Ohře

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is also the river Ohre in northern Germany.

Ohře
Image:Egerquelle.jpg Source of the Eger (Ohře)
Origin	Fichtelgebirge
Mouth	Elbe
Basin countries	Czech Republic, Germany
Length	316 km
Avg. discharge	38 m³/s
Basin area	6,255 km²

The Ohře (German: Image:Ltspkr.png Eger) is a 316 km long river in Germany (65 km) and the Czech Republic (251 km), left tributary of the Elbe. The basin area of the river has a size of 6,255 km², of which 5,614 km² are in the Czech Republic and 641 km² in Germany.

The source of the river is situated in Bavaria at the foot of Mount Schneeberg (Fichtelgebirge) near the town of Weißenstadt. After approx. 35 km, the Eger (not to be confused with the town in Hungary), as the river is called in German, crosses the border to Czech Republic to flow through parts of Bohemia which were known until 1945 as Egerland.

The river passes the cities Cheb, (German: Eger, like the river), Karlovy Vary, Klášterec nad Ohří, Kadaň, Žatec, Louny, and Terezín before flowing into the river Elbe in Litoměřice.

Its major tributaries are Teplá, Chomutovka, Odrava etc.

There is a Czech pun that Ohře got its name from the river Teplá (meaning "warm" in Czech) - "ohřát" means "to warm up." However the real origin, which still shows in the German name, is Celtic from Agara (the "Salmon River"). The records show the name as Agara, Agira, Agra in 800s and Egire, Egra or Ogra in 1000s and Eger in 1472.^[1]

Several districts in Germany and the Czech Republic have formed an Euroregion initiative named de:Euregio Egrensis to foster cooperation in the region of Eger/Ohře/Cheb.