Name.

Historically, it was common to refer to a river simply as "water." There are similar words for "water" or "river" in a number of Asiatic languages: "e.g." 물 "mul" ("water") in Korean, "muren" or "mörön" ("river") in Mongolian, and 水 "midu" > "mizu" ("water") in Japanese. The name "Amur" may have evolved from a root word for water, coupled with a size modifier for "Big Water".  The Chinese name for the river, "Heilong Jiang", means Black Dragon River in Chinese, and its Mongolian name, "Khar mörön" (Cyrillic: Хар мөрөн), means Black River.  The Amur is called "Hara-Muren" in Mongolian, "Silkar" in Tungusian, "Sahaliyan Ula" in Manchurian.  Its ancient names were Yushui, Wanshui and Heishui. The Russian name Amur is originated from the Mongolian name Amar, meaning quiet or peaceful.

Course.

The river rises in the hills in the western part of Northeast China at the confluence of its two major affluents, the Shilka and the Argun (or Ergune), at an elevation of. It flows east forming the border between China and Russia, and slowly makes a great arc to the southeast for about, receiving many tributaries and passing many small towns. At Huma, it is joined by a major tributary, the Huma He. Afterwards it continues to flow south until, between the cities of Blagoveshchensk in Russia and Heihe in China, it widens significantly as it is joined by one of its most important tributaries the Zeya.  The Amur arcs to the east and turns southeast again at the confluence with the Bureya, then does not receive another significant tributary for nearly before its confluence with its largest tributary, the Songhua, at Tongjiang. At the confluence with the Songhua the river turns northeast, now flowing towards Khabarovsk, where it joins the Ussuri and ceases to define the Russia–China border. Now the river spreads out dramatically into a braided character, flowing north-northeast through a wide valley in eastern Russia, passing Amursk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The valley narrows after about and the river again flows north onto plains at the confluence with the Amgun. Shortly after, the Amur turns sharply east and into an estuary at Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, about downstream of which it flows into the Strait of Tartary.

Tributaries.

The largest tributaries of the Amur are, from source to mouth:

History and context.

Many historical references distinguish two geopolitical entities in the area of the Amur: Outer Manchuria (Russian Manchuria) and Inner Manchuria (northeast China). The Chinese province of Heilongjiang on the south bank of the river takes its name from the river, as does the Russian Amur Oblast on the north bank. The native Manchu people and their Qing Empire of China, who regarded this river as sacred, use the name "sahaliyan ula" (Black River).  The Amur is an important symbol of, and geopolitical factor in, Chinese–Russian relations. The Amur became especially prominent in the period of the Sino–Soviet political split of 1956-1966.  For many centuries inhabitants of the Amur Valley comprised the Tungusic (Evenki, Solon, Ducher, Jurchen, Nanai, Ulch), Mongol (Daur) people, some Ainu and, near its mouth, the Nivkhs. For many of these groups, fishing in the Amur and its tributaries was the main source of their livelihood. Until the 17th century these peoples were not known to Europeans, and little known to the Han Chinese, who sometimes collectively described them as the Wild Jurchens. The Chinese-language term "Yúpí Dázi" 魚皮韃子 ("Fish-skin Tatars") came to apply to the Nanais and related groups as well, owing to their traditional clothes made of fish skins. The Mongols, ruling the region as the Yuan dynasty, established a tenuous military presence on the lower Amur in the 13th and14th centuries; ruins of a Yuan-era temple have been excavated near the village of Tyr.  During the reigns of the Yongle and Xuande Emperors (early-15th century), the Ming dynasty reached the Amur in their drive to establish control over the lands adjacent to the Ming Empire to the northeast, which would later become known as Manchuria. Expeditions headed by the eunuch Yishiha reached Tyr several times between 1411 and the early 1430s, re-building (twice) the Yongning Temple and obtaining at least the nominal allegiance of the lower Amur's tribes to the Ming government. Some sources report also a Chinese presence during the same period on the middle Amur – a fort existed at Aigun for about 20 years during the Yongle era on the left (northwestern) shore of the Amur downstream from the mouth of the Zeya River. This Ming Dynasty Aigun was located on the opposite bank to the later Aigun that was later relocated during the Qing Dynasty. In any event, the Ming presence on the Amur was as short-lived as it was tenuous; soon after the end of the Yongle era, the Ming dynasty's frontiers retreated to southern Manchuria. Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, the "Chinese god", Chinese motifs like the dragon, spirals, scrolls, and material goods like agriculture, husbandry, heating, iron cooking-pots, silk, and cotton spread among Amur natives such as the Udeghes, Ulchis, and Nanais.  Russian Cossack expeditions led by Vassili Poyarkov and Yerofey Khabarov explored the Amur and its tributaries in 1643–44 and 1649–51, respectively. The Cossacks established the fort of Albazin on the upper Amur, at the site of the former capital of the Solons. At the time, the Manchus were busy with conquering China; but a few decades later, during the Kangxi era of 1661-1722, they turned their attention to their north-Manchurian backyard. Aigun was re-established near the supposed Ming site in about 1683–84, and a military expeditions went upstream to dislodge the Russians, whose Albazin establishment deprived the Manchu rulers of the tribute of sable pelts that the Solons and Daurs of the area would supply otherwise. Albazin fell during a short military campaign in 1685. The Treaty of Nerchinsk, concluded in 1689, marked the end of the hostilities: it left the entire Amur valley, from the convergence of the Shilka and the Ergune downstream, in Chinese hands.  Fedor Soimonov was sent to map the then little explored area of the Amur in 1757. He mapped the Shilka, which was partly in Chinese territory, but was turned back when he reached its confluence with the Argun. The Russian proselytization of Orthodox Christianity to the indigenous peoples along the Amur was viewed as a threat by the Qing.  The Amur region remained a relative backwater of the Qing Empire for the next century and a half, with Aigun being practically the only major town on the river. Russians re-appeared on the river in the mid-19th century, forcing the Manchus to yield all lands north of the river to the Russian Empire by the Treaty of Aigun (1858). Lands east of the Ussuri and the lower Amur were acquired by Russia as well, by the Convention of Peking (1860).  The acquisition of the lands on the Amur and the Ussuri was followed by the migration of Russian settlers to the region and the construction of such cities as Blagoveshchensk and, later, Khabarovsk.  Numerous river steamers, built in England, plied the Amur by the late 19th century. Tsar Nicolas II, then Tsarovitch, visited Vladivostok and then cruised up the river. Mining dredges were imported from America to work the placer gold of the river. Barge and river traffic was greatly hindered by the Civil War of 1918–22. The Soviet Reds had the Amur Flotilla which patrolled the river on sequestered riverboats. In the 1930s and during the War the Japanese had their own flotilla on the river. In 1945 the Soviets again put their own flotilla on the river. The ex-German Yangtse gunboats Vaterland and Otter, on Chinese Nationalist Navy service, patrolled the Amur in the 1920s.

Wildlife.

It is believed there are at least 123 species of fish from 23 families inhabiting the Amul. The majority are of the "Gobioninae" subfamily of "Cypriniformes", followed in number by Salmonidae. Several of the species are endemic. "Pseudaspius" and "Mesocottus" are monotypic genera found only in the Amur and some nearby coastal rivers.  Four species of the Acipenseridae family can be found: the kaluga, Amur sturgeon, Sakhalin sturgeon and sterlet. The Kaluga and Amur sturgeon are endemic. The sterlet was introduced from the Ob in the 1950s.

Direction.

Flowing across northeast Asia for over (including its two tributaries), from the mountains of northeastern China to the Sea of Okhotsk (near Nikolayevsk-na-Amure), it drains a remarkable watershed that includes diverse landscapes of desert, steppe, tundra, and taiga, eventually emptying into the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Tartary, where the mouth of the river faces the northern end of the island of Sakhalin.  The Amur has always been closely associated with the island of Sakhalin at its mouth, and most names for the island, even in the languages of the indigenous peoples of the region, are derived from the name of the river: "Sakhalin" derives from a Tungusic dialectal form cognate with Manchu "sahaliyan" ("black", as in "sahaliyan ula", "Black River"), while Ainu and Japanese "Karaputo" or "Karafuto" is derived from the Ainu name of the Amur or its mouth. Anton Chekhov vividly described the Amur in writings about his journey to Sakhalin Island in 1890.  The average annual discharge varies from (1980) to (1957), leading to an average or per year. The maximum runoff measured occurred in Oct 1951 with whereas the minimum discharge was recorded in March 1946 with a mere.

Bridges and tunnels.

The first permanent bridge across the Amur, the Khabarovsk Bridge with an overall length of, was completed in 1916, allowing the trains on the Trans-Siberian Railway to cross the river year-round without using ferries or rail tracks on top of the river ice. In 1941 a railway tunnel was added as well.  Later, a combined road and rail bridge over the Amur at Komsomolsk-on-Amur (1975; 1400 m) and the road and rail Khabarovsk Bridge (1999; 3890 m) were constructed. The Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge was proposed in 2007 by Valery Solomonovich Gurevich, the vice-chairman of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia. The railway bridge over the Amur will connect Tongjiang with Nizhneleninskoye, a village in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. The Chinese portion of the bridge was finished in July 2016. In December 2016, work began on the Russian portion of the bridge. The bridge is expected to open in 2020.

