The Stepenitz is a right-hand

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

of the

Trave The Trave () is a river in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is approximately long, running from its source near the village of Gießelrade in Ostholstein to Travemünde, where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It passes through Bad Segeberg, Bad Old ...

in the northwest of the German state of

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in po ...

and within the borough of

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

in the state of

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...

Course

Kirch Mummendorf Stepenitz 2009-01-02 048

The river rises northwest of city of

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgisch dialect, Mecklenburgian Low German: ''Swerin''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Germany, second-largest city of the northeastern States of Germany, German ...

and the lake of Neumühler See near the Brüsewitz settlement of Eulenkrug and north of a hill ridgeLocal maps and ''Ursprung der Stepenitz'', Freimüthiges Abendblatt, Schwerin, Vol. 17/1835
digitalised
pdf; 112 kB) and Ministry of the Environment, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: ''Gewässergütebericht 1993'', Schwerin, 1994, p. 58 at a height of about . From there it first flows through the lake and then a succession of other lakes, including the , the Cramoner See, the and the . Continuing to head northwest, it collects the River Radegast in Börzow and the Maurine before

Dassow Dassow () is a town in the Nordwestmecklenburg district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is situated on a bay of the Baltic Sea, 20 km east of Lübeck and 2 km south of Lübeck-Travemünde. It is also close to the cities o ...

. The river section from Rüting to Dassow has numerous

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex bank ...

s. Just behind the in

the Stepenitz empties into the

Dassower See Despite its name, the Dassower See (), sometimes called Lake Dassow or Dassow Bay in English, is not a lake, but a side bay, locally known as a ''wiek'', of the Trave Fjord, northeast of Lübeck (Schleswig-Holstein) on the Baltic Sea. Geography ...

. Through this lake its waters reach the

Pötenitzer Wiek The Pötenitzer Wiek (also called Traveförde) is an eastern bay of the lower Trave east of the Priwall Peninsula, Germany. The bay is in Schleswig-Holstein while the bank partly forms the border with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Until the Second World ...

, a bay of the Trave river, the

Priwall Peninsula The Priwall Peninsula (German: ''die Halbinsel Priwall'' or'' Der Priwall'') is a spit located across from the town of Travemünde at the Trave River estuary, on Germany's Baltic Sea coast. Since 1226 it has been administratively part of Travemü ...

and Mecklenburg, where the Stepenitz discharges into the

at sea level. A few hundred metres further north, by

Travemünde Travemünde () is a borough of Lübeck, Germany, located at the mouth of the river Trave in Bay of Lübeck, Lübeck Bay. It began life as a fortress built by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, an ...

, the Trave reaches the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

. The length of the river from source to its mouth on the Dassower See is . Its catchment covers an area of .Minister für Bau, Landesentwicklung und Umwelt (publ.): ''Gewässergütebericht 1994'', Schwerin, 1996, p. 16

Watersheds

The source region of the Stepenitz lies on the . While the Stepenitz flows in a northwesterly direction via the Trave to the Baltic, the waters of the Sude, which rises just a few kilometres further southwest and heads in a southwesterly direction, run via the

River Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...

to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

Gallery

File:Boerzow Stepenitz Hochwasser 2010-03-03 071.jpg, High water at the confluence of the Stepenitz and Radegast in March 2010 File:MouthofStepenitz.JPG, Mouth of the Stepenitz on the Dassower See

References

External links

{{Commons category
Stepenitz and Maurine Lowlands
Rivers of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Rivers of Schleswig-Holstein Rivers of Germany

Course

Watersheds

Gallery

See also

References

External links