The Pripyat at Mazyr, BelarusThe Pripyat at PolesiaA map of the Pripyat
The Pripyat or Prypiat[a] is a river in Eastern Europe. The river, which is approximately 761 km (473 mi) long,[1] flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and Ukraine again, draining into the Dnieper.
Name etymology
Max Vasmer in his etymological dictionary notes that the historical name of the river mentioned in the earliest East Slavic document, the Primary Chronicle, is Pripet' (Припеть), and cites the opinion of other linguists that the name meant "tributary", comparing with Greek and Latin roots. He also rejects some opinions which were improperly based on the stem -пять-pjat', rather than original -петь.[2]
It might also derive from the local word pripech used for a river with sandy banks.[3]
Pripyat has a catchment area of 121,000 km2 (47,000 sq mi), 50,900 km2 (19,700 sq mi) of which are in Belarus. 495 km (308 mi) of the whole river length lies within Belarus.[1]
The Pripyat begins in the Volhynian Upland, between the villages of Budniki [uk] and Rohivi Smoliary [uk] in Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. After 204 km downstream, it crosses the border of Belarus, where it travels 500 km through Polesia, Europe's largest wilderness, within which lie the vast sandy wetlands known as the Pinsk marshes, a dense network of swamps, bogs, rivers and rivulets within a forested basin. For the last 50 kilometers the Pripyat flows again in Ukraine and flows several kilometers south of Chernobyl into the Kyiv Reservoir.[5]
The length of the river is 775 kilometers. The area of the watershed is 114,300 km2. The Pripyat valley in the upper reaches is weak, in the lower reaches it is clearer. The floodplain is well-developed all along the flow, allocating two supra-floodplain terraces. The width of the floodplain in the upper course of 2–4 km and more, in some years, is flooded for several months. In the lower reaches, the width of the floodplain reaches 10–15 km. The channel in the upper canalized; below - winding, forms meanders, oxbows, many channels (one of them overlays the Nobel Lake [uk]); there are sandy islands. The width of the river in the upper reaches is up to 40 m, on the average - 50–70 m, in the lower reaches 100 - predominantly 250 m, with the entrance to the Kyiv Reservoir - 4–5 km. The bottom is sandy and sandy-silty. The slope of the river is 0.08 m / km.
Pripyat // Dictionary of Contemporary Geographical Names / Rus. geogr. oh Moscow center; By common. Ed. acad. V. M. Kotlyakova. Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences. - Yekaterinburg: U-Factorium, 2006.
Joint River Management Program. Final Report: River Pripyat Basin (February 2004)
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