The Amur (, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China (Inner Manchuria). The Amur proper is long, and has a drainage basin of. Including its source river Argun, it is long. The largest fish species in the Amur is the kaluga, attaining a length as great as. The river basin is home to a variety of large predatory fish such as northern snakehead, Amur pike, taimen, Amur catfish, predatory carp and yellowcheek, as well as the northernmost populations of the Amur softshell turtle and Indian lotus.

Der Amur [] oder Heilong Jiang (, ) ist ein 2824 Kilometer langer Strom in China und Russland, der in den nördlichen Pazifik mündet.


History.

Tsaritsyn.

Although the city may have originated in 1555, documented evidence of "Tsaritsyn" at the confluence of the and Volga rivers dates from 1589. Grigori Zasekin established the fortress "Sary Su" (the local Tatar-language name means "yellow water" or "yellow river") as part of the defences of the unstable southern border of the Tsardom of Russia. The structure stood slightly above the mouth of the Tsaritsa River on the right bank. It soon became the nucleus of a trading settlement.  In 1607 the fortress garrison rebelled for six months against the troops of Tsar Vasili Shuisky. In 1608 the first stone church was built in the city and was dedicated to St. John the Baptist. At the beginning of the 17th century, the garrison consisted of 350 to 400 people.  In 1670 troops of Stepan Razin captured the fortress; they left after a month. In 1708 the insurgent Cossack Kondraty Bulavin (died July 1708) held the fortress. In 1717 in the, raiders from the Kuban under the command of the Crimean Tatar blockaded the town and enslaved thousands in the area. In August 1774 Yemelyan Pugachev unsuccessfully attempted to storm the city.  In 1691 Moscow established a customs-post at Tsaritsyn. In 1708 Tsaritsyn was assigned to the Kazan Governorate; in 1719 to the Astrakhan Governorate. According to the census in 1720, the city had a population of 408 people. In 1773 the settlement was designated as a provincial and district town. From 1779 it belonged to the Saratov Viceroyalty. In 1780 the city came under the newly established Saratov Governorate. In the nineteenth century, Tsaritsyn became an important river-port and commercial centre. The population expanded rapidly, increasing from fewer than 3,000 people in 1807 to about 84,000 in 1900. The first railway reached the town in 1862. The first theatre opened in 1872, the first cinema in 1907. In 1913 Tsaritsyn got its first tram-line, and the city's first electric lights were installed in the city centre.  During the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923, Tsaritsyn came under Soviet control from November 1917. In 1918 White Movement troops under Pyotr Krasnov, the Ataman of the Don Cossack Host, besieged Tsaritsyn. The Reds repulsed three assaults by the Whites. However, in June 1919 the White Armed Forces of South Russia, under the command of General Denikin, captured Tsaritsyn, and held it until January 1920. The fighting from July 1918 to January 1920 became known as the Battle for Tsaritsyn.

Stalingrad.

On April 10, 1925, the city was renamed Stalingrad, in honour of Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party. This was officially to recognise the city and Stalin's role in its defence against the Whites between 1918 and 1920. In 1931, the German settlement-colony Old Sarepta (founded in 1765) became a district of Stalingrad. Renamed "Krasnoarmeysky Rayon" (or "Red Army District"), it was the largest area of the city.  The first higher education institute was opened in 1930. A year later, the Stalingrad Industrial Pedagogical Institute, now Volgograd State Pedagogical University, was opened.  Under Stalin, the city became a centre of heavy industry and transshipment by rail and river. During World War II, German and Axis forces attacked the city, and in 1942 it was the site of one of the pivotal battles of the war. The Battle of Stalingrad had perhaps the greatest casualty figures of any single battle in the history of warfare (estimates are between 1,250,000 and 1,798,619).  The battle began on August 23, 1942, and on the same day, the city suffered heavy aerial bombardment that reduced most of it to rubble. By September, the fighting reached the city centre. The fighting was of unprecedented intensity; the city's central railway station changed hands thirteen times, and the Mamayev Kurgan (one of the highest points of the city) was captured and recaptured eight times.  By early November, the German forces controlled 90 percent of the city and had cornered the Soviets in two narrow pockets, but they were unable to eliminate the last pockets of Soviet resistance before Soviet forces launched a huge counterattack on November 19. This resulted in the Soviet encirclement of the German Sixth Army and other Axis units. On January 31, 1943 the Sixth Army's commander, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, surrendered, and by February 2, with the elimination of straggling German troops, the Battle of Stalingrad was over.  In 1945 the Soviet Union awarded Stalingrad the title Hero City for its resistance. Great Britain's King George VI awarded the citizens of Stalingrad the jewelled "Sword of Stalingrad" in recognition of their bravery.  A number of cities around the world (especially those that had suffered similar wartime devastation) established sister, friendship, and twinning links (see list below) in the spirit of solidarity or reconciliation. One of the first "sister city" projects was that established during World War II between Stalingrad and Coventry in the United Kingdom; both had suffered extensive devastation from aerial bombardment.

Volgograd.

On 10 November 1961, Nikita Khrushchev's administration changed the name of the city to Volgograd ("Volga City") as part of his programme of de-Stalinisation following Stalin's death. He was trying to reduce the "cult of personality". This action was and remains somewhat controversial, because Stalingrad has such importance as a symbol of resistance during World War II.  During Konstantin Chernenko's brief administration in 1984, proposals were floated to revive the city's historic name for that reason. There is a strong degree of local support for a reversion, but the Russian government has not accepted such proposals.  On May 21, 2007, the Communist Party obtained an important success in the Volgograd mayoral election. Communist candidate Roman Grebennikov was elected as mayor with 32.47% of the vote, a plurality. Grebennikov is Russia's youngest mayor of a federal subject administrative centre.  In 2010, Russian monarchists and leaders of the Orthodox organisations demanded that the city should take back its original name of Tsaritsyn, but the authorities rejected their proposal.  On January 30, 2013, the Volgograd City Council passed a measure to use the title "Hero City Stalingrad" in city statements on nine specific dates annually. On the following dates the title "Hero City Stalingrad" can officially be used in celebrations:  In addition, 50,000 people signed a petition to Vladimir Putin, asking that the city's name be permanently changed to Stalingrad. President Putin has replied that such a move should be preceded by a local referendum and that the Russian authorities will look into how to bring about such a referendum.

Terrorist attacks.

On August 24, 2004, the Volga-AviaExpress Flight 1353, a Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft flying from Moscow to Volgograd, exploded in mid-air and crashed as a result of a suicide terrorist attack. 34 passengers and 9 crew members were on board the aircraft, all of whom died in the crash. A Siberia Airlines flight bound for Sochi that day was also bombed, killing all 46 who were on board.  At approximately 2:00 p.m. on Monday 21 October 2013, Russian intelligence officers reported a bomb carried by a female suicide bomber exploded on a passenger bus carrying forty people, when it was stopped at the Lesobaza bus stop. Irina Gogolyeva, a spokesperson from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, reported that at least five people died in the blast and seventeen others were injured. On October 22, 2013, Vladimir Markin from Russia's investigative Committee reported that the suicide bomber had been identified as 30-year-old Naida Asiyalova of Dagestan.  On December 29, 2013, a suicide bomb attack occurred at the Volgograd railway station, killing at least seventeen people. It is not clear how many bombers were involved or who they were. The following day a suicide bombing on a trolleybus killed at least fifteen people.

Politics.

In 2011, the City Duma cancelled direct election of the mayor and confirmed the position of City Manager. This was short-lived, as in March 2012, Volgograd residents voted for relevant amendments to the city charter to reinstate the direct mayoral elections.

Administrative and municipal status.

Volgograd is the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the city of oblast significance of Volgograd—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Volgograd is incorporated as Volgograd Urban Okrug.

Economy.

Modern Volgograd remains an important industrial city. Industries include shipbuilding, oil refining, steel and aluminum production, manufacture of machinery and vehicles, and chemical production. The large Volgograd Hydroelectric Plant is a short distance to the north of Volgograd.

Transport.

Volgograd is a major railway junction served by the Privolzhskaya Railway. Rail links from the Volgograd railway station include Moscow; Saratov; Astrakhan; the Donbas region of Ukraine; the Caucasus and Siberia. It stands at the east end of the Volga–Don Canal, opened in 1952 to link the two great rivers of Southern Russia. European route E40, the longest European route connecting Calais in France with Ridder in Kazakhstan, passes through Volgograd. The M6 highway between Moscow and the Caspian Sea also passes through the city. The Volgograd Bridge, under construction since 1995, was inaugurated in October 2009. The city river terminal is the centre for local passenger shipping along the Volga River.  The Volgograd International Airport provides air links to major Russian cities as well as Antalya, Yerevan and Aktau.  Volgograd's public transport system includes a light rail service known as the Volgograd metrotram. Local public transport is provided by buses, trolleybuses and trams.  The Volga River still is a very important communication channel.  Volgograd hosts one of the few floating churches in the world: the floating church of Saint Vladimir of Volgograd.

Climate.

Volgograd has a hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfa"). The city is only slightly warmer than Minneapolis (both in summer and winter, but transitional seasons are almost identical) at the same time that despite being taxed "moist" is drier than most of the climate of group D due to proximity to the Middle East and Central Asia.

