Braničevo. The capital city of the Danube Banovina was Novi Sad. The province was named after the Danube River.
The name of the park, "Dunavski park", means the Danube park. However, though near the river, the park was named after the ("Danube Street"), which encircles it on the north.
The Tara and Lim rivers, two major sources of the Dinaric river system, originate on the northern borders of the Prokletije. The Vërmosh originates in the northwest mountainous part in Montenegro, close to the border with Albania. As a tributary of the Drina it drains into the Danube and then into the Black Sea. The Lim flows through the Plav lake. The Ibar, which originates on the slopes of the Hajla, takes a similar route into the Danube via the West Morava in Serbia.
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.
Vuka is a river in eastern Croatia, a right tributary of the Danube river. At , it is the 13th-longest river flowing through Croatia and it has a drainage area of . The river is located in Vukovar-Srijem County, in the Slavonia region. It empties into the Danube at the town of Vukovar, which got its name from the river.
During the 5th century, the Romans in Noricum and Raetia, south of the Danube, came under increasing pressure from people north of the Danube. This area had become inhabited by Suebian groups from further north and was considered by Romans to be part of Germania. The etymological origins of the name "Bavarian" (Latin "Baiovarii") are from the north of the Danube, outside the empire, coming from the Celtic Boii, who lived there earlier. Their name was already used to refer to part of this region in the time of Maroboduus who formed the Germanic Marcomannic kingdom with its capital in this forested area. "Boi" became "Bai" according to typical Germanic linguistic changes happening at that time and a Germanic word similar to English "home" or modern German ""Heim"" was added. Strabo therefore reports Boihaemum (Greek Βουίαιμον). Tacitus similarly reports that "Boihaemi" is the name given to the area where the Boii had lived. These forms lead to modern Bohemia which lies to the east of modern Bavaria and completely to the north of the Danube, in the modern Czech Republic. At some later stage the ending "varii" was used in order to give a new name to specific people living in this geographical area who were then living on both sides of the Danube. (Similar Germanic ethnic names were created based on other regions: Angrivarii and Ampsivarii in northern Germany, Anglo-Saxon Cantware, Ripuarian Franks and so on.) Claudius Ptolemy named both the "Baenochaemae", living on the Upper Elbe river and a "large people" known as the "'Baimoi", living near the Danube.
The Danube Valley Railway runs alongside the Danube river and crosses it several times. From Immendingen the line runs across the Upper Danube Nature Park "(Naturpark Obere Donau)", brushing up against the southern edge of the Schwäbische Alb, all the while following the course of the Danube. Between the towns of Inzigkofen and Herbertingen, the Danube Valley Railway again shares its tracks, this time with the Zollernalb Railway. At Ehingen (Donau), the line leaves what is known as the Danube valley today, and follows the valley formed by the Danube in times past, along the rivers Schmiech, Ach, and Blau. The railway again touches the border of the Schwäbische Alb between Allmendingen and Blaustein, and meets its eponymous river again at the line's terminus in Ulm.
By Danube regulation, in 1870-75, the territory of the present district was radically changed. The Danube had originally spread out in numerous arms, so she was now forced in a wide bed. As the flood threat has not been fully defused, during 1972 to 1987, a side channel (as the "New Danube") was built parallel to the river, creating the long, thin Donauinsel (Danube Island) between the Danube and the New Danube.
The Fossa Carolina (or Karlsgraben in German) was a canal named after Charlemagne in what is today the German state of Bavaria, intended to connect the Swabian Rezat river to the Altmühl river (the Rhine basin to the Danube basin). It was created during the early Middle Ages, long before the Ludwig Canal and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. If it was indeed operational, this canal would have been the first to link the Rhine basin to the Danube basin, across the European Watershed. However, contemporary sources are contradictory as to whether it was ever finished or not. 
The Lower Danube Circle or Under Danube Circle () was one of the administrative districts (German: "Bezirke" or "Regierungsbezirke") of the Kingdom of Bavaria between 1806 and 1837. It was named after its main river, the Danube and was the predecessor of the administrative district of Lower Bavaria ("Regierungsbezirk Niederbayern"). Its administrative headquarters were in Passau, but the appelate court was in Straubing.The district was divided in the following judicial districts ("Landgerichte"), according to the original borders of the districts of the former territories ("Herrschaftsgerichte"):
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.
In Passau the Inn finally enters the Danube (as does the river Ilz there). Although the Inn has a greater average flow than the Danube when they converge in Passau, and its watershed contains the Piz Bernina also the highest point in the Danube watershed, the Inn is considered a tributary of the Danube, which has a greater length, drains a larger surface area, and has a more consistent flow.
The Inn is the only river originating in Switzerland that ends in the Black Sea (via the Danube).Average monthly flow (m³/s) of the Inn in Passau
Years 1921/2006
Twenty water streams originate in the area of Bratislava. Four rivers flow through the area of the city: Danube, Morava river, Little Danube and partially Malina.
The Danube Bike Trail starts at the origin of the Danube and ends where the river flows into the Black Sea. It is divided into four sections:
The Hungarians adopted the ancient (Celtic, Dacian or Germanic) names of the longest rivers in the Carpathian Basin from a Slavic-speaking population. For instance, the Hungarian names of the rivers Danube "(Duna)", Dráva, Garam, Maros, Olt, Száva, Tisza and Vág were borrowed from Slavs. The Hungarians also adopted a great number of hydronyms of Slavic origin, including Balaton ("swamp"), Beszterce ("swift river"), Túr ("aurochs' stream") and Zagyva ("sooty river"). Place names of Slavic origin abound across the Carpathian Basin. For instance, Csongrád ("black fortress"), Nógrád ("new fortress"), Visegrád ("citadel") and other early medieval fortresses bore a Slavic name, while the name of Keszthely preserved the Latin word for fortress "(castellum)" with Slavic mediation.
It is named after the "Place du Danube", named after the Danube River. This street was renamed the "Place de Rhin-et-Danube" in 1952, adding a reference to the Rhine.
It has been stated the breed was developed in Central Europe along the Danube and the Black Sea. However, it is documented that the birds were originally met with in the Crimea and sent from the port of Sevastopol, as the name implies, and arrived in England in 1860. By the 19th century they were found in all the countries surrounding the Black Sea. The alternate name Danubian reflected their prevalence around the river Danube. They were originally bred to use their curly feathers in pillows and quilts.
The district is named after the Danube River (German "Donau") and the Swabian Alb ("Schwäbische Alb") mountains. The Danube enters the district in the southwest, runs through the southern parts of the district and leaves eastwards to Ulm. North of the Danube banks the hills of the Swabian Alb rise. The hill chain extends from southwest to northeast parallel to the course of the Danube River and is continued on either side of the district. An affluent of the Danube, the Iller River, forms the southeastern border of the Alb-Donau district, before it meets the Danube in Ulm.
The name ""Donaukanal"" ("Danube Canal"), has been used since 1686, for the southern branch of the River Danube in Vienna. Originally a natural branch, during 1598–1600, it was regulated for the first time by Baron von Hoyos.
The Danube glaciation or Donau glaciation (), also known as the Danube Glacial ("Donau-Glazial"), is a glacial stage of the Pleistocene epoch. It does not appear in the traditional, quadripartite ice age schema of the Alps by Albrecht Penck. The Danube stage was named by Barthel Eberl in 1930 after the River Danube. The Danube Glacial is the oldest glaciation in the Alps for which there is evidence outside of the Iller-Lech region. The Danube Stage was preceded by the Biber-Danube interglacial and followed by the Danube-Günz interglacial.