The Rhine (Latin: Rhenus, Romansh: Rein, German: Rhein, French: le Rhin,[1] Italian: Reno, Dutch: Rijn) is a European river that begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps, forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, Swiss-German and then the Franco-German border, then flows through the German Rhineland and the Netherlands and eventually empties into the North Sea.
The largest city on the Rhine is Cologne, Germany, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe (after the Danube), at about 1,230km (760mi),[note 1][note 2] with an average discharge of about 2,900m3/s (100,000cuft/s).
The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days, the Rhine has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland.
Its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire is supported by the many castles and fortifications built along it. In the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism.
Name
The variants of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, which was adapted in Roman-era geography (1st century BC) as Greek Ῥῆνος (Rhēnos), Latin Rhenus.[note 3]
The spelling with Rh- in English Rhine as well as in German Rhein and French Rhin is due to the influence of Greek orthography, while the vocalisation -i- is due to the Proto-Germanic adoption of the Gaulish name as *Rīnaz, via Old Frankish giving Old English Rín,[3]
Old High German Rīn, early Middle Dutch (c. 1200) Rijn (then also spelled Ryn or Rin).[4]
The diphthong in modern German Rhein (also adopted in Romansh Rein, Rain) is a Central German development of the early modern period, the Alemannic name Rī(n) retaining the older vocalism,[note 4] as does Ripuarian Rhing, while Palatine has diphthongized Rhei, Rhoi. Spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian, Occitan and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-.
The Gaulish name Rēnos (Proto-Celtic or pre-Celtic[note 5] *Reinos) belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- "to move, flow, run", also found in other names such as the Reno in Italy.[note 6]
The grammatical gender of the Celtic name (as well as of its Greek and Latin adaptation) is masculine, and the name remains masculine in German, Dutch and French.
The Old English river name was variously inflected as masculine or feminine; and its Old Icelandic adoption was inflected as feminine.[5]
Geography

The length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in "Rhine-kilometers" (Rheinkilometer), a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance (0km) to Hoek van Holland (1036.20km).
The river is significantly shortened from its natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century.[note 7] The "total length of the Rhine", to the inclusion of Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine is more difficult to measure objectively; it was cited as 1,232 kilometres (766 miles) by the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat in 2010.[note 1]
Its course is conventionally divided as follows:

Headwaters and sources

Sources

The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Rein Anteriur/Vorderrhein and Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein next to Reichenau in Tamins. Above this point is the extensive catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine. It belongs almost exclusively to the Swiss canton of Graubünden, ranging from Saint-Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino and Italy in the south to the Flüela Pass in the east.
Traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Anterior Rhine and the Rhine as a whole. The Posterior Rhine rises in the Rheinwald below the Rheinwaldhorn.
Anterior Rhine and Posterior Rhine

The source of the river is generally considered north of Lai da Tuma/Tomasee on Rein Anteriur/Vorderrhein,[12] although its southern tributary Rein da Medel is actually longer before its confluence with the Anterior Rhine near Disentis.
The Anterior Rhine (Romansh: Rein Anteriur, German: Vorderrhein) springs from Lai da Tuma/Tomasee, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide.
The Posterior Rhine (Romansh: Rein Posteriur, German: Hinterrhein) starts from the Paradies Glacier, near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory. After three main valleys separated by the two gorges, Roflaschlucht and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau in Tamins.