Culture.

A memorial complex commemorating the battle of Stalingrad, dominated by an immense allegorical sculpture "The Motherland Calls", was erected on the Mamayev Kurgan, the hill that saw some of the most intense fighting during the battle.  The "Panorama Museum" sited on the Volga contains artifacts from World War II. These include a panoramic painting of the battlefield from the location of the monument on Mamayev Kurgan. A rifle of the famous sniper Vasily Zaytsev is also on display.  The Musical Instrument Museum is a branch of the Volgograd regional Museum of local lore.

Education.

Higher education facilities include:

Sports.

Volgograd was a host city to four matches of the FIFA World Cup in 2018. A new modern stadium, Volgograd Arena, was built for this occasion on the bank of the Volga River to serve as the venue. The stadium has a seating capacity for 45,000 people, including a press box, a VIP box and seats for people with limited mobility.

International relations.

Volgograd is twinned with:

Volgograd (, ; ), formerly Tsaritsyn (), 1589–1925, and Stalingrad (; ), 1925–1961, is an industrial city and the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. The city lies on the western bank of the Volga River. Volgograd was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Wolgograd ( ), bis 1925 Zarizyn (russisch ), von 1925 bis 1961 Stalingrad (russisch ), ist eine russische Millionenstadt mit Einwohnern (Stand ). Sie ist das administrative und wirtschaftliche Zentrum an der unteren Wolga. Die Stadt ist ein bedeutender Verkehrsknotenpunkt und ein wichtiges Industriezentrum.


Geography.

The Altmark is located west of the Elbe river between the cities of Hamburg and Magdeburg, mostly included in the districts of Altmarkkreis Salzwedel and Stendal. In the west, the Drawehn hill range and the Drömling depression separate it from the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony; the Altmark also borders the Wendland region in the north and the Magdeburg Börde in the south. Adjacent east of the Elbe is the historical Prignitz region.  The population is small. The cultural landscape within the North European Plain is rural and widely covered with forests and heathlands. The largest towns are Stendal, with a population of 39,000, and Salzwedel (21,500).

History.

Before the Migration Period of 300 to 700 AD, the Lombards had settled the future Altmark. Subsequently, Old Germanic Saxon tribes lived in the northwest and Polabian Slavs in the eastern territories along the Elbe. After the Saxon Wars, waged by Charlemagne from 772 to 804, the lands became part of the Carolingian Empire. They formed part of the Eastphalian territory of the Duchy of Saxony, which, from 843 onwards, constituted the eastern borderlands of East Francia under Louis the German. The bishops of Verden and of Halberstadt promoted the Christianisation of the Saxon population.  In 936 the German king Otto I allotted the territory of the later Altmark to the Saxon Count Gero, in order to subdue the West Slavic Wends settling on the Elbe. Gero thereafter campaigned in the Slavic lands far beyond the river Elbe and thereafter established the Saxon stretching up to the Oder in the east. Upon Gero's death in 965, his was split and the Northern March was granted to Dietrich of Haldensleben, who nevertheless turned out to be an incapable ruler and lost all the territories east of the Elbe in the Slavic Lutici uprising of 983. He retained only his margravial title and the initial land basis of his predecessor Gero's conquests west of the river.  For further one-and-a-half centuries, the lands east of the Elbe defied German control, until in 1134 Emperor Lothair of Supplinburg bestowed the Northern March on the Ascanian count Albert the Bear. Albert signed an inheritance contract with the Slavic Hevelli prince Pribislav and in 1150 succeeded him in his eastern territory around the fortress of Brandenburg an der Havel, which became the nucleus of his newly established Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157.  As the Brandenburg margraves expanded their territory during the course of the, the original western territory of the Northern March became known as the Altmark (literally "Old March") in contrast to the (Middle March) and (New March) beyond the Oder river; the written record first mentions it in 1304 as.  As part of Brandenburg, from 1415 held by the House of Hohenzollern, the Altmark became part of Brandenburg-Prussia and (from 1701) of the Kingdom of Prussia. After Prussia's defeat at the hands of Napoleon in 1806, the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit (1807) assigned the territory of the Altmark to the new Kingdom of Westphalia. Prussia regained the area upon Napoleon's defeat (per Article XXIII of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, 1815); however, it was incorporated into the new Prussian Province of Saxony rather than being attached to the Province of Brandenburg. Within Prussian Saxony, the Altmark was subdivided into the districts of Salzwedel, Gardelegen, Osterburg, and Stendal, all administered within the of Magdeburg.  After World War II the Altmark, lying to the east of the inner German border, became part of the new state of Saxony-Anhalt in the Soviet occupation zone. The regional administration of East Germany saw it administered within from 1952 to 1990. With German reunification in 1990, the Altmark became part of a reconstituted Saxony-Anhalt.

Rivers and lakes.

The region is drained by the Elbe, joined by the Havel at Havelberg, and its left tributaries of the Milde-Biese-Aland system and the Jeetzel river.  The largest natural lake of the Altmark is the Arendsee.

Transport.

Road.

The Altmark is located off the main traffic routes. The Bundesautobahn 14 leads to the Bundesautobahn 2 from Hanover to Berlin, it however ends north of Magdeburg. A continuation through the Altmark towards Schwerin is planned. Beside which the Federal roads B71, B107, B188, B189, B190, B248 run through the region.

Rail.

Stendal station is a stop on the Hanover–Berlin high-speed railway. Other lines include:

The (English: Old March) is a historic region in Germany, comprising the northern third of Saxony-Anhalt. As the initial territory of the March of Brandenburg, it is sometimes referred to as the "Cradle of Prussia", as by Otto von Bismarck, a native from Schönhausen near Stendal.

Die Altmark ist eine Region im Norden des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt. Die historische Kulturlandschaft erstreckt sich vom Drawehn im Westen bis an die Elbe im Osten, grenzt im Süden an die Magdeburger Börde und im Norden an das Wendland. Der Name Altmark erschien erstmals 1304 – "Antiqua Marchia" (Alte Mark) – und bezieht sich auf ihre Bedeutung als westelbisches Ausgangsgebiet bei der Einrichtung der Mark Brandenburg. Darauf beziehen sich auch blumige Charakterisierungen wie „Wiege Brandenburgs“ oder gar „Wiege Preußens“. Als Ganzes gehörte sie seit der Gründung der Mark Brandenburg zu dieser Markgrafschaft und dem daraus hervorgegangenen preußischen Staat. Die Altmark wird heute in den Altmarkkreis Salzwedel und den Landkreis Stendal untergliedert. Erst seit der Landkreis Stendal auch östlich der Elbe gelegene Gebiete umfasst, werden diese, historisch zu Jerichow und Prignitz gehörend, gelegentlich mit zur Altmark gezählt.


History.

In 1927, unemployed actor Harry Frommermann was inspired by The Revelers, a jazz-influenced popular vocal group from the United States, to create a German group of the same format. According to Douglas Friedman's 2010 book "The Comedian Harrmonists", in August 1929 both groups appeared on the same bill at the Scala in Berlin and became good friends. Frommermann held auditions in his flat on Stubenrauchstraße 47 in Berlin-Friedenau, and, once the group was assembled, it quickly began rehearsals. After some initial failures, the Harmonists soon found success, becoming popular throughout Europe, visiting the United States, and appearing in 21 films.  The members of the group were: The group's success continued into the early 1930s, but eventually ran into trouble with the Nazi regime: three of the group members – Frommermann, Collin, and Cycowski – were either Jewish or of Jewish descent, and Bootz had married a Jewish woman. The Nazis progressively made the group's professional life more difficult, initially banning pieces by Jewish composers, and finally prohibiting them from performing in public. The group's last concert in Germany was in Hannover on March 25, 1934, after which they sailed to the United States on "SS Europa" and gave several concerts. Fearing internment if they stayed abroad, however, they eventually returned home amid bitter internal disputes.  Frommermann, Cycowski, and Collin subsequently fled Germany and formed a new group, which performed under the names "Comedian Harmonists" and "Comedy Harmonists" with a new pianist, bass, and high tenor. The remaining members in Germany likewise replaced their counterparts in a successor group named "Das Meistersextett" (as the authorities forbade an English-language name). Neither group was able to achieve the original success of the Comedian Harmonists, with the German group stifled by political in-fighting and heavy censorship, as well as the war draft (call-up); the emigrant group was unable to find work in America due to hostility to German entertainers, and they were unable to return to Austria, where they had enjoyed extensive success in the 1930s. The Bulgarian Asparuh Leschnikoff (also spelt Leshnikov) returned to his fatherland in 1938 and started a successful career. By 1941, both groups had broken up. Although all members survived the war, they never re-formed after the war.  The group remained largely forgotten until filmmaker created a four-hour black-and-white television documentary, in which he interviewed the surviving members in 1975, who were scattered throughout the world. The documentary aired over two nights in German in 1977 and caused a resurgence of interest in the music of the Comedian Harmonists, with their records being released on vinyl.  They won recognition from the musical entertainment industry in 1998 when they won the Echo Prize from the Deutsche Phonoakademie.

Dramatic representations.

