[1] The Elbe's major tributaries include the rivers Vltava, Saale, Havel, Mulde, Schwarze Elster, and Ohře.

The basin spans four countries; however, it lies almost entirely just in two of them, Germany (65.5%) and the Czech Republic (33.7%, covering about two thirds of the nation's territory).

The Elbe catchment area is inhabited by 24.4 million people; its biggest cities are Berlin, Hamburg, Prague, Dresden and Leipzig.

Violík at an elevation of 1,386 metres (4,547 ft) in the Giant Mountains on the northwest borders of the Czech Republic.

At Mělník its stream is more than doubled in volume by the Vltava, a major river which winds northwards through Bohemia.

Thus augmented, and swollen into a stream 140 metres (460 ft) wide, the Elbe carves a path through the basaltic mass of the České Středohoří, churning its way through a picturesque, deep, narrow and curved rocky gorge.

The river rolls through Dresden and finally, beyond Meissen, enters on its long journey across the North German Plain passing along the former western border of East Germany, touching Torgau, Wittenberg, Dessau, Magdeburg, Wittenberge, and Hamburg on the way, and taking on the waters of the Mulde and Saale from the west, and those of the Schwarze Elster, Havel and Elde from the east.

These hydraulic engineering works were carried out to protect marshlands from inundation, and to improve the water supply of the Port of Hamburg.

Leaving the city-state the Lower Elbe then passes between Holstein and the Elbe-Weser Triangle with Stade until it flows into the North Sea at Cuxhaven.

[5] Following articles 363 and 364 of the Treaty of Versailles, Czechoslovakia was entitled to lease its own harbour basin, Moldauhafen in Hamburg.

When the two nations were reunited, works were begun to improve and restore the original links: the Magdeburg Water Bridge now allows large barges to cross the Elbe without having to enter the river.

The river's navigable sections were essential to the success of the Hanseatic League in the Late Middle Ages, and much trade was carried on its waters.

In the 10th century the Ottonian Dynasty (dominant from 919 to 1024) began conquering these lands; a slow process of Germanization ensued, including the Wendish Crusade of 1147.

The Elbe delineated the western parts of Germany from the eastern so-called East Elbia, where soccage and serfdom were more strict and prevailed longer than westwards of the river, and where feudal lords held bigger estates than in the west.

On 10 April 1945, General Wenck of the German Twelfth Army located to the west of Berlin to guard against the advancing American and British forces.

During the 1970s the Soviet Union stated that Adolf Hitler's ashes had been scattered in the Elbe following disinterment from their original burial-site.