The Vilnia (also ''Vilnelė''; , ''Vilnia'' ; ) is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. Its source is near the village of Vindžiūnai, 5 km south of Šumskas, at the Lithuanian-

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

ian border. The Vilnia is 79.6 km long and its basin covers 624 sq. km. For 13 km its flow makes the Belarus-Lithuania border, and the remaining 69 km are in Lithuania until it flows into the Neris River at

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

. Eventually, its waters, via the Neris's drainage into the

Neman River The Neman, Nioman, Nemunas or MemelTo bankside nations of the present: Lithuanian: be, Нёман, , ; russian: Неман, ''Neman''; past: ger, Memel (where touching Prussia only, otherwise Nieman); lv, Nemuna; et, Neemen; pl, Niemen; ...

, flow into the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. Its

confluence In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...

with the Neris lies within the city of

, and the river's name was probably the source of the city's name. Springs along its length contribute to its flow. A series of wells accessing the river's

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidate ...

s, drilled in the early 20th century, remained a major supply of potable water in the city into the late 20th century. The name of the river derives from the

Lithuanian language Lithuanian ( ) is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the official language of Lithuania and one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.8 millio ...

word ''vilnis'' ("a surge") or ''vilnyti'' ("to surge"). Beneath it stands the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...

root wel-/wl- meaning "to roll", "to spin". ''Vilnelė'', the

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

form of the original hydronym ''Vilnia'', came into popular use in Lithuanian and in Soviet times largely replaced the latter because of

Polish language Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In a ...

influence — Poles translated Lithuanian name of the river with such diminutive form (Wilenka). In an effort to restore the upstream migration of salmonids in the basin, a fish ladder was constructed on the Vilnia in 2000.

References

Rivers of Lithuania Geography of Vilnius International rivers of Europe Belarus–Lithuania border {{Lithuania-river-stub