The Anterior Rhine arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva and flows in an easterly direction. One source is Lai da Tuma (2,345m (7,694ft))[13] with the Rein da Tuma, which is usually indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it.
Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Rein da Medel, the Rein da Maighels, and the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, which crosses the geomorphologic Alpine main ridge from the south.[note 8] All streams in the source area are partially, sometimes completely, captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants.
The culminating point of the Anterior Rhine's drainage basin is the Piz Russein of the Tödi massif of the Glarus Alps at 3,613 metres (11,854ft) above sea level. It starts with the creek Aua da Russein (lit.: "Water of the Russein").[14]
In its lower course the Anterior Rhine flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta (Flims Rockslide). The whole stretch of the Anterior Rhine to the Alpine Rhine confluence next to Reichenau in Tamins is accompanied by a long-distance hiking trail called Senda Sursilvana.[15]
The Posterior Rhine flows first east-northeast, then north. It flows through the three valleys named Rheinwald, Schams and Domleschg-Heinzenberg. The valleys are separated by the Rofla Gorge and Viamala Gorge. Its sources are located in the Adula Alps (Rheinwaldhorn, Rheinquellhorn, and Güferhorn).
The Avers Rhine joins from the south. One of its headwaters, the Reno di Lei (stowed in the Lago di Lei), is partially located in Italy.
Near Sils the Posterior Rhine is joined by the Albula, from the east, from the Albula Pass region. The Albula draws its water mainly from the Landwasser with the Dischmabach as the largest source stream, but almost as much from the Gelgia, which comes down from the Julier Pass.
Numerous larger and smaller tributary rivers bear the name of the Rhine or equivalent in various Romansh idioms like Rein or Ragn. Examples:
Anterior Rhine area: Rein Anteriur/Vorderrhein, Rein da Medel, Rein da Tuma, Rein da Curnera, Rein da Maighels, Rein da Cristallina, Rein da Nalps, Rein da Plattas, Rein da Sumvitg, Rein da Vigliuts, Valser Rhine
Posterior Rhine basin: Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein, Reno di Lei, Madrischer Rhein, Avers Rhine, Jufer Rhein
Albula-Landwasser area: In the Dischma valley, near Davos, far east of the Rhine, there's a place called Am Rin ("Upon Rhine"). A tributary of the Dischma is called Riner Tälli. Nearby, on the other side of the Sertig, is the Rinerhorn.
Alpine Rhine

Next to Reichenau in Tamins the Anterior Rhine and the Posterior Rhine join and form the Alpine Rhine. The river makes a distinctive turn to the north near Chur. This section is nearly 86km long, and descends from a height of 599 m to 396 m. It flows through a wide glacial Alpine valley known as the Rhine Valley (German: Rheintal). Near Sargans a natural dam, only a few metres high, prevents it from flowing into the open Seeztal valley and then through Lake Walen and Lake Zurich into the Aare. The Alpine Rhine begins in the westernmost part of the Swiss canton of Graubünden, and later forms the border between Switzerland to the west and Liechtenstein and later Austria to the east.
As an effect of human work, it empties into Lake Constance on Austrian territory and not on the border that follows its old natural river bed.
The mouth of the Rhine into Lake Constance forms an inland delta. The delta is delimited in the west by the Alter Rhein ("Old Rhine") and in the east by a modern canalized section. Most of the delta is a nature reserve and bird sanctuary. It includes the Austrian towns of Gaißau, Höchst and Fußach. The natural Rhine originally branched into at least two arms and formed small islands by precipitating sediments. In the local Alemannic dialect, the singular is pronounced "Isel" and this is also the local pronunciation of Esel ("Donkey"). Many local fields have an official name containing this element.

A regulation of the Rhine was called for, with an upper canal near Diepoldsau and a lower canal at Fußach, in order to counteract the constant flooding and strong sedimentation in the western Rhine Delta. The Dornbirner Ach had to be diverted, too, and it now flows parallel to the canalized Rhine into the lake. Its water has a darker color than the Rhine; the latter's lighter suspended load comes from higher up the mountains. It is expected that the continuous input of sediment into the lake will silt up the lake. This has already happened to the former Lake Tuggenersee.
The cut-off Old Rhine at first formed a swamp landscape. Later an artificial ditch of about two km was dug. It was made navigable to the Swiss town of Rheineck.
Lake Constance

Lake Constance consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee ("upper lake"), the Untersee ("lower lake"), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein ("Lake Rhine"). The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps. Specifically, its shorelines lie in the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, and the Swiss cantons of Thurgau and St. Gallen. The Rhine flows into it from the south following the Swiss-Austrian border. It is located at approximately .
Obersee

