The Tisza (in Hungarian, Ukrainian: Tysa/Тиса, Russian: Tisa/Тиса, Romanian, Slovak and Serbian: Tisa, German: Theiß, Latin: Tissus, Tisia or Pathissus) is a river, tributary of the Danube and one of the major rivers of Central Europe, passing through Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Serbia and Montenegro.

The Tisza at low tide at Szolnok, Hungary

It forms the boundary between the regions of Bácska/Bačka and Banat and flows into the Danube in central Vojvodina in Serbia and Montenegro.

The Tisza river drains an area of about 157,186 km².

Control of the Tisza

The length of the Tisza in Hungary used to be 1419 km. It flowed through the Great Hungarian Plain, which is one of the largest flat areas in central Europe, and since plains can cause a river to flow very slowly the Tisza used to follow a path with lots of curves and turns. Mainly for this reason, many large floods occurred in the area.

After several small-scale attempts István Széchenyi organised the "control of the Tisza" ("a Tisza szabályozása") which started on August 27, 1846 and substantially ended in 1880. The result: the new length of the river in Hungary was 966 km, with 589 km of "dead channels" and 136 km of new riverbed.

The resultant length of the flood-protected river comprises 2940 km (out of 4220 km of all Hungarian protected rivers) which forms one of the largest flood protection systems in Europe; larger than Holland's 1500 km, the Po river's 1400 km or the Loire Valley's 480 km.

"Lake Tisza"

In the 1980s the building of the Kisköre reservoir started with the purpose of helping to control floods as well as storing water for drought seasons. It turned out, however, that the resulting Tisza-tó (Lake Tisza) became one of the most popular tourist destinations in Hungary, since it had similar features to Lake Balaton at drastically cheaper prices and it was not crowded. (Naturally, crowding worsens as time goes by.)

External links

• The Living Tisza (Hungarian) (http://www.historia.hu/archivum/2001/0102suli.htm)