The importance of danube river as strategic navigation corridor

Since the dawn of known history the Danube has connected the nations and civilizations living along its banks with each other and with the rest of the world. The Danube has been for a long time, an important transport route that connects the Black Sea to a large number of harbours in south-eastern and central European countries, with further connections to Western Europe (Germany and Rhine-Main-Danube Canal), Eastern Europe and Turkey. The Danube basin is the most multinational river basin in the world, and the fact that the river flows directly over territories of ten riparian countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine) and that the basin itself consists of additional 9 states (Albania, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Italy, FYR Macedonia, Poland, Montenegro and Switzerland) makes it very important for their economies and enables extraordinary opportunities for transport, trading, tourism and many other means of communication among the people that live there