uk, Західний Буг
be, Захо́дні Буг
, name_etymology = , image = Wyszkow_Bug.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = Bug River in the vicinity of

Wyszków Wyszków (; yi, ווישקאָוו ''Vishkov'') is a town in eastern Poland with 26,500 inhabitants (2018). It is the capital of Wyszków County in Masovian Voivodeship. History The village of Wyszków was first documented in 1203. It was gr ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, map = Vistula river map.png , map_size = 250px , map_caption = Bug River through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland , pushpin_map = , pushpin_map_size = 250px , pushpin_map_caption= , subdivision_type1 = Country , subdivision_name1 =

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

, subdivision_type2 = , subdivision_name2 = , subdivision_type3 = Voivodeship
Voblast
Oblast , subdivision_name3 = Podlaskie, Mazovian,

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of ...

,
Brest,

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

, subdivision_type4 = , subdivision_name4 = , subdivision_type5 = , subdivision_name5 = , length = , width_min = , width_avg = , width_max = , depth_min = , depth_avg = , depth_max = , discharge1_location=

Serock Serock is a town at the north bank of the Zegrze lake in the Legionowo County, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland, around north of Warsaw. It has 4,109 inhabitants (2013). History The stronghold was founded in the 10th century, shortly after the ...

, discharge1_min = , discharge1_avg = , discharge1_max = , discharge2_location=

mouth In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on ...

, discharge2_min = , discharge2_avg = , discharge2_max = , source1 = , source1_location = near Verkhobuzh,

Lviv Oblast Lviv Oblast ( uk, Льві́вська о́бласть, translit=Lvivska oblast, ), also referred to as Lvivshchyna ( uk, Льві́вщина, ), ). The name of each oblast is a relational adjective—in English translating to a noun adjunct w ...

, source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , mouth =

Narew The Narew (; be, Нараў, translit=Naraŭ; or ; Sudovian: ''Naura''; Old German: ''Nare''; uk, Нарва, translit=Narva) is a 499-kilometre (310 mi) river primarily in north-eastern Poland, which is also a tributary of the river Vi ...

, mouth_location = near

, mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , basin_size = , tributaries_left = , tributaries_right = , extra = __NOTOC__ The Bug ( pl, Bug ) or Western Bug ( uk, Західний Буг, ''Zakhidnyy Buh, '' be, Захо́дні Буг, ''Zakhodni Buh''; russian: Западный Буг, ''Zapadnyy Bug'') is a major river mostly located in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

that flows through

, and

with a total length of .Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Poland 2017
Statistics Poland, p. 85-86 A tributary of the

, the Bug forms part of the

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ca ...

between

and Poland for and part of the

between

and

for , and is the fourth longest Polish river.

History

According to

Zbigniew Gołąb Zbigniew Gołąb (16 March 1923, in Nowy Targ – 24 March 1994, in Chicago) was a Polish-American linguist and Slavist. He was described as "one of the world's greatest experts on the Macedonian language and the leading expert on Macedonian� ...

, the Slavic hydronym ''Bug'' as ''*bugъ''/''*buga'' derives from Indo-European verbal root ''*bheug-'' (having cognates in old Germanic word ''*bheugh-'' etc. with meaning of "bend, turn, moves away"), with hypothetical original meaning of "pertaining to a (river) bend", and derivatives in Russian ''búga'' ("low banks of a river, overgrown with bushes"), Polish ''bugaj'' ("bushes or woods in a river valley or on a steep river bank"), Latvian ''bauga'' ("marshy place by a river"). Traditionally, e.g. by the drafters of the

Curzon Line The Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. It was first proposed by The 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston, the British Foreign Secretary, ...

, the Bug River has been considered to be the ethnographical border between the East and West as well as the border between Polish Orthodox and

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

peoples. The Bug was part of the frontier between the slices of Poland occupied by Austria and Russia after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, the southern half of the eastern border of the

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw ( pl, Księstwo Warszawskie, french: Duché de Varsovie, german: Herzogtum Warschau), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during ...

(1809-1815),

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. I ...

(1815-1867), of the

Vistula Land Vistula Land, Vistula Country (russian: Привислинский край, ''Privislinsky krai''; pl, Kraj Nadwiślański) was the name applied to the lands of Congress Poland from 1867, following the defeats of the November Uprising (1830–3 ...

(1867-1913), and of the

Regency Kingdom of Poland A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

(1917-1918). The Bug also formed part of the dividing line between German

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

and Soviet

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

zones specified in a secret clause of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty of 28 September 1939 following the September 1939

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Geographic characteristics

The Bug is a left tributary of the

. It flows from the

in the west of Ukraine northwards into the

Volyn Oblast Volyn Oblast ( uk, Воли́нська о́бласть, translit=Volýnsʹka óblastʹ; also referred to as Volyn or Lodomeria) is an oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. Its administrative centre is Lutsk. Kovel is the westernmost town ...