The flow of cold, grey mountain water continues for some distance into the lake. The cold water flows near the surface and at first doesn't mix with the warmer, green waters of Upper Lake. But then, at the so-called Rheinbrech, the Rhine water abruptly falls into the depths because of the greater density of cold water. The flow reappears on the surface at the northern (German) shore of the lake, off the island of Lindau. The water then follows the northern shore until Hagnau am Bodensee. A small fraction of the flow is diverted off the island of Mainau into Lake Überlingen. Most of the water flows via the Constance hopper into the Rheinrinne ("Rhine Gutter") and Seerhein. Depending on the water level, this flow of the Rhine water is clearly visible along the entire length of the lake.
The Rhine carries very large amounts of debris into the lake.[note 9] In the mouth region, it is therefore necessary to permanently remove gravel by dredging. The large sediment loads are partly due to the extensive land improvements upstream.
Three countries border the Obersee, namely Switzerland in the south, Austria in the southeast and the German states of Bavaria in the northeast and Baden-Württemberg in the north and northwest.
Seerhein

The Seerhein is only four km long. It connects the Obersee with the 30cm lower Untersee. Distance markers along the Rhine measure the distance from the bridge in the old city centre of Constance.
For most of its length, the Seerhein forms the border between Germany and Switzerland. The exception is the old city centre of Constance, on the Swiss side of the river.
The Seerhein emerged in the last thousands of years, when erosion caused the lake level to be lowered by about 10 metres. Previously, the two lakes formed a single lake, as the name still suggests.
Untersee

Like in the Obersee, the flow the Rhine can be traced in the Untersee. Here, too, the river water is hardly mixed with the lake water. The northern parts of the Untersee (Lake Zell and Gnadensee) remain virtually unaffected by the flow. The river traverses the southern, which, in isolation, is sometimes called Rhinesee ("Lake Rhine").
The Radolfzeller Aach adds large amounts of water from the Danube system to the Untersee.
Reichenau Island was formed at the same time as the Seerhein, when the water level was lowered to its current level.

Lake Untersee is part of the border between Switzerland and Germany, with Germany on the north bank and Switzerland on the south, except both sides are Swiss in Stein am Rhein, where the High Rhine flows out of the lake.
High Rhine

The Rhine emerges from Lake Constance, flows generally westward, as the Hochrhein, passes the Rhine Falls, and is joined by its major tributary, the Aare. The Aare more than doubles the Rhine's water discharge, to an average of nearly 1,000m3/s (35,000cuft/s), and provides more than a fifth of the discharge at the Dutch border. The Aare also contains the waters from the 4,274m (14,022ft) summit of Finsteraarhorn, the highest point of the Rhine basin. The Rhine roughly forms the German-Swiss border from Lake Constance with the exceptions of the canton of Schaffhausen and parts of the cantons of Zürich and Basel-Stadt, until it turns north at the so-called Rhine knee at Basel, leaving Switzerland.
The High Rhine begins in Stein am Rhein at the western end of the Untersee. Unlike the Alpine Rhine and Upper Rhine, it flows to the west. It falls from 395m to 252m.
Some stretches of the High Rhine between Stein am Rhein and Eglisau form the border between Switzerland on the south bank and Germany in the north. On other stretches, both sides are Swiss; in fact most of the Canton of Schaffhausen is on the north bank. Between Eglisau and Basel, the High Rhine consistently forms the border.
The Rhine Falls are situated below Schaffhausen. It has an average water flow of 373m³/s (mean summer discharge 700m³/s) and is the second largest waterfall in Europe in terms of potential energy, after Dettifoss in Iceland. The High Rhine is characterized by numerous dams. On the few remaining natural sections, there are still several rapids.

Near Koblenz in the Aargau, the Aare joins the Rhine. With an average discharge of 557m³/s, the Aare is more voluminous than the Rhine, which has an average discharge of 439m³/s. Nevertheless, the Alpine Rhine is considered the main branch, because it is longer.
Upper Rhine

In the centre of Basel, the first major city in the course of the stream, is located the "Rhine knee"; this is a major bend, where the overall direction of the Rhine changes from west to north. Here the High Rhine ends. Legally, the Central Bridge is the boundary between High and Upper Rhine. The river now flows north as Upper Rhine through the Upper Rhine Plain, which is about 300km long and up to 40km wide. The most important tributaries in this area are the Ill below of Strasbourg, the Neckar in Mannheim and the Main across from Mainz. In Mainz, the Rhine leaves the Upper Rhine Valley and flows through the Mainz Basin.