They were the subject the 1997 German movie "Comedian Harmonists", released in the United States as "The Harmonists". In the film, the actors lip synched in the musical performances to the group's original recordings.  The 1997 film directly led to a musical play about the group, "Veronika, der Lenz ist da - Die Comedian Harmonists", which opened at the Komödie in Berlin in December 1997. When this production closed, the actors who had played the original sextet formed a new group called the Berlin Comedian Harmonists, which recreates the Comedian Harmonists' repertoire.  "Harmony", a musical about the Comedian Harmonists, with music by Barry Manilow and book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman, premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in the fall of 1997, and recently played at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta on September 6, 2013, to run through October 6, then moved in early 2014 to the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles.

The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group consisted of Harry Frommermann (tenor buffo), Asparuh "Ari" Leschnikoff (first tenor), Erich Collin (second tenor), Roman Cycowski (baritone), Robert Biberti (bass), and Erwin Bootz (pianist).

Die Comedian Harmonists waren ein international bekanntes Berliner Vokalensemble der Jahre 1928–1935. Es gab zwei direkte Nachfolgegruppen, das Meistersextett in Deutschland und die Comedy Harmonists im europäischen und weiteren Ausland.


Simple gravity pendulum.

The "simple gravity pendulum" is an idealized mathematical model of a pendulum. This is a weight (or bob) on the end of a massless cord

Period of oscillation.

The period of swing of a simple gravity pendulum depends on its length, the local strength of gravity, and to a small extent on the maximum angle that the pendulum swings away from vertical, "θ", called the amplitude. It is independent of the mass of the bob. If the amplitude is limited to small swings, the period "T" of a simple pendulum, the time taken for a complete cycle, is:  where formula_2 is the length of the pendulum and formula_3 is the local acceleration of gravity.  For small swings the period of swing is approximately the same for different size swings: that is, "the period is independent of amplitude". This property, called isochronism, is the reason pendulums are so useful for timekeeping. Successive swings of the pendulum, even if changing in amplitude, take the same amount of time.  For larger amplitudes, the period increases gradually with amplitude so it is longer than given by equation (1).

Compound pendulum.

Any swinging rigid body free to rotate about a fixed horizontal axis is called a compound pendulum or physical pendulum. The appropriate equivalent length formula_8 for calculating the period of any such pendulum is the distance from the pivot to the "center of oscillation". This point is located under the center of mass at a distance from the pivot traditionally called the radius of oscillation, which depends on the mass distribution of the pendulum. If most of the mass is concentrated in a relatively small bob compared to the pendulum length, the center of oscillation is close to the center of mass.  The radius of oscillation or equivalent length formula_8 of any physical pendulum can be shown to be where formula_11 is the moment of inertia of the pendulum

History.

One of the earliest known uses of a pendulum was a 1st-century seismometer device of Han Dynasty Chinese scientist Zhang Heng. Its function was to sway and activate one of a series of levers after being disturbed by the tremor of an earthquake far away. Released by a lever, a small ball would fall out of the urn-shaped device into one of eight metal toad's mouths below, at the eight points of the compass, signifying the direction the earthquake was located.  Many sources claim that the 10th-century Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus used a pendulum for time measurement, but this was an error that originated in 1684 with the British historian Edward Bernard.  During the Renaissance, large hand-pumped pendulums were used as sources of power for manual reciprocating machines such as saws, bellows, and pumps. Leonardo da Vinci made many drawings of the motion of pendulums, though without realizing its value for timekeeping.

1602: Galileo's research.

Italian scientist Galileo Galilei was the first to study the properties of pendulums, beginning around 1602. The earliest extant report of his research is contained in a letter to Guido Ubaldo dal Monte, from Padua, dated November 29, 1602. His biographer and student, Vincenzo Viviani, claimed his interest had been sparked around 1582 by the swinging motion of a chandelier in Pisa Cathedral. Galileo discovered the crucial property that makes pendulums useful as timekeepers, called

1656: The pendulum clock.

In 1656 the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens built the first pendulum clock. This was a great improvement over existing mechanical clocks; their best accuracy was improved from around 15 minutes deviation a day to around 15 seconds a day. Pendulums spread over Europe as existing clocks were retrofitted with them.  The English scientist Robert Hooke studied the conical pendulum around 1666, consisting of a pendulum that is free to swing in two dimensions, with the bob rotating in a circle or ellipse. He used the motions of this device as a model to analyze the orbital motions of the planets. Hooke suggested to Isaac Newton in 1679 that the components of orbital motion

1673: Huygens' "Horologium Oscillatorium".

In 1673, 17 years after he invented the pendulum clock, Christiaan Huygens published his theory of the pendulum, "Horologium Oscillatorium sive de motu pendulorum". Marin Mersenne and René Descartes had discovered around 1636 that the pendulum was not quite isochronous; its period increased somewhat with its amplitude. Huygens analyzed this problem by determining what curve an object must follow to descend by gravity to the same point in the same time interval, regardless of starting point; the so-called "tautochrone curve". By a complicated method that was an early use of calculus, he showed this curve was a cycloid, rather than the circular arc of a pendulum, confirming that the pendulum was not

1721: Temperature compensated pendulums.

During the 18th and 19th century, the pendulum clock's role as the most accurate timekeeper motivated much practical research into improving pendulums. It was found that a major source of error was that the pendulum rod expanded and contracted with changes in ambient temperature, changing the period of swing. This was solved with the invention of temperature compensated pendulums, the mercury pendulum in 1721 and the gridiron pendulum in 1726, reducing errors in precision pendulum clocks

1851: Foucault pendulum.

In 1851, Jean Bernard Léon Foucault showed that the plane of oscillation of a pendulum, like a gyroscope, tends to stay constant regardless of the motion of the pivot, and that this could be used to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. He suspended a pendulum free to swing in two

1930: Decline in use.

Around 1900 low-thermal-expansion materials began to be used for pendulum rods in the highest precision clocks and other instruments, first invar, a nickel steel alloy, and later fused quartz, which made temperature compensation trivial. Precision pendulums were housed in low pressure tanks, which kept the air pressure constant to prevent changes in the period due to changes in buoyancy of the pendulum due

Use for time measurement.

For 300 years, from its discovery around 1582 until development of the quartz clock in the 1930s, the pendulum was the world's standard for accurate timekeeping. In addition to clock pendulums, freeswinging seconds pendulums were widely used as precision timers in scientific experiments in the 17th and 18th centuries. Pendulums require great mechanical stability: a length change of only 0.02%, 0.2 mm in a grandfather clock pendulum, will cause an error of a minute per week.

Clock pendulums.

Pendulums in clocks (see example at right) are usually made of a weight or bob "(b)" suspended by a rod of wood or metal "(a)". To reduce air resistance (which accounts for most of the energy loss in precision clocks) the bob is traditionally a smooth disk with a lens-shaped cross section, although in antique clocks it often had carvings or decorations specific to the type of clock. In quality clocks the bob is made as heavy as the suspension can

Temperature compensation.

The largest source of error in early pendulums was slight changes in length due to thermal expansion and contraction of the pendulum rod with changes in ambient temperature. This was discovered when people noticed that pendulum clocks ran slower in summer, by as much as a minute per week (one of the first was Godefroy Wendelin, as reported by Huygens in 1658). Thermal expansion of pendulum rods was first studied by Jean Picard in 1669. A pendulum with a steel rod will expand by about 11.3 parts per million (ppm) with each degree Celsius increase, causing it to lose about 0.27 seconds per day for every degree Celsius increase in temperature, or 9 seconds per day for a change. Wood rods expand less, losing only about 6 seconds per day for a change, which is why quality clocks often had wooden pendulum rods. The wood had to be varnished to prevent water vapor from getting in, because changes in humidity also affected the length.

Mercury pendulum.

The first device to compensate for this error was the mercury pendulum, invented by George Graham in 1721. The liquid metal mercury expands in volume with temperature. In a mercury pendulum, the pendulum's weight (bob) is a container of mercury. With a temperature rise, the pendulum rod gets longer, but the mercury also expands and its surface level rises slightly in the container, moving its centre of mass

Gridiron pendulum.

The most widely used compensated pendulum was the gridiron pendulum, invented in 1726 by John Harrison. This consists of alternating rods of two different metals, one with lower thermal expansion (CTE), steel, and one with higher thermal expansion, zinc or brass. The rods are connected by a frame, as shown in the drawing at the right, so that an increase in length of the zinc rods pushes the bob up, shortening the pendulum. With a temperature increase, the low expansion steel rods make the pendulum longer, while the high expansion zinc rods make it shorter. By making the rods of the correct lengths, the greater expansion of

Invar and fused quartz.

Around 1900, low thermal expansion materials were developed which could be used as pendulum rods in order to make elaborate temperature compensation unnecessary. These were only used in a few of the highest precision clocks before the pendulum became obsolete as a time standard. In 1896 Charles Édouard Guillaume invented the nickel steel alloy Invar. This has a CTE of around 0.5 μin/(in·°F), resulting in pendulum temperature errors over 71 °F of only 1.3 seconds per day, and this residual error could be compensated to zero with a few centimeters of aluminium under the pendulum bob (this can be seen in the Riefler clock image above). Invar pendulums were first used in 1898 in the Riefler regulator clock which achieved accuracy of 15 milliseconds per day. Suspension springs of Elinvar were used to eliminate temperature variation of the spring's restoring force on the pendulum. Later fused quartz was used which had even lower CTE. These materials are the choice for modern high accuracy pendulums.

