Oder

The Oder (German pronunciation: [ˈoːdɐ]; Czech and Polish: Odra) is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows (generally north- and northwest-ward) through western Poland, later forming 187 kilometres (116 mi) of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder–Neisse line. The river ultimately flows into the Szczecin Lagoon north of Szczecin and then into three branches (the Dziwna, Świna and Peene) that empty into the Gulf of Pomerania of the Baltic Sea.

Names

The Oder is known by several names in different languages, but the modern ones are very similar: English and German: Oder; Czech, Polish, and Lower Sorbian: Odra, Upper Sorbian: Wódra; Kashubian: Òdra (pronounced [ˈwɛdra]); Medieval Latin: Od(d)era; Renaissance Latin: Viadrus (invented in 1534). Ptolemy gives for the localization of modern Oder a river Συήβος (Suebos, Latin: Suevus, from the name for the tribe of the Suebi), which resembles the modern name Świna for the main connection from the Szczecin Lagoon to the Baltic Sea. A mouth named Οὐιαδούα (or Οὐιλδούα, graphical similarity of Α and Λ), therefore Latin Viadua or Vildua, is localized by him at one third of the distance between Suebos and Vistula, maybe it is modern Wieprz. In Old Church Slavonic language, the name of the river is Vjodr.