The southern half of the Upper Rhine forms the border between France (Alsace) and Germany (Baden-Württemberg). The northern part forms the border between the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate in the west on the one hand, and Baden-Württemberg and Hesse on the other hand, in the east and north. A curiosity of this border line is that the parts of the city of Mainz on the right bank of the Rhine were given to Hesse by the occupying forces in 1945.
The Upper Rhine was a significant cultural landscape in Central Europe already in antiquity and during the Middle Ages. Today, the Upper Rhine area hosts many important manufacturing and service industries, particularly in the centers Basel, Strasbourg and Mannheim-Ludwigshafen. Strasbourg is the seat of the European Parliament, and so one of the three European capitals is located on the Upper Rhine.

The Upper Rhine region was changed significantly by a Rhine straightening program in the 19th Century. The rate of flow was increased and the ground water level fell significantly. Dead branches were removed by construction workers and the area around the river was made more habitable for humansflood plains as flooding decreased sharply. On the French side, the Grand Canal d'Alsace was dug, which carries a significant part of the river water, and all of the traffic. In some places, there are large compensation pools, for example, the huge Bassin de compensation de Plobsheim in Alsace.
The Upper Rhine has undergone significant human change since the 19th century. While it was slightly modified during the Roman occupation, it was not until the emergence of engineers such as Johann Gottfried Tulla that significant modernization efforts changed the shape of the river. Earlier work under Frederick the Great surrounded efforts to ease shipping and construct dams to serve coal transportation.[16] Tulla is considered to have domesticated the Upper Rhine, domestication that served goals such as reducing stagnant bogs that fostered waterborne diseases, making regions more habitable for human settlement, and reduce high frequency of flooded water. Not long before Tulla went to work on widening and straightening the river heavy floods had brought significant loss of life.[17] Four diplomatic treaties were signed among German state governments and French regions dealing with the changes proposed along the Rhine, one was "the Treaty for the Rectification of the Rhine flow from Neuberg to Dettenheim"(1817), which surrounded states such as Bourbon France and the Bavarian Palatinate. Loops, oxbows, branches and islands were removed along the Upper Rhine so that there would be a present uniformity to the river.[18] The engineering of the Rhine was not without protest, farmers and fishermen had grave concerns about valuable fishing areas and farmland being lost. While some areas lost ground, other areas saw swamps and bogs be drained and turned into arable land.[19] Johann Tulla had the goal of shortening and straightening the Upper Rhine. Early engineering projects the Upper Rhine also had issues, with Tulla's project at one part of the river creating rapids, after the Rhine cut down from erosion to sheer rock.[20] Engineering along the Rhine eased flooding and made transportation along the river less cumbersome. These state projects were part of the advanced and technical progress efforts going on in the country alongside the industrial revolution. For the German state, to make the river more predictable was to ensure development projects could easily commence.[21]
The section of the Upper Rhine downstream from Mainz is also known as the "Island Rhine". Here a number of river islands occur, locally known as "Rheinauen".
Middle Rhine

The Rhine is the longest river in Germany. It is here that the Rhine encounters some more of its main tributaries, such as the Neckar, the Main and, later, the Moselle, which contributes an average discharge of more than 300m3/s (11,000cuft/s). Northeastern France drains to the Rhine via the Moselle; smaller rivers drain the Vosges and Jura Mountains uplands. Most of Luxembourg and a very small part of Belgium also drain to the Rhine via the Moselle. As it approaches the Dutch border, the Rhine has an annual mean discharge of 2,290m3/s (81,000cuft/s) and an average width of 400m (1,300ft).

Between Bingen am Rhein and Bonn, the Middle Rhine flows through the Rhine Gorge, a formation which was created by erosion. The rate of erosion equaled the uplift in the region, such that the river was left at about its original level while the surrounding lands raised. The gorge is quite deep and is the stretch of the river which is known for its many castles and vineyards. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2002) and known as "the Romantic Rhine", with more than 40castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages and many quaint and lovely country villages.