Atmospheric pressure.

The effect of the surrounding air on a moving pendulum is complex and requires fluid mechanics to calculate precisely, but for most purposes its influence on the period can be accounted for by three effects: Increases in barometric pressure increase a pendulum's period slightly due to the first two effects, by about 0.11 seconds per day per kilopascal (0.37 seconds per day per inch of mercury

Gravity.

Pendulums are affected by changes in gravitational acceleration, which varies by as much as 0.5% at different locations on Earth, so precision

Accuracy of pendulums as timekeepers.

The timekeeping elements in all clocks, which include pendulums, balance wheels, the quartz crystals used in quartz watches, and even the vibrating atoms in atomic clocks, are in physics called harmonic oscillators. The reason harmonic oscillators are used in clocks is that they vibrate or oscillate at a specific resonant frequency or period and resist oscillating at other rates. However, the resonant frequency is not infinitely'sharp'. Around the resonant frequency there is a narrow natural band of frequencies (or periods), called the resonance width or bandwidth, where the harmonic oscillator will oscillate. In a clock, the actual frequency of the pendulum may vary randomly within this resonance width in response to disturbances, but at frequencies outside this band, the clock will not function at all.

"Q" factor.

The measure of a harmonic oscillator's resistance to disturbances to its oscillation period is a dimensionless parameter called the "Q" factor equal to the resonant frequency divided by the resonance width. The higher the "Q", the smaller the resonance width, and the more constant the frequency or period of the oscillator for a given disturbance. The reciprocal of the Q is roughly proportional to the limiting accuracy achievable by a harmonic oscillator as a time standard.  The "Q" is related to

Escapement.

Pendulums (unlike, for example, quartz crystals) have a low enough "Q" that the disturbance caused by the impulses to keep them moving is generally the limiting factor on their timekeeping accuracy. Therefore, the design of the escapement, the mechanism that provides these impulses, has a large effect on the accuracy of a clock pendulum. If the impulses given to the pendulum by the escapement each swing could be exactly identical, the response of the pendulum would be identical, and its period would be constant. However,

The Airy condition.

In 1826 British astronomer George Airy proved what clockmakers had known for centuries; that the disturbing effect of a drive force on the period of a pendulum is smallest if given as a short impulse

Gravity measurement.

The presence of the acceleration of gravity "g" in the periodicity equation (1) for a pendulum means that the local gravitational acceleration of the Earth can be calculated from the period of a pendulum. A pendulum can therefore be used as a gravimeter to measure the local gravity, which varies by over 0.5% across the surface of the Earth. The pendulum in a clock is disturbed by the pushes it receives from the clock movement, so freeswinging pendulums were used, and were the standard instruments of gravimetry up to the 1930s.  The difference between clock pendulums and gravimeter pendulums is that to measure gravity, the pendulum's length as well as its period has to be measured. The period of freeswinging pendulums could be found to great precision by comparing their swing with a precision clock that had been adjusted to keep correct time by the passage of stars overhead. In the early measurements, a weight on a cord was suspended in front of the clock pendulum, and its length adjusted until the two pendulums swung in exact synchronism. Then the length of the cord was measured. From the length and the period, "g" could be calculated from equation (1).

The seconds pendulum.

The seconds pendulum, a pendulum with a period of two seconds so each swing takes one second, was widely used to measure gravity, because its period could be easily measured by comparing it to precision regulator

Kater's pendulum.

The precision of the early gravity measurements above was limited by the difficulty of measuring the length of the pendulum, "L". "L" was the length of an idealized simple gravity pendulum (described at top), which has all its mass concentrated in a point at the end of the cord. In 1673 Huygens had shown that the period of a rigid bar pendulum (called a "compound pendulum") was equal to the period of a simple pendulum with a length equal to the distance between the pivot point and a point called the center of oscillation, located under the center of gravity,

Later pendulum gravimeters.

The increased accuracy made possible by Kater's pendulum helped make gravimetry a standard part of geodesy. Since the exact location (latitude and longitude) of the'station' where the gravity measurement was made was necessary, gravity measurements became part of surveying, and pendulums were taken on

Standard of length.

Because the acceleration of gravity is constant at a given point on Earth, the period of a simple pendulum at a given location depends only on its length. Additionally, gravity varies only slightly at different locations. Almost from the pendulum's discovery until the early 19th century, this property led scientists to suggest using a pendulum of a given period as a standard of length.  Until the 19th century, countries based their systems of length measurement on prototypes, metal bar primary standards, such as the standard yard in Britain kept at the Houses of Parliament, and the standard "toise" in France, kept at Paris. These were vulnerable to damage or destruction over the years, and because of the difficulty of comparing prototypes, the same unit often had different lengths in distant towns, creating opportunities for fraud. During the Enlightenment scientists argued for a length standard that was based on some property of nature that could be determined by measurement, creating an indestructible, universal standard. The period of pendulums could be measured very precisely by timing them with clocks that were set by the stars. A pendulum standard amounted to defining the unit of length by the gravitational force of the Earth, for all intents constant, and the second, which was defined by the rotation rate of the Earth, also constant. The idea was that anyone, anywhere on Earth, could recreate the standard by constructing a pendulum that swung with the defined period and measuring its length.  Virtually all proposals were based on the seconds pendulum, in which each swing (a half period) takes one second, which is about a meter (39 inches) long, because by the late 17th century it had become a standard for measuring gravity (see previous section). By the 18th century its length had been measured with sub-millimeter accuracy at a number of cities in Europe and around the world.  The initial attraction of the pendulum length standard was that it was believed (by early scientists such as Huygens and Wren) that gravity was constant over the Earth's surface, so a given pendulum had the same period at any point on Earth. So the length of the standard pendulum could be measured at any location, and would not be tied to any given nation or region; it would be a truly democratic, worldwide standard. Although Richer found in 1672 that gravity varies at different points on the globe, the idea of a pendulum length standard remained popular, because it was found that gravity only varies with latitude. Gravitational acceleration increases smoothly from the equator to the poles, due to the oblate shape of the Earth, so at any given latitude (east–west line), gravity was constant enough that the length of a seconds pendulum was the same within the measurement capability of the 18th century. Thus the unit of length could be defined at a given latitude and measured at any point along that latitude. For example, a pendulum standard defined at 45° north latitude, a popular choice, could be measured in parts of France, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, the United States and Canada. In addition, it could be recreated at any location at which the gravitational acceleration had been accurately measured.  By the mid 19th century, increasingly accurate pendulum measurements by Edward Sabine and Thomas Young revealed that gravity, and thus the length of any pendulum standard, varied measurably with local geologic features such as mountains and dense subsurface rocks. So a pendulum length standard had to be defined at a single point on Earth and could only be measured there. This took much of the appeal from the concept, and efforts to adopt pendulum standards were abandoned.

Other uses.

Seismometers.

A pendulum in which the rod is not vertical but almost horizontal was used in early seismometers for

Schuler tuning.

As first explained by Maximilian Schuler in a 1923 paper, a pendulum whose period exactly equals the orbital period of a hypothetical satellite orbiting just above the surface of the earth (about 84 minutes) will tend to remain pointing at the center of the earth when its support is suddenly

Coupled pendulums.

In 1665 Huygens made a curious observation about pendulum clocks. Two clocks had been placed on his mantlepiece, and he noted that they had acquired an opposing motion. That is, their pendulums were beating in unison but in the opposite direction; 180° out of phase. Regardless of how the two clocks were started, he found that they would eventually return to this

Religious practice.

Pendulum motion appears in religious ceremonies as well. The swinging incense burner called a censer, also known as a thurible, is an example of a

Education.

Pendulums are widely used in science education as an example of a harmonic oscillator, to teach dynamics and oscillatory motion. One use is to demonstrate the law of conservation of energy. A heavy object such as a bowling ball or wrecking ball is attached to a string. The weight is then moved to within a

Torture device.

It is claimed that the pendulum was used as an instrument of torture and execution by the Spanish Inquisition in the 18th century. The allegation is contained in the 1826 book "The history of the Inquisition of Spain " by the Spanish priest, historian and liberal activist Juan Antonio Llorente. A swinging pendulum whose edge is a knife blade slowly descends toward a bound prisoner until it cuts into his body. This method of torture came to popular consciousness through the 1842 short story "The Pit and the Pendulum" by American author Edgar Allan Poe but there is considerable skepticism that it actually was used.  Most

Notes.

The value of g reflected by the period of a pendulum varies from place to place. The gravitational force varies with distance from the center of the Earth, i.e. with altitude -

References.

Note: most of the sources below, including books, can be viewed online through the links given.

A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force acting on the pendulum's mass causes it to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth. The time for one complete cycle, a left swing and a right swing, is called the period. The period depends on the length of the pendulum and also to a slight degree on the amplitude, the width of the pendulum's swing.

Ein Pendel, auch Schwerependel (früher auch Perpendikel, von lat. "pendere" „hängen“) ist ein Körper, der, an einer Achse oder einem Punkt außerhalb seines Massenmittelpunktes drehbar gelagert, um seine eigene Ruheposition schwingen kann. Seine einfachste Ausführung ist das Fadenpendel, das aus einem an einem Faden aufgehängten Gewicht besteht und baulich einem Schnurlot gleicht. In diesem Sinne keine Pendel sind das Federpendel und das Torsionspendel.


History.

Early history and foundation.

Indigenous Australians have lived in the Melbourne area for at least 40,000 years. When European settlers arrived in the 19th century, at least 20,000 Kulin people from three distinct language groups — the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong — resided in the area. It was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and a vital source of food and water.  The first British settlement in Victoria, then part of the penal colony of New South Wales, was established by Colonel David Collins in October 1803, at Sullivan Bay, near present-day Sorrento. The following year, due to a perceived lack of resources, these settlers relocated to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) and founded the city of Hobart. It would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. In May and June 1835, John Batman, a leading member of the Port Phillip Association in Van Diemen's Land, explored the Melbourne area, and later claimed to have negotiated a purchase of with eight Wurundjeri elders. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River, declaring that "this will be the place for a village" before returning to Van Diemen's Land. In August 1835, another group

Victorian gold rush.

The discovery of gold in Victoria in mid-1851 sparked a gold rush, and Melbourne, the colony's major port, experienced rapid growth. Within months, the city's population had nearly doubled from 25,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. Exponential growth ensued, and by 1865 Melbourne had overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city.  An influx of intercolonial and international migrants, particularly from Europe and China, saw the establishment of slums, including Chinatown and a temporary "tent city" on the southern banks of the Yarra. In the aftermath of the 1854 Eureka Rebellion, mass public-support for the plight of the miners resulted in major political changes to the colony, including improvements in working conditions across mining, agriculture, manufacturing and other local industries. At least twenty nationalities took part in the rebellion, giving some indication of immigration flows at the time. With the wealth brought in from the gold rush and the subsequent need for public buildings, a program of grand civic construction soon began. The 1850s and 1860s saw the commencement of Parliament House, the Treasury Building, the Old Melbourne Gaol, Victoria Barracks, the State Library, University of Melbourne, General Post Office, Customs House, the Melbourne Town Hall,

Land boom and bust.

The decade of the 1880s saw extraordinary growth: consumer confidence, easy access to credit, and steep increases in land prices led to an enormous amount of construction. During this "land boom", Melbourne reputedly became the richest city in the world, and the second-largest (after London) in the British Empire.  The decade began with the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880, held in the large purpose-built Exhibition Building. In 1880 a telephone exchange was established, and in the same year the foundations of St Paul's, were laid; in 1881 electric light was installed in the Eastern Market, and in the following year a generating station capable of supplying 2,000 incandescent lamps was in operation. In 1885 the Melbourne Tramway Trust built the first line of the Melbourne cable tramway system, which became one of the world's most extensive systems by 1890.  In 1885 visiting English journalist George Augustus Henry Sala coined the phrase "Marvellous Melbourne", which stuck long into

De facto Capital of Australia.

At the time of Australia's federation on 1 January 1901, Melbourne became the seat of government of the federation. The first federal parliament was convened on 9 May 1901 in the

Post-war period.

In the immediate years after World War II, Melbourne expanded rapidly, its growth boosted by post-war immigration to Australia, primarily from Southern Europe and the Mediterranean. While the "Paris End" of Collins Street began Melbourne's boutique shopping and open air cafe cultures, the city centre was seen by many as stale—the dreary domain of office workers—something expressed by John Brack in his famous painting "Collins St., 5 pm" (1955). Up until the 21st century, Melbourne was considered Australia's "industrial heartland".  Height limits in the CBD were lifted in 1958, after the construction of ICI House, transforming the city's skyline with the introduction of skyscrapers. Suburban expansion then intensified, served by new indoor malls beginning with Chadstone Shopping Centre. The post-war period also saw a major renewal of the CBD and St Kilda Road which significantly modernised the city. New fire regulations and redevelopment saw most of the taller pre-war CBD buildings either demolished or partially retained through a policy of facadism. Many of the larger suburban mansions from the boom era were also either demolished or subdivided.  To counter the trend towards low-density suburban residential growth, the government began a series of controversial public

Contemporary Melbourne.

Since the mid-1990s, Melbourne has maintained significant population and employment growth. There has been substantial international investment in the city's industries and property market. Major inner-city urban renewal has occurred in areas such as Southbank, Port Melbourne, Melbourne Docklands and more recently, South Wharf. Melbourne sustained the highest population increase and economic growth rate of any Australian capital city from 2001 to 2004.  From 2006, the growth of the city extended into "green wedges" and

Geography.

Melbourne is in the southeastern part of mainland Australia, within the state of Victoria. Geologically, it is built on the confluence of Quaternary lava flows to the west, Silurian mudstones to the east, and Holocene sand accumulation to the southeast along Port Phillip. The southeastern suburbs are situated on the Selwyn fault which transects Mount Martha and Cranbourne.  Melbourne extends along the Yarra River towards the Yarra Valley and the Dandenong Ranges to the east. It extends northward through the undulating bushland valleys of the Yarra's tributaries—Moonee Ponds Creek (toward Tullamarine Airport), Merri Creek, Darebin Creek and Plenty River—to the outer suburban growth corridors of Craigieburn and Whittlesea.  The city reaches southeast through Dandenong to the growth corridor of Pakenham towards West Gippsland, and southward through the Dandenong Creek valley and the city of Frankston. In the west, it extends along the Maribyrnong River and its tributaries north towards Sunbury and the foothills of the Macedon Ranges, and along the flat volcanic plain country towards Melton in the west, Werribee at the foothills of the You Yangs granite ridge south west of the CBD. The Little River, and the township of the same name, marks the border between Melbourne and neighbouring Geelong city.  Melbourne's major bayside beaches are in the various suburbs along the shores of Port Phillip Bay, in areas like Port Melbourne, Albert Park, St Kilda, Elwood, Brighton, Sandringham, Mentone, Frankston, Altona, Williamstown and Werribee South. The nearest surf beaches are south of the Melbourne CBD in the back-beaches of Rye, Sorrento and Portsea.

Climate.

Melbourne has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification "Cfb") with warm to hot summers and mild winters. Melbourne is well known for its changeable weather conditions, mainly due to it being located on the boundary of hot inland areas and the cool southern ocean. This temperature differential is most pronounced in the spring and summer months and can cause strong cold fronts to form. These cold fronts can be responsible for varied forms of severe weather from gales to thunderstorms and hail, large temperature drops and heavy rain. Winters, however, are usually very stable, but rather damp and often cloudy.  Port Phillip is often warmer than the surrounding oceans and/or the land mass, particularly in spring and autumn; this can set up a "bay effect" similar to the "lake effect" seen in colder climates where showers are intensified leeward of the bay. Relatively narrow streams of heavy showers can often affect the same places (usually the eastern suburbs) for an

Urban structure.

Melbourne's urban area is approximately 2,453 km, slightly larger than that of London and Mexico City, while its metropolitan area is 9,993 km (3,858 sq mi)–larger than Jakarta (at 7,063 km), but smaller than New York City (at 11,875 km). The Hoddle Grid, a grid of streets measuring approximately, forms the nucleus of Melbourne's central business district (CBD). The grid's southern edge fronts onto the Yarra River. More recent office, commercial and public developments in the adjoining districts of Southbank and Docklands have made these areas into extensions of the CBD in all but name. A byproduct of the CBD's layout is its network of lanes and arcades, such as Block Arcade and Royal Arcade.  Melbourne's CBD, compared with other Australian cities, has unrestricted height limits. As a result, it has become Australia's most densely populated area with approximately 19,500 residents per square kilometre, and is home to more skyscrapers than any other Australian city, the tallest being Australia 108, situated in Southbank.  The CBD and surrounds also contain many significant historic buildings such as the Royal Exhibition Building, the Melbourne Town Hall and Parliament House. Although the area is described as the "centre", it is not actually the demographic centre of Melbourne at all, due to an urban sprawl to the south east, the demographic centre being located at Glen Iris. Melbourne is typical of Australian capital cities in that after the turn of the 20th century, it expanded with the underlying notion of a 'quarter acre home and garden' for every family, often referred to locally as the Australian Dream. This, coupled with the popularity of the private automobile after 1945, led to the auto-centric urban structure now present today in the middle and outer suburbs. Much of metropolitan Melbourne is accordingly characterised by low density sprawl, whilst its inner city areas feature predominantly medium-density, transit-oriented urban forms. The city centre, Docklands, St. Kilda Road and Southbank areas feature high-density forms.  Melbourne is often referred to as Australia's garden city, and the state of Victoria was once known as "the garden state". There is an abundance of parks and gardens in Melbourne, many close to the CBD with a variety of common and rare plant species amid landscaped vistas, pedestrian pathways and tree-lined avenues. Melbourne's parks are often considered the best public parks in all of Australia's major cities. There are also many parks in the surrounding suburbs of Melbourne, such as in the municipalities of Stonnington, Boroondara and Port Phillip, south east of the central business district. Several national parks have been designated around the urban area of Melbourne, including the Mornington Peninsula National Park, Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park and Point Nepean National Park in the southeast, Organ Pipes National Park to the north and Dandenong Ranges National Park to the east. There are also a number of significant state parks just outside Melbourne. The extensive area covered by urban Melbourne is formally divided into hundreds of suburbs (for addressing and postal purposes), and administered as local government areas 31 of which are located within the metropolitan area.

