Neckar River
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Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!Neckar River, river, a right-bank tributary of the Rhine in southwestern Germany; it is 228 miles (367 km) long, rising in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) near Schwenningen am Neckar, near the headwaters of the Danube River. The Neckar flows north and northeast, along the northwestern edge of the Swabian Jura (Schwäbische Alb), passing Tübingen and other small cities. At Plochingen it changes to a northwesterly course and flows through Stuttgart. As the river continues northward, its picturesque valley becomes broader and deeper, passing between vine-clad hills crowned by feudal castles. The river flows by Heilbronn to Eberbach, where it takes a tortuous westerly course, cutting through the wooded hills of the southern Odenwald. Winding by Neckarsteinach and Neckargemünd, it sweeps beneath the Königstuhl peak (1,857 feet [566 m]), passes Heidelberg, and enters the Rhine from the right at Mannheim. The Neckar is canalized as far as Plochingen and is navigable for 1,000-ton barges.
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Germany: Waterways…region and Lorraine, on the Neckar to Stuttgart, and on the Main to provide a major European link to the Danube. Canals through the Ruhr region allow access to the northern German ports of Emden, Bremen, and Hamburg; waterway connections eastward to Berlin were once inadequate, especially at the crossing…
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Rhine River: PhysiographyDownstream, the regulated Neckar, after crossing the Oden uplands in a spectacular gorge as far as Heidelberg, enters the Rhine at Mannheim; and the Main leaves the plain of lower Franconian Switzerland for the Rhine opposite Mainz. Until the straightening of the upper Rhine, which began in the…
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Rhine River: Navigational improvementsThe Neckar is canalized through Stuttgart as far as Plochingen and the Main as far as Bamberg. There, the completed northern portion of the Main–Danube Canal leads south to Nürnberg, which has become an important port. A treaty signed in 1956 between West Germany, France, and…