Between Strasbourg and Kehl
Bridge at Karlsruhe
Aerial photo between Eltville and Bingen
Marksburg near Koblenz, built in 1231
The Rhine in Cologne, Germany
Rhine at Düsseldorf
The Bridge on the Rhein in Diepoldsau Switzerland

The Mainz Basin ends in Bingen am Rhein; the Rhine continues as "Middle Rhine" into the Rhine Gorge in the Rhenish Slate Mountains. In this sections the river falls from 77.4m above sea level to 50.4m. On the left, is located the mountain ranges of Hunsrück and Eifel, on the right Taunus and Westerwald. According to geologists, the characteristic narrow valley form was created by erosion by the river while the surrounding landscape was lifted (see water gap).
Major tributaries in this section are the Lahn and the Moselle. They join the Rhine near Koblenz, for the right and left respectively. Almost the entire length of the Middle Rhine runs in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The dominant economic sectors in the Middle Rhine area are viniculture and tourism. The Rhine Gorge between Rüdesheim am Rhein and Koblenz is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Near Sankt Goarshausen, the Rhine flows around the famous rock Lorelei. With its outstanding architectural monuments, the slopes full of vines, settlements crowded on the narrow river banks and scores of castles lined up along the top of the steep slopes, the Middle Rhine Valley can be considered the epitome of the Rhine romanticism.
Lower Rhine

In Bonn, where the Sieg flows into the Rhine, the Rhine enters the North German Plain and turns into the Lower Rhine. The Lower Rhine falls from 50m to 12m. The main tributaries on this stretch are the Ruhr and the Lippe. Like the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine used to meander until engineering created a solid river bed. Because the levees are some distance from the river, at high tide the Lower Rhine has more room for widening than the Upper Rhine.

The Lower Rhine flows through North Rhine-Westphalia. Its banks are usually heavily populated and industrialized, in particular the agglomerations Cologne, Düsseldorf and Ruhr area. Here the Rhine flows through the largest conurbation in Germany, the Rhine-Ruhr region. One of the most important cities in this region is Duisburg with the largest river port in Europe (Duisport). The region downstream of Duisburg is more agricultural. In Wesel, 30km downstream of Duisburg, is located the western end of the second east-west shipping route, the Wesel-Datteln Canal, which runs parallel to the Lippe. Between Emmerich and Cleves the Emmerich Rhine Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in Germany, crosses the 400-metre-wide (1,300ft) river. Near Krefeld, the river crosses the Uerdingen line, the line which separates the areas where Low German and High German are spoken.
Until the early 1980s, industry was a major source of water pollution. Although many plants and factories can be found along the Rhine up into Switzerland, it is along the Lower Rhine that the bulk of them are concentrated, as the river passes the major cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf and Duisburg. Duisburg is the home of Europe's largest inland port and functions as a hub to the sea ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Amsterdam. The Ruhr, which joins the Rhine in Duisburg, is nowadays a clean river, thanks to a combination of stricter environmental controls, a transition from heavy industry to light industry and cleanup measures, such as the reforestation of Slag and brownfields. The Ruhr currently provides the region with drinking water. It contributes 70m3/s (2,500cuft/s) to the Rhine. Other rivers in the Ruhr Area, above all, the Emscher, still carry a considerable degree of pollution.
Delta

The Dutch name for Rhine is "Rijn". The Rhine turns west and enters the Netherlands, where, together with the rivers Meuse and Scheldt, it forms the extensive Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta, with 25,347km2 (9,787sqmi) the largest river delta in Europe.[22] Crossing the border into the Netherlands at Spijk, close to Nijmegen and Arnhem, the Rhine is at its widest, although the river then splits into three main distributaries: the Waal, Nederrijn ("Nether Rhine") and IJssel.
From here, the situation becomes more complicated, as the Dutch name Rijn no longer coincides with the main flow of water. Two thirds of the water flow volume of the Rhine flows farther west, through the Waal and then, via the Merwede and Nieuwe Merwede (De Biesbosch), merging with the Meuse, through the Hollands Diep and Haringvliet estuaries, into the North Sea. The Beneden Merwede branches off, near Hardinxveld-Giessendam and continues as the Noord, to join the Lek, near the village of Kinderdijk, to form the Nieuwe Maas; then flows past Rotterdam and continues via Het Scheur and the Nieuwe Waterweg, to the North Sea. The Oude Maas branches off, near Dordrecht, farther down rejoining the Nieuwe Maas to form Het Scheur.
The other third of the water flows through the Pannerdens Kanaal and redistributes in the IJssel and Nederrijn. The IJssel branch carries one ninth of the water flow of the Rhine north into the IJsselmeer (a former bay), while the Nederrijn carries approximately two ninths of the flow west along a route parallel to the Waal. However, at Wijk bij Duurstede, the Nederrijn changes its name and becomes the Lek. It flows farther west, to rejoin the Noord into the Nieuwe Maas and to the North Sea.
The name Rijn, from here on, is used only for smaller streams farther to the north, which together formed the main river Rhine in Roman times. Though they retained the name, these streams no longer carry water from the Rhine, but are used for draining the surrounding land and polders. From Wijk bij Duurstede, the old north branch of the Rhine is called Kromme Rijn ("Bent Rhine") past Utrecht, first Leidse Rijn ("Rhine of Leiden") and then, Oude Rijn ("Old Rhine"). The latter flows west into a sluice at Katwijk, where its waters can be discharged into the North Sea. This branch once formed the line along which the Limes Germanicus were built. During periods of lower sea levels within the various ice ages, the Rhine took a left turn, creating the Channel River, the course of which now lies below the English Channel.
The Rhine-Meuse Delta, the most important natural region of the Netherlands begins near Millingen aan de Rijn, close to the Dutch-German border with the division of the Rhine into Waal and Nederrijn. Since the Rhine contributes most of the water, the shorter term Rhine Delta is commonly used. However, this name is also used for the river delta where the Rhine flows into Lake Constance, so it is clearer to call the larger one Rhine-Meuse delta, or even Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, as the Scheldt ends in the same delta.
The shape of the Rhine delta is determined by two bifurcations: first, at Millingen aan de Rijn, the Rhine splits into Waal and Pannerdens Kanaal, which changes its name to Nederrijn at Angeren, and second near Arnhem, the IJssel branches off from the Nederrijn. This creates three main flows, two of which change names rather often. The largest and southern main branch begins as Waal and continues as Boven Merwede ("Upper Merwede"), Beneden Merwede ("Lower Merwede"), Noord ("the North"), Nieuwe Maas ("New Meuse"), Het Scheur ("the Rip") and Nieuwe Waterweg ("New Waterway"). The middle flow begins as Nederrijn, then changes into Lek, then joins the Noord, thereby forming Nieuwe Maas. The northern flow keeps the name IJssel until it flows into Lake IJsselmeer. Three more flows carry significant amounts of water: the Nieuwe Merwede ("New Merwede"), which branches off from the southern branch where it changes from Boven to Beneden Merwede; the Oude Maas ("Old Meuse"), which branches off from the southern branch where it changes from Beneden Merwede into Noord, and Dordtse Kil, which branches off from Oude Maas.
Before the St. Elizabeth's flood (1421), the Meuse flowed just south of today's line Merwede-Oude Maas to the North Sea and formed an archipelago-like estuary with Waal and Lek. This system of numerous bays, estuary-like extended rivers, many islands and constant changes of the coastline, is hard to imagine today. From 1421 to 1904, the Meuse and Waal merged further upstream at Gorinchem to form Merwede. For flood protection reasons, the Meuse was separated from the Waal through a lock and diverted into a new outlet called "Bergse Maas", then Amer and then flows into the former bay Hollands Diep.
The northwestern part of the estuary (around Hook of Holland), is still called Maasmond ("Meuse Mouth"), ignoring the fact that it now carries only water from the Rhine. This might explain the confusing naming of the various branches.
The hydrography of the current delta is characterized by the delta's main arms, disconnected arms (Hollandse IJssel, Linge, Vecht, etc.) and smaller rivers and streams. Many rivers have been closed ("dammed") and now serve as drainage channels for the numerous polders. The construction of Delta Works changