The Urka is a river of

Kaunas County Kaunas County () is one of ten counties of Lithuania. It is in the centre of the country, and its Capital (political), capital is Kaunas. On 1 July 2010, the county administration was abolished. Symbols The county's coat of arms can be blazoned ...

, central

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, 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, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. It flows for and has a basin area of . It is a left tributary of the

Barupė The Barupė is a river in Jonava District Municipality and Kėdainiai District Municipality of Kaunas County, in central Lithuania. It flows for and has a basin area of . It is a left tributary of the Nevėžis. The Barupė starts at Žinėnai ...

. The Urka river starts in the Bitvanas Forest, in Kaunas District Municipality. It flows towards north western direction through Kaunas District Municipality and

Kėdainiai District Municipality Kėdainiai () is one of the oldest List of cities in Lithuania, cities in Lithuania. It is located north of Lithuania's second largest city Kaunas on the banks of the Nevėžis River. Kėdainiai were first mentioned in the 1372 Livonian Chronicle ...

, then empties into the

river next to

Labūnava Labūnava (formerly , ) is a small town in Kėdainiai district municipality, in Kaunas County, central Lithuania. According to the 2011 census, town residents numbered 747. It is from Kėdainiai, on the left bank of the Nevėžis river, by its tri ...

village. Karaliūnai, Butkūnai, Užumiškiai, Kačergiai, Pakapiai,

villages and

Vandžiogala Vandžiogala (Polish: ''Wędziagoła'') is a small town in Kaunas County, Kaunas district municipality in central Lithuania. It is located north of Kaunas city municipality next to Urka brook. A Holy Trinity church was built in Vandžiogala in ...

town are located on the shores of the Urka. A small pond is dammed on the Urka nearby its mouth. The

hydronym A hydronym (from , , "water" and , , "name") is a type of toponym that designates a proper name of a body of water. Hydronyms include the proper names of rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, seas and oceans. As a subset of top ...

is of uncertain origin. One version is that it derives from Lithuanian verb ''urkioti'' ('to scold, to wig'), another version that it could be of

Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...

background (as 'rivulet').

References

Rivers of Lithuania Kėdainiai District Municipality Kaunas District Municipality {{Lithuania-river-stub