, before passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it follows part of the border between the Masovian and Podlaskie Voivodeships. It joins the Narew at

, a few kilometers upstream of the artificial

Zegrze Lake The Zegrze Reservoir (or Zegrze Lake, in Polish officially ''Jezioro Zegrzyńskie'', unofficially ''Zalew Zegrzyński'') is a man-made reservoir in Poland, located just north of Warsaw, on the lower course of the Narew river. It is formed by a dam ...

. This part of the Narew between the confluence and the Vistula is sometimes referred to as Bugo-Narew but on December 27, 1962, the Prime Minister of Poland's act abolished the name "Bugo-Narew", soon after Zegrze Lake was completed. "Monitor Polski" 1963, nr 3, poz. 6 On the Bug, a few kilometers from the

Vysokaye Vysokaje ( be, Высокае; uk, Високе, ''Vysoke''; pl, Wysokie, Wysokie Litewskie; russian: Высокое) is a town in Brest Region, Belarus. The westernmost point of Belarus is located a few kilometers to the southwest from Vysokaje ...

in Kamenets District of the Brest Region, is the westernmost point of

. It is also connected with the

Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...

via the

Mukhavets __NOTOC__ The Mukhavets or Mukhovets ( be, Мухаве́ц (''Muchaviec''), , BGN/PCGN romanization: ''Mukhavyets''; russian: Мухове́ц (''Muchovec''), pl, Muchawiec) is a river in western Belarus, a tributary to the Bug. The river ris ...

, a right-bank tributary, by the Dnieper-Bug Canal.

Basin

The total basin area of Bug is of which half, or, 50%, is in Poland. Somewhat more than a quarter, or 29%, is in Belarus, and a bit under a quarter, or 22% lies in Ukraine. The climate of the Bug basin is

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout ...

. The basin experiences annual high-water levels during spring flooding due to thawing snow, after which a low flow period starts and lasts until October or mid-November. Occasional summer floods often occur in the headlands, where mountains influence favorable flash-flood conditions. In Autumn the water level increases are inconsiderable; in some years they do not happen at all. During the winter the river can have temporary ice-outs that sometimes provoke ice jams, causing an increase of the level up to . The resultant water levels are changeable due to the instability of ice cover.

Flooding

Significant floods during the last 60 years in Belarus were registered in 1958, 1962, 1967, 1971 and 1974. The largest spring flood was observed in 1979, when the maximum water discharge was 19.1 cubic metres per second on 24 March 1979, at the village of Chersk; 166 cubic metres per second near the village of Tyukhinichi ( Lyasnaya river) on 31 March 1979; and 269 cubic metres per second near Brest on 1 April 1979. A similar spring flood occurred in 1999, when the spring run-off in March–May exceeded the average annual value by almost half again (48%). The last time the Bug flooded in Poland and Ukraine was in 2010 and the last time it flooded in Belarus was in 1999.

Tributaries

Photo gallery

Image:Bug_wlodawa01b-04.jpg , Bug River in the vicinity of

Włodawa Włodawa (; yi, וולאָדאַווע, Vlodave; ua, Володава, Volodava) is a town in eastern Poland on the Bug River, close to the borders with Belarus and Ukraine. It is the seat of Włodawa County, situated in the Lublin Voivode ...

Image:Bug Nur.jpg , Bug River in the vicinity of Nur Image:Rzeka Bug w Drohiczynie.jpg , Bug River in the vicinity of

Drohiczyn Drohiczyn () ( lt, Drohičinas/Drogičinas, be, Дарагічын, ua, Дорогочин, Дорогичин, ''Dorohochyn'', ''Dorohychyn'') is a town in Siemiatycze County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. The town has a population of 2,11 ...

Image:Rzeka Bug.jpg , Bug River landscape near Nadbużański Image:Bug..JPG , Bug River in the vicinity of Małkinia Górna Image:Bug Serpelice.JPG , Bug River in the vicinity of Serpelice

References

External links

*
Bug
in the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland (1880) {{Authority control Belarus–Poland border Belarus–Ukraine border Poland–Ukraine border Border rivers Borders of Belarus Borders of Poland Borders of Ukraine International rivers of Europe Natura 2000 in Poland Rivers of Belarus Rivers of Brest Region Rivers of Lublin Voivodeship Rivers of Lviv Oblast Rivers of Masovian Voivodeship Rivers of Podlaskie Voivodeship Rivers of Poland Rivers of Volyn Oblast