The Reno () is a river of
Emilia-Romagna
egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman)
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, northern
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. It is the tenth longest river in Italy (the sixth longest of those that flow directly into the sea) and the most important of the region apart from the
Po.
It has a
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where 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, ...
of about .
[Reno Basin Authority] The annual average discharge at the mouth is about ; at the point the river start to flow in the
Pianura Padana (Po River Plain), it amounts to about .
The highest values registered at the mouth have approached , but the typical value when the river is in flood is around . The minimal discharge reported is .
The river rises in the Le Lari massif of the
province of Pistoia
The province of Pistoia ( it, provincia di Pistoia) is a province in the Tuscany region of central Italy. Its capital is the city of Pistoia and the province is landlocked. It has an area of and a total population of 291,788 inhabitants (as of 2 ...
(
Tuscany
it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman)
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) at about above sea level, from two streams that join near Le Piastre, in the ''
comune
The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces ('' province''). The can ...
'' of
Pistoia
Pistoia (, is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a t ...
. Its upper course marks the border between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna and flows in a wooded area crossed by the Bologna-Porretta-Pistoia railway line (inaugurated in 1864 and one of the most outstanding for the time as for engineering effort).
The upper course is characterized by several artificial reservoirs whose dams are used for
hydro-electric
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...
energy production. The power produced in the basin of the Reno basin is second, for
Apennine rivers, only to that of the
Nera-
Velino
The Velino is a river in central Italy, a tributary of the Nera. Its source is located on Monte Pozzoni's slopes (1,903 m) near Cittareale. Aftwards it runs through a narrow valley next the Mount Terminillo, known as "Gole del Vento" ("Wind ...
in
Umbria
it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman)
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.
It passes west of
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
, at
Casalecchio di Reno.
In its lower course the Reno receives the water of numerous streams, some of which are seasonal. The most important include the
Limentra orientale,
Silla
Silla or Shilla (57 BCE – 935 CE) ( , Old Korean: Syera, Old Japanese: Siraki2) was a Korean kingdom located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula. Silla, along with Baekje and Goguryeo, formed the Three Kingdoms of ...
,
Setta,
Samoggia,
Idice
The Idice is a river in the Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions of Italy. The source of the river is in the province of Florence near Monghidoro in the Appennino Tosco-Emiliano mountains. The river flows north into the province of Bologna near ...
,
Sillaro,
Santerno and
Senio.
The Reno was a tributary of the
Po until the middle of the 18th century when the course was diverted to lessen the risk of devastating floods. It now joins the
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) ...
near
Casalborsetti, south-east of the
Valli di Comacchio.
The name of the river has the same etymology as the name of the
Rhine
The Rhine ; french: Rhin ; nl, Rijn ; wa, Rén ; li, Rien; rm, label=Sursilvan, Rein, rm, label=Sutsilvan and Surmiran, Ragn, rm, label=Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader and Puter, Rain; it, Reno ; gsw, Rhi(n), including in Alsatian dialect, Al ...
, as both derive from the same Celtic hydronym
*''Rēnos'', the Reno basin being situated within
Gallia Cisalpina
Cisalpine Gaul ( la, Gallia Cisalpina, also called ''Gallia Citerior'' or ''Gallia Togata'') was the part of Italy inhabited by Celts (Gauls) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.
After its conquest by the Roman Republic in the 200s BC it was con ...
, in what was the territory of
Boii
The Boii (Latin plural, singular ''Boius''; grc, Βόιοι) were a Celtic tribe of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy), Pannonia (Hungary), parts of Bavaria, in and around Bohemia (after whom the ...
before the
Roman conquest of 220 BC. In
Italian both rivers are called ''Reno'', and in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
both were called ''Rhenus''.
In 43 BC the pact establishing the
Second triumvirate
The Second Triumvirate was an extraordinary commission and magistracy created for Mark Antony, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Octavian to give them practically absolute power. It was formally constituted by law on 27 November 43 BC with ...
was signed on an islet of the river near ''Bononia'' (Bologna).
The river is mentioned by
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...
in Canto XVIII of his ''
Inferno'' where he defines the
Bolognesi as those "living between the
Savena and the Reno".
Footnotes
External links
Historical and geographical info
{{Coord missing, Italy
Rivers of Italy
Rivers of the Province of Ferrara
Rivers of the Province of Pistoia
Rivers of the Province of Bologna
Rivers of the Apennines