Architecture.

On the back of the 1850s gold rush and 1880s land boom, Melbourne became renowned as one of the world's great Victorian-era cities, a reputation that persists due to its diverse range of Victorian architecture. Outside the CBD, high concentrations of well-preserved Victorian-era buildings can also be found in the inner suburbs, such as Carlton, East Melbourne and South Melbourne. Outstanding examples of Melbourne's built Victorian heritage include the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building (1880), the General Post Office (1867), Hotel Windsor (1884) and the Block Arcade (1891). Very little remains of Melbourne's pre-gold rush architecture; St James Old Cathedral (1839) and St Francis' Church (1845) are among the few surviving examples in the CBD. The city also features the Shrine of Remembrance, which was built as a

Culture.

Often referred to as Australia's cultural capital, Melbourne is recognised globally as a centre of sport, music, theatre, comedy, art, literature, film and television. For much of the 2010s, it held the top position in "The Economist Intelligence Unit"'s list of the world's most liveable cities, partly due to its cultural attributes.  The city celebrates a wide variety of annual cultural events and festivals of all types, including the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival and Moomba, Australia's largest free community festival.  The State Library of Victoria, founded in 1854, is one of the world's oldest free public libraries and, as of 2018, the fourth most-visited library globally. Between the gold rush and the crash of 1890, Melbourne was Australia's literary capital, famously referred to by Henry Kendall as "that wild bleak Bohemia south of the Murray". At this time, Melbourne-based writers and poets Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Rolf Boldrewood produced classic visions of colonial life. Fergus Hume's "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" (1886), the fastest-selling crime novel of the era, is set in Melbourne, as is Australia's best-selling book of poetry, C. J. Dennis' "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke" (1915). Contemporary Melbourne authors who have written award-winning books set in the city include Peter Carey, Helen Garner and Christos Tsiolkas. Melbourne has Australia's widest range of bookstores, as well as the nation's largest publishing sector. The city is also home to the Melbourne Writers Festival and hosts the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. In 2008, it became the second city to be named a UNESCO City of Literature. Ray Lawler's play "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll", set in Carlton, debuted in 1955, the same year that Edna Everage, Barry Humphries' Moonee Ponds housewife character, first appeared on stage, both sparking international interest in Australian theatre. Melbourne's East End Theatre District is known for its Victorian era theatres, such as the Athenaeum, Her Majesty's and the Princess, as well as the Regent. Heritage-listed theatres outside the district include The Capitol, the Forum Theatre and the art deco Palais Theatre, a St Kilda landmark and Australia's largest seated theatre with a capacity of 3,000 people. The Arts Precinct in Southbank is home to Arts Centre Melbourne (which includes the State Theatre and Hamer Hall), as well as the Melbourne Recital Centre and Southbank Theatre, home of the Melbourne Theatre Company, Australia's oldest professional theatre company. The Australian Ballet, Opera Australia and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra are also based in the precinct. The Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Kings Domain hosted the largest crowd ever for a music concert in Australia when an estimated 200,000 attendees saw Melbourne band The Seekers in 1967.  Melbourne has been referred to as "the live music capital of the world"; one study found it has more music venues per capita than any other world city sampled, with 17.5 million patron visits to 553 venues in 2016. Airing between 1974 and 1987, Melbourne's "Countdown" helped launch the careers of Crowded House, Men at Work and Kylie Minogue, among other local acts. Several distinct post-punk scenes flourished in Melbourne during the late 1970s, including the Fitzroy-based little band scene and the St Kilda scene centered at the Crystal Ballroom, which featured members of Dead Can Dance and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, respectively. More recent independent acts from Melbourne to achieve global recognition include The Avalanches, Gotye and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Melbourne is also regarded as a centre of EDM, and lends its name to the Melbourne Bounce genre and the Melbourne Shuffle dance style, both of which emerged out of the city's underground rave scene. Established in 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria is Australia's oldest and largest art museum. Several art movements originated in Melbourne, most famously the Heidelberg School of impressonists, named after a suburb where they camped to paint "en plein air" in the 1880s. During the interwar period, the Australian tonalists emerged, followed by the Angry Penguins, a group of avant-garde painters who stayed at a dairy farm in Bulleen, now the Heide Museum of Modern Art. The city is also home to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Since the early 2000s, Melbourne street art has become internationally renowned and a major drawcard for tourists, with "laneway galleries" such as Hosier Lane attracting more Instagram hashtags than some of the city's traditional attractions, such as the Melbourne Zoo.  A quarter century after bushranger Ned Kelly's execution at Old Melbourne Gaol, the Melbourne-produced "The Story of the Kelly Gang" (1906), the world's first feature-length narrative film, premiered at the above-named Athenaeum, spurring Australia's first cinematic boom. Melbourne remained a world leader in filmmaking until the mid-1910s, when several factors, including a ban on bushranger films, contributed to a decades-long decline of the industry. A notable film shot and set in Melbourne during this lull was "On the Beach" (1959). Melbourne filmmakers led the Australian Film Revival with ocker comedies such as "Stork" (1971) and "Alvin Purple" (1973). Other films shot and set in Melbourne include "Mad Max" (1979), "Romper Stomper" (1992), "Chopper" (2000) and "Animal Kingdom" (2010). The Melbourne International Film Festival began in 1952 and is one of the world's oldest film festivals. The AACTA Awards, Australia's top screen awards, were inaugurated by the festival in 1958. Melbourne is also home to Docklands Studios Melbourne, the city's largest film and television studio complex; the Australian Centre for the Moving Image; and the headquarters of Village Roadshow Pictures, Australia's largest film production company.

Economy.

Melbourne has a highly diversified economy with particular strengths in finance, manufacturing, research, IT, education, logistics, transportation and tourism. Melbourne houses the headquarters of many of Australia's largest corporations, including five of the ten largest in the country (based on revenue), and five of the largest seven in the country (based on market capitalisation) (ANZ, BHP Billiton (the world's largest mining company), the National Australia Bank, CSL and Telstra, as well as such representative bodies and think tanks as the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Melbourne's suburbs also have the head offices of Coles Group (owner of Coles Supermarkets) and Wesfarmers companies Bunnings, Target, K-Mart and Officeworks. The city is home to Australia's second busiest seaport, after Port Botany in Sydney. Melbourne Airport provides an entry point for national and international visitors, and is Australia's second busiest airport.  Melbourne is also an important financial centre. In the 2018 Global Financial Centres Index, Melbourne was ranked as having the 15th most competitive financial centre in the world. Two of the big four banks, NAB and ANZ, are headquartered in Melbourne. The city has carved out a niche as Australia's leading centre for superannuation (pension) funds, with 40% of the total, and 65% of industry super-funds including the AU$109 billion-dollar Federal Government Future Fund. The city was rated 41st within the top 50 financial cities as surveyed by the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index (2008), second only to Sydney (12th) in Australia. Melbourne is Australia's second-largest industrial centre.  CSL, one of the world's top five biotech companies, and Sigma Pharmaceuticals have their headquarters in Melbourne. The two are the largest listed Australian pharmaceutical companies. Melbourne has an important ICT industry that employs over 60,000 people (one third of Australia's ICT workforce), with a turnover of AU$19.8 billion and export revenues of AU615 million. In addition, tourism also plays an important role in Melbourne's economy, with about 7.6 million domestic visitors and 1.88 million international visitors in 2004. Melbourne has been attracting an increasing share of domestic and international conference markets. Construction began in February 2006 of an AU$1 billion 5000-seat international convention centre, Hilton Hotel and commercial precinct adjacent to the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre to link development along the Yarra River with the Southbank precinct and multibillion-dollar Docklands redevelopment.  The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Melbourne as the fourth most expensive city in the world to live in according to its worldwide cost of living index in 2013. The most visited attractions are: Federation Square, Queen Victoria Market, Crown Casino, Southbank, Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne Aquarium, Docklands, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne Observation Deck, Arts Centre Melbourne, and the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  The Economist Intelligence Unit also has ranked Melbourne as the most liveable city in the world for seven consecutive years (2011-2017).

Demographics.

In 2018, the population of the Melbourne metropolitan area was 4,963,349.  Although Victoria's net interstate migration has fluctuated, the population of the Melbourne statistical division has grown by about 70,000 people a year since 2005. Melbourne has now attracted the largest proportion of international overseas immigrants (48,000) finding it outpacing Sydney's international migrant intake on percentage, along with having strong interstate migration from Sydney and other capitals due to more affordable housing and cost of living.  In recent years, Melton, Wyndham and Casey, part of the Melbourne statistical division, have recorded the highest growth rate of all local government areas in Australia. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Melbourne was on track to overtake Sydney in population by 2028. The ABS has projected in two scenarios that Sydney will remain larger than Melbourne beyond 2056, albeit by a margin of less than 3% compared to a margin of 12% today. Melbourne's population could overtake that of Sydney by 2037 or 2039, according to the first scenario projected by the ABS, primarily due to greater internal migration losses assumed for Sydney. Another study claims that Melbourne will surpass Sydney in population by 2040.  After a trend of declining population density since World War II, the city has seen increased density in the inner and western suburbs, aided in part by Victorian Government planning, such as Postcode 3000 and Melbourne 2030, which have aimed to curtail urban sprawl. As of 2018, the CBD is the most densely populated area in Australia with more than 19,000 residents per square kilometre, and the inner city suburbs of Carlton, South Yarra, Fitzroy and Collingwood make up Victoria's top five.

Ancestry and immigration.

At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: 0.5% of the population, or 24,062 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016.

Language.

As of the 2016 census, 62% of Melburnians speak only English at home. Mandarin (4.1%),

Religion.

Melbourne has a wide range of religious faiths, the most widely held of which is Christianity. This is signified by the city's two large cathedrals—St Patrick's (Roman Catholic), and St Paul's (Anglican). Both were built in the Victorian era and are of considerable heritage significance as major landmarks of the city. In recent years, Greater Melbourne's irreligious community has grown to be one of the largest in Australia.  According to the 2016 Census, the largest responses on religious belief in Melbourne were no religion (31.9%),

Education.

Some of Australia's most prominent and well known schools are based in Melbourne. Of the top twenty high schools in Australia according to the My Choice Schools Ranking, five are in Melbourne. There has also been a rapid increase in the number of International students studying in the city. Furthermore, Melbourne was ranked the world's fourth top university city in 2008 after London, Boston and Tokyo in a poll commissioned by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Melbourne is the home of seven public universities: the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology, Deakin University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), La Trobe University, and Victoria University.  Melbourne universities have campuses all over Australia and some internationally. Swinburne University has campuses in Malaysia, while Monash has a research centre based in Prato,

Media.

Melbourne is served by thirty digital free-to-air television channels:  Three daily newspapers serve Melbourne: the "Herald Sun" (tabloid), "The Age" (formerly broadsheet, now compact) and "The Australian" (national broadsheet). Six free-to-air television stations service Greater Melbourne and Geelong: ABC Victoria, (ABV), SBS Victoria (SBS), Seven Melbourne (HSV), Nine Melbourne (GTV), Ten Melbourne (ATV), C31 Melbourne (MGV) – community television. Each station (excluding C31) broadcasts a primary channel and several multichannels. C31 is only broadcast from the transmitters at Mount Dandenong and South Yarra. Hybrid digital/print media companies such as Broadsheet and ThreeThousand are based in and primarily serve Melbourne.  Television shows are produced in Melbourne, most notably "Neighbours", "Kath & Kim", "The Secret Life of Us", "Winners and Losers", "Offspring", "Underbelly", "House Husbands", "Wentworth" and "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries", along with national news-based programs such as "The Project", "Insiders" and "ABC News Breakfast". Melbourne is also known as the game show capital of Australia; productions such as "Million Dollar Minute", "The Chase Australia",

Governance.

The governance of Melbourne is split between the government of Victoria and the 27 cities and four shires that make up the metropolitan area. There is no ceremonial or political head of Melbourne, but the Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne often fulfils such a role as a first among equals, particularly when interstate or overseas.  The local councils are responsible

Infrastructure.

In 2012, Mercer Consulting ranked Melbourne's infrastructure 17th in the world, behind only one other Australian city, Sydney, which ranked 10th in the world.

Health.

The Government of Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services oversees about 30 public hospitals in the Melbourne metropolitan region, and 13 health services organisations.  There are many major medical, neuroscience and biotechnology research institutions located in Melbourne: St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research, Australian Stem Cell Centre, the Burnet Institute, Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Victorian Institute of Chemical Sciences, Brain Research Institute, Peter

Transport.

Like many Australian cities, Melbourne has a high dependency on the automobile for transport, particularly in the outer suburban areas where the largest number of cars are bought, with a total of 3.6 million private vehicles using of road, and one of the highest lengths of road per capita in the world. The early 20th century saw an increase in popularity of automobiles, resulting in large-scale suburban expansion and a tendency towards the development of urban sprawl. By the mid 1950s there was just under 200 passenger vehicles per 1000 people, and by 2013 there was 600 passenger vehicles per 1000 people. Today it has an extensive network of freeways and arterial roadways used by private vehicles including freight as well as public transport systems including buses and taxis. Major highways feeding into the city include the Eastern Freeway, Monash Freeway and West Gate Freeway (which spans the large West Gate Bridge), whilst other freeways circumnavigate

Utilities.

Water storage and supply for Melbourne is managed by Melbourne Water, which is owned by the Victorian Government. The organisation is also responsible for management of sewerage and the major water catchments in the region as well as the Wonthaggi desalination plant and North–South Pipeline. Water is stored in a series of reservoirs located within and outside the Greater Melbourne area. The largest dam,

Crime.

Melbourne has one of the lowest crime rates of any major city globally, ranking 5th in "The Economist"'s 2017 Safe Cities Index. Reports of crime in Victoria fell by 7.8 per cent in 2018 to its lowest in three years, with 5,922 cases per 100,000 people. Melbourne's city centre (CBD) reported the highest incident rate of local government areas in Victoria.

Melbourne (Kulin: "Birrarunga", meaning "place next to the Yarra River" ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Its name refers to an urban agglomeration of, comprising a metropolitan area with 31 municipalities, and is also the common name for its city centre. The city occupies much of the coastline of Port Phillip bay (Kulin: "Naarm") and spreads into the Hinterland towards the Dandenong and Macedon ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 5 million (19% of the population of Australia), and its inhabitants are referred to as "Melburnians".

Melbourne [] ist die Hauptstadt des Bundesstaates Victoria in Australien. Sie ist mit 4,3 Millionen Einwohnern nach Sydney die zweitgrößte Stadt des australischen Kontinents (Stand 2016). Die Einwohner von Melbourne werden im Englischen "Melburnians" genannt. Melbourne wurde 1837 nach dem damaligen britischen Premierminister Lord Melbourne benannt und ist katholischer sowie anglikanischer Erzbischofssitz.


Route.

The Mittelland Canal branches off the Dortmund-Ems Canal at Hörstel (near Rheine, at ), runs north along the Teutoburg Forest, past Hannover and meets with the Elbe River near Magdeburg (). Near Magdeburg it connects to the Elbe-Havel Canal, making a continuous shipping route to Berlin and on to Poland.  At Minden the canal crosses the river Weser over two aqueducts (the second completed in 1998), and near Magdeburg it crosses the Elbe, also with an aqueduct. Connections by side canals exist at Ibbenbüren, Osnabrück, Minden (two canals connecting to the Weser), Hanover-Linden, Hanover-Misburg, Hildesheim and Salzgitter. West of Wolfsburg, the Elbe Lateral Canal branches off, providing a connection to Hamburg, and (via the Elbe-Lübeck Canal) to the Baltic Sea.

History.

Construction of the Mittelland Canal was started in 1906, starting from Bergeshövede (municipality Hörstel) on the Dortmund-Ems Canal. The section to Minden on the Weser was opened in February 1915 and was initially named "Ems-Weser-Kanal". The section from Minden to Hanover was finished in the autumn of 1916. The section to Sehnde and the branch canal to Hildesheim were completed in 1928, Peine was reached in 1929, and Braunschweig in 1933. The final section to Magdeburg was opened in 1938, thus creating a direct link between Western and Eastern Germany. The branch canal to Salzgitter was opened in 1941. The planned canal bridge over the Elbe, necessary to avoid low water conditions in summer, was not built due to the Second World War.  After partitioning of Germany following the Second World War, the Mittelland Canal was split between West Germany and East Germany, with the border to the east of Wolfsburg. To provide access from the western section of the canal to Hamburg and Northern Germany, avoiding both East Germany and the Elbe River's sometimes limited navigability, the Elbe Lateral Canal was opened in 1977.  After the reunification of Germany, the importance of the Mittelland Canal as a link from the west to Berlin and the east was reinforced. The project to bridge the Elbe was therefore restarted, and the resulting Magdeburg Water Bridge opened in 2003, providing a direct link to the Elbe-Havel Canal. There are further plans to connect the channel to the Twentekanaal in the Netherlands to shorten the connection towards the Port of Rotterdam.

The Mittelland Canal, also known as the Midland Canal, (, ) is a major canal in central Germany. It forms an important link in the waterway network of that country, providing the principal east-west inland waterway connection. Its significance goes beyond Germany as it links France, Switzerland and the Benelux countries with Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic Sea.

Der Mittellandkanal (MLK) ist eine Bundeswasserstraße und mit 325,3 Kilometern Länge die längste künstliche Wasserstraße in Deutschland. Inklusive Stich- und Verbindungskanäle beträgt die Länge 392 km. Er verbindet den Dortmund-Ems-Kanal mit Weser, Elbe und dem Elbe-Havel-Kanal. Im weiteren Sinne ist er Teil einer Verbindung zwischen Rhein und Oder. Im Westen wird die Verbindung zum Rhein über Dortmund-Ems-Kanal und Rhein-Herne-Kanal oder Wesel-Datteln-Kanal hergestellt. Im Osten verbinden Elbe-Havel-Kanal, Untere Havel-Wasserstraße und Havel-Oder-Wasserstraße den Mittellandkanal mit der Oder. In europäischer Dimension ermöglicht er eine Verbindung zwischen den Niederlanden, Belgien, Luxemburg, Frankreich und der Schweiz auf der einen mit Polen und Tschechien auf der anderen Seite.