The Meuse[a] or Maas[b] is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta.

From 1301, the upper Meuse roughly marked the western border of the Holy Roman Empire with the Kingdom of France, after Count Henry III of Bar had to receive the western part of the County of Bar (Barrois mouvant) as a French fief from the hands of King Philip IV.

Its lower Belgian (Walloon) portion, part of the sillon industriel, was the first fully industrialized area in continental Europe.

[clarification needed] The Meuse rises in Pouilly-en-Bassigny, commune of Le Châtelet-sur-Meuse on the Langres plateau in France from where it flows northwards past Sedan (the head of navigation) and Charleville-Mézières into Belgium.

In the Netherlands it continues northwards through Venlo closely along the border to Germany, then turns towards the west, where it runs parallel to the Waal and forms part of the extensive Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, together with the Scheldt to its south and the Rhine to the north.

Near Lage Zwaluwe, the Nieuwe Merwede joins the Amer, forming the Hollands Diep, which splits into Grevelingen and Haringvliet, before finally flowing into the North Sea.

The costs of this Commission are met by all these countries, in proportion of their own territory in the basin of the Meuse: Netherlands 30%, Wallonia 30%, France 15%, Germany 14.5%, Flanders 5%, Brussels 4.5%, Kingdom of Belgium 0.5%, and Luxembourg 0.5%.

[15] As for culture, as a major communication route the River Meuse is the origin of Mosan art, principally (Wallonia and France).

[18] The hydrological distribution of the Meuse changed during the later Middle Ages, when a major flood forced it to shift its main course northwards towards the river Merwede.

From then on several stretches of the original Merwede were renamed "Maas" (i.e. Meuse) and served as the primary outflow of that river.

However during another series of severe floods the Meuse found an additional path towards the sea, resulting in the creation of the Biesbosch wetlands and Hollands Diep estuaries.

The lyrics written in 1841 describe a then–disunited Germany with the river as its western boundary, where King William I of the Netherlands had joined the German Confederation with his Duchy of Limburg in 1839.

Though the duchy's territory officially became an integral part of the Netherlands by the 1867 Treaty of London, the text passage remained unchanged when the Deutschlandlied was declared the national anthem of the Weimar Republic in 1922.

The name of the rivers also forms part of the title of "Le Régiment de Sambre et Meuse", written after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and a popular patriotic song for the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th.