Wien

The Wien is a river that flows through the city of Vienna.GeographyThe Wien River is 34 kilometres long, of which 15 km are within the city. Its drainage basin covers an area of 230 km², both in the city and in the neighbouring Wienerwald. Its source lies in the western Wienerwald near Rekawinkel and its mouth at the eastern end of the city centre of Vienna, next to the Urania, where it flows into the Donaukanal, a branch of the Danube.The Wien is subject to huge variations in flow. In its headwaters in the Wienerwald, the soil is underlain by sandstone. Because of this, during heavy rain the soil quickly saturates, resulting in substantial runoff. Thus, the flow of the Wien can quickly increase from a creek-like 200 litres per second to 450,000 litres per second in the heaviest rains or during the spring snowmelt in the Wienerwald, a ratio of over 2000.The Wien River and the city of ViennaWithin the city limits, the river bed consists almost entirely of concrete, which was installed between 1895 and 1899 in order to stop the devastating floods, sometimes accompanied by cholera, which the river had regularly caused before that time. At the same time, the Stadtbahn ("city railway") was built, which makes use of the concrete river bed and is only separated from the river by a wall. It is now part of the Vienna U-Bahn system.Along the course of the river, the Naschmarkt and the Theater an der Wien can be found. Much of the river is covered over in the city, particularly in front of Schönbrunn palace, in the Meidling and Naschmarkt neighbourhoods and around Karlsplatz near the city centre.