Biebrza ( lt, Bebras, '' be, Bobra'', ''german: Bober'') is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

in northeastern

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 ...

, a tributary of the Narew river (near

Wizna Wizna is a village in Łomża County of Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, situated on the Narew River. Wizna is known for the battle of Wizna which took place in its vicinity during the 1939 Invasion of Poland at the start of Worl ...

), with a length of and a basin area of 7,092 km² (7,067 in Poland).Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Poland 2017

Statistics Poland Statistics Poland (formerly known in English as the Central Statistical Office ( pl, Główny Urząd Statystyczny, popularly called GUS)) is Poland's chief government executive agency charged with collecting and publishing statistics related to th ...

, p. 85-86 Larger towns in the area: * Lipsk * Sztabin * Goniądz * Osowiec-Twierdza * Radzilow *

The region is usually divided into lower, central, and upper basin areas, each with its own different characteristics.

Tributaries

* Right tributaries:

Netta ''Netta'' is a genus of diving ducks. The name is derived from Greek ''Netta'' "duck". Unlike other diving ducks, the ''Netta'' species are reluctant to dive, and feed more like dabbling ducks. These are gregarious ducks, mainly found on fres ...

, Lega, Ełk, Wissa * Left tributaries: Sidra, Brzozówka

Natural environment

Today, the river is best known for the vivid wildlife in the peatbogs and marshes in its flooding areas.

History

Historically, the borderland regions of Masovia and Lithuania, the area retains much of its cultural diversity today.

Cultural and linguistic environment

The basin of Biebrza river is inhabited not only by hundreds of rare and endangered sorts of birds, but also by people representing diverse cultures, languages and religions. While most of the population of the region speaks standard Polish, some people in the upper river basin (municipalities of Lipsk, Dąbrowa Białostocka and partly Sztabin) speak a local dialect of Belarusian (called by them ''prosty jazyk'' - "the simple language"). The people there belong to the Orthodox or Roman Catholic church. On the north bank of the upper Biebrza there are also a few villages where so called " old believers" live, who speak an archaic dialect of Russian. Some of these communities preserved much of their traditional culture in spite of a long lasting communist government policies aimed at assimilation of non-Polish cultural and linguistic minorities.

References

External links

Natural tourism (birdwatching) in Biebrza National Park

Radzilow - Town running along the Biebrza
Rivers of Poland Rivers of Podlaskie Voivodeship {{Poland-river-stub