The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in

Central Europe Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...

that flows through

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

(border),

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, with a total length of .Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Poland 2017
Statistics Poland, p. 85-86 A

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of the Narew, the Bug forms part of the

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

between Belarus and Poland for and part of the

between Ukraine and Poland for . The Bug is connected with the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

by the Dnieper–Bug Canal. Out of its

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

, half is in Poland, just over a quarter in Belarus, and slightly under a quarter in Ukraine.

History

According to Zbigniew Gołąb, the Slavic hydronym ''Bug'' as ''*bugъ''/''*buga'' derives from the Proto-Indo-European verbal root ''*bheug-'' (with cognates in old

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...

''*bheugh-'' etc. with the meaning 'bend, turn, move away'), with the hypothetical original meaning 'pertaining to a (river) bend', and derivatives in Russian ''búga'' 'low banks of a river overgrown with bushes', Polish ''bugaj'' 'bushes or woods in a river valley or on a steep river bank', and Latvian ''bauga'' 'marshy place by a river'. Traditionally (e.g., by the drafters of the Curzon Line), the Bug River has been considered the ethnographic border between the East and West as well as the border between Orthodox (Ukrainians, Belarusians) and

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

(Poles) peoples. The Bug was part of the frontier between the territories occupied by Austria, Russia, and Prussia after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, the southern half of the eastern border of the

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...

and Lithuanian Provisional Governing Commission (1809–1815),

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

and Russia proper (1815–1867), of the

Vistula Land Vistula Land, also known as Vistula Country (; ), was the name applied to the lands of Congress Poland from 1867, following the defeats of the November Uprising (1830–1831) and January Uprising (1863–1864) as it was increasingly stripped of ...

and Russia proper (1867–1913), and of the Regency Kingdom of Poland and BPR (1917–1918). The Bug also formed part of the dividing line between German

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

and Soviet

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

zones specified in a secret clause of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty of 28 September 1939 following the September 1939

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Geographic characteristics

The Bug is a left tributary of the Narew. It flows from the

Lviv Oblast Lviv Oblast (, ), also referred to as Lvivshchyna (, ), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast in western Ukraine. The capital city, capital of the oblast is the city of Lviv. The current population is History Name The region is named ...

in the west of Ukraine northwards into the

Volyn Oblast Volyn Oblast () or simply Volyn (), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. It borders Rivne Oblast to the east, Lviv Oblast to the south, Poland to the west and Belarus to the north. Its Capital city ...

, before passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it follows part of the border between the Masovian and Podlaskie

Voivodeship A voivodeship ( ) or voivodate is the area administered by a voivode (governor) in several countries of central and eastern Europe. Voivodeships have existed since medieval times and the area of extent of voivodeship resembles that of a duchy in ...

s. It joins the Narew at Serock, a few kilometers upstream of the artificial Zegrze Lake, which was constructed in 1963 with a hydroelectric complex. This part of the Narew between the confluence and the Vistula is sometimes referred to as Bugo-Narew but on December 27, 1962, the Prime Minister of Poland's act abolished the name "Bugo-Narew", soon after Zegrze Lake was completed. "Monitor Polski" 1963, nr 3, poz. 6 On the Bug, a few kilometers from the Vysokaye in Kamenets District of the Brest Region, is the westernmost point of

. It is also connected with the

via the Mukhavets, a right-bank tributary, by the Dnieper-Bug Canal.

Basin

The total basin area of the Bug is of which half, or, 50%, is in Poland. Somewhat more than a quarter, or 29%, is in Belarus, and a bit under a quarter, or 22% lies in Ukraine. The climate of the Bug basin is

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

. The basin experiences annual high-water levels during spring flooding due to thawing snow, after which a low flow period starts and lasts until October or mid-November. Occasional summer floods often occur in the headlands, where mountains influence favorable flash-flood conditions. In Autumn the water level increases are inconsiderable; in some years they do not happen at all. During the winter the river can have temporary ice-outs that sometimes provoke ice jams, causing an increase of the level up to . The resultant water levels are changeable due to the instability of ice cover.

Flooding

Significant floods during the last 60 years in Belarus were registered in 1958, 1962, 1967, 1971 and 1974. The largest spring flood was observed in 1979, when the maximum water discharge was 19.1 cubic metres per second on 24 March 1979, at the village of Chersk; 166 cubic metres per second near the village of Tyukhinichi ( Lyasnaya river) on 31 March 1979; and 269 cubic metres per second near Brest on 1 April 1979. A similar spring flood occurred in 1999 when the spring run-off in March–May exceeded the average annual value by almost half again (48%). The last time the Bug flooded in Poland and Ukraine was in 2010 and the last time it flooded in Belarus was in 1999.

Tributaries

Photo gallery

Image:Bug_wlodawa01b-04.jpg , Bug River in the vicinity of Włodawa Image:Bug Nur.jpg , Bug River in the vicinity of Nur Image:Rzeka Bug w Drohiczynie.jpg , Bug River in the vicinity of Drohiczyn Image:Rzeka Bug.jpg , Bug River landscape near Nadbużański Image:Bug..JPG , Bug River in the vicinity of Małkinia Górna Image:Bug Serpelice.JPG , Bug River in the vicinity of Serpelice

References

Notes

Sources

External links

*
Bug
in the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland (1880) {{Authority control Belarus–Poland border Belarus–Ukraine border Poland–Ukraine border Border rivers Borders of Belarus Borders of Poland Borders of Ukraine International rivers of Europe Natura 2000 in Poland Rivers of Belarus Rivers of Brest region Rivers of Lublin Voivodeship Rivers of Lviv Oblast Rivers of Masovian Voivodeship Rivers of Podlaskie Voivodeship Rivers of Poland Rivers of Volyn Oblast