Crna River ( mk, , Crna Reka, "Black River") is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the ...

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...

. It is the right

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or 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 drain the surrounding drainag ...

of the

Vardar The Vardar (; mk, , , ) or Axios () is the longest river in North Macedonia and the second longest river in Greece, in which it reaches the Aegean Sea at Thessaloniki. It is long, out of which are in Greece, and drains an area of around . T ...

River. It runs through much of the south and west of the country. Its source is in the mountains on the western part of North Macedonia, northwest of Demir Hisar. It enters the

Pelagonia Pelagonia ( mk, Пелагонија, Pelagonija; el, Πελαγονíα, Pelagonía) is a geographical region of Macedonia named after the ancient kingdom. Ancient Pelagonia roughly corresponded to the present-day municipalities of Bitola, Pril ...

valley at the village of Buchin and then flows through the village Sopotnica, and southwards through the plains east of

Bitola Bitola (; mk, Битола ) is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba (North Macedonia), Baba, Nidže, and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, north of th ...

. At Brod (

Novaci Municipality Novaci ( mk, ) is a municipality in the southern part of North Macedonia. '' Novaci'' is also the name of the village where the municipal seat is found. Novaci Municipality is a part of the Pelagonia Statistical Region. Located in the municipal ...

) it turns northeast. It leaves the Pelagonia valley at the

Staravina Staravina ( mk, Старавина) is a small village in the municipality of Novaci, North Macedonia. It used to be a municipality of its own and its FIPS code was MK95. Demographics According to the 2002 census, the village had a total of 23 ...

village and goes in the biggest canyon in North Macedonia, the Skočivir valley and flows into the Vardar River between Rosoman and Gradsko. Thus, the river makes a bend of almost 180 degrees east of

. This bend was part of the

Macedonian front The Macedonian front, also known as the Salonica front (after Thessaloniki), was a military theatre of World War I formed as a result of an attempt by the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers to aid Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, in the autumn of 191 ...

in World War I. It was known to the allied forces as the ''Cerna Bend'' or ''Cerna Loop'', and two major battles were fought here: the

Battle of the Cerna Bend (1916) The Battle of the Crna bend was a two-month-long battle between the Bulgarian and the Entente armies. The battle took place in the Macedonian front during the First World War Allied Monastir Offensive in October and November 1916. After extreme ...

and the Battle of the Crna Bend (1917). The name ''Crna Reka'' means "Black River" in Macedonian, a translation of its earlier

Thracian The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...

name, Erigon ( grc, Ἐριγών, Erigón), meaning "black", akin to

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''érebos'', "darkness";

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

''erek'', "evening";

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''røkkr'', "darkness";

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

''riqis'', "darkness";

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

''rájas'', "night"; and

Tocharian B Kuchean (also known as Tocharian B or West Tocharian) was a Western member of Tocharian branch of Indo-European languages, extinct from ninth century. Once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia. Tocharian B shows an internal chronological de ...

''orkamo'', "dark". The Erigon River is mentioned by

Arrian Arrian of Nicomedia (; Greek: ''Arrianos''; la, Lucius Flavius Arrianus; ) was a Greek historian, public servant, military commander and philosopher of the Roman period. '' The Anabasis of Alexander'' by Arrian is considered the best ...

in the

Anabasis of Alexander ''The Anabasis of Alexander'' ( grc-gre, Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἀνάβασις, ''Alexándrou Anábasis''; la, Anabasis Alexandri) was composed by Arrian of Nicomedia in the second century AD, most probably during the reign of Hadrian. The ...

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

in the History of Rome Strabo in the

Geographica The ''Geographica'' (Ancient Greek: Γεωγραφικά ''Geōgraphiká''), or ''Geography'', is an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge, consisting of 17 'books', written in Greek and attributed to Strabo, an educated citizen of the Roman ...

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of t ...

in the

Deipnosophistae The ''Deipnosophistae'' is an early 3rd-century AD Greek work ( grc, Δειπνοσοφισταί, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. "The Dinner Sophists/Philosophers/Experts") by the Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of lit ...

.Athenaeus, Deipnosophists ,§2.43
/ref>

References

Rivers of North Macedonia {{RMacedonia-river-stub