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River Sava sunset skyline in the city of Zagreb
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Planica mountain, Slovenia (as Sava Dolinka )
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Danube , Belgrade , Serbia
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Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia And Herzegovina , Serbia , Montenegro , Albania
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990 km (with Sava Dolinka )
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1,222 m
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1,722 m³/s
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95,719 km&2
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The (,
Croatia ,
Bosnia And Herzegovina (making its northern border) and
Serbia .
The Sava is created by two headwaters, Sava Dolinka (left) and Sava Bohinjka (right) which join between the Slovenian towns of
Lesce and
Radovljica . From there until it joins the
Danube at
Belgrade , Serbia, it is 945 km long (of which 206 km are in Serbia). From the source of its longer headwater, Sava Dolinka, in the north-western,
Alpine region of Slovenia, it measures 990 km.
Through the Danube, it belongs to the
Black Sea drainage basin, and represents the Danube's longest right tributary and second longest of all, after
Tisa . It was once the longest river flowing completely within
Yugoslavia proper, but after the breakup of the country in 1991, it now flows through four countries.
The 45 km long
Sava Dolinka starts as the Nadiža Creek in the
Planica Valley under Zadnja Ponca in the
Julian Alps , at the altitude of 1,222 m, near the Italian border. The stream goes underground and after 5 km breaks out again at the height of 842 m in
Zelenci , near
Kranjska Gora . A notable (left) tributary of it is the Radovna, which flows through a beautiful gorge called "Blejski Vintgar". The Sava Dolinka flows through the cities of Kranjska Gora,
Gozd Martuljek ,
Jesenice , near
Bled and Lesce. The first in a series of hydroelectric plants on the river, "Moste" (22.5 MW) is located near
Žirovnica .
The shorter, 31 km long
Sava Bohinjka originates under the Komarča Ridge at the altitude of 805 m, from underground sources drained from the
Triglav Lakes Valley . Until
Lake Bohinj , the river is known as
Savica ("little Sava"), and features a 60 m high waterfall ("Slap Savica") at its source. Then it flows through the Ukanc Gorge, where a 3 MW power plant "Savica" is located. Then it flows into
Lake Bohinj , creating a small delta. Afterwards, as
Sava Bohinjka , it flows through
Bohinjska Bistrica ,
Bohinjska Bela and close to
Lake Bled , before it meets Sava Dolinka near Radovljica.
into the Danube at
Belgrade ]]
The Sava drains an area of 95,719 km&
2, including 115 km&
2 in northern
Albania . Its average discharge at
Zagreb , Croatia, is 255 m³/s, while in Belgrade its amassed to 1,722 m³/s. It also gets very deep, up to 28-30 m near villages of
Hrtkovci and Bosut, in
Serbia . In Serbia it creates several big river islands (''adas''), including
Podgorička Ada near
Provo and 2.7 km&
2 Ada Ciganlija in Belgrade, the most popular Belgrade resort. The island has been connected to the right bank of the river with three causeways creating an artificial lake called "Lake Sava" with an area of 0.8 km&
2. It is nicknamed "Belgrade Sea" and it is known to attract up to 350,000 visitors daily in the summer season.
The river has high electricity production potential in its upper course, up to 3.2 (including tributaries 4.7) billion kWh, which has not been used until lately. Apart from already mentioned two power plants, there is a third, on the Sava itself, "Medvode" (17.8 MW), near Ljubljana. There are also several hydroelectric plants under construction, of which "Boštanj" has already begun electricity production.
The river bed is not regulated for the most of its length. That causes floods from time to time, which can affect as much as 5,000 km&
2 of mostly very fertile land (
Posavina , Sava Valley). In October 1964 Sava flooded Zagreb almost to the center, causing heavy damages and human casualties, after which high
Levee s were built. In 1981 and April 2006, the Sava flooded lower parts of Belgrade. In 1977 & 1980 both federal and inter-republican agreements were signed about Sava's regulation, which were supposed to regulate its waters to prevent flooding, build new power stations, establish full navigation to Zagreb and ecologically protect its waters, with the final deadline being the year 2000. However, not much was done and Yugoslavia itself broke up in 1991.
East of
Ljubljana , the Sava flows through a 90 km long gorge and afterwards the Krško Field (''Krško polje''). As the
Pannonian Sea receded, the Sava grew longer and longer, carving the Sava Trench (''Savski rov'') through which it flows to the east. Together with lower courses of Bosnian rivers which became its tributaries, it created huge floodplains. Becoming wide (at
Šabac its 680 m wide, while on its mouth only 280 m), the Sava begins to meander and in history changed course many times, being pushed by the gentle slope of the Pannonian bed to the south and by the force of its many right tributaries to the north. Old riverbeds turned into swamps and ponds known as ''mrtvaja'' (dead water) and ''starača'' (old water) in
Serbian . The best known is one of the biggest ponds in Serbia and one of the biggest wild birds reservation areas in Europe,
Obedska Bara .
Right tributaries: in Slovenia: ,
Kolubara and
Topčiderska Reka ;
Left tributaries: in Slovenia: ;
The Sava connects three European capitals: Ljubljana in Slovenia, Zagreb in Croatia and Belgrade in Serbia. Even though Ljubljana was built on Sava's tributary Ljubljanica, as the city grew bigger it included existing villages on Sava, like ,
Sremska Mitrovica ,
Klenak and Šabac. Then it flows through the Belgrade suburbs of
Zabrežje ,
Obrenovac ,
Umka and
Ostružnica until it finally empties into the Danube in
Belgrade .
The Sava is navigable for 593 km, from its confluence with the Danube until the mouth of the
Kupa at
Sisak . Smaller crafts can navigate further upstream until
Zagreb , but the plans of dredging it to become fully navigable are scrapped. The river is open for international flowing and conditions with regard to available depth are varying according to the meteorological circumstances.
1
The Sava Valley is also a natural route for land traffic, which includes the railway and highway Belgrade-Zagreb and routes of oil and gas pipelines from Croatia to Serbia. As a result of all this traffic and densely populated and industrialized areas it flows through, the river is very polluted and not much has been done to improve its conditions.
".
Even though name ''Sava'' became very common among (and not only South) Slavs, especially as a form of personal name, either male or female, and got a 'Slavic tone', the river's name is not
Slavic but
Celtic and
Roman in origin, who called it ''Savus''. The old
Celts associated their river goddess
Adsullata with the river Savus.
According to some, the Sava represents the north-western boundary of the
Balkan Peninsula . With the changes of the political climate, the boundary also changed. In Yugoslav times it was considered that the whole Sava is the border (thus promoting mutuality among different Yugoslav nations), which placed even parts of
Italy (
Trieste area) as a part of the Balkan peninsula. After splitting from Yugoslavia, the border was set to be the Sava-Kolpa/Kupa line (Kolpa forms a part of southern Slovenian border, with Croatia), and then to the
Adriatic .
- ''Mala Prosvetina Enciklopedija'', Third edition (1985), Vol. I (for Balkan peninsula) & III (for Sava river); Prosveta; ISBN 86-07-00001-2
- Jovan Đ. Marković (1990): ''Enciklopedijski geografski leksikon Jugoslavije''; Svjetlost-Sarajevo; ISBN 86-01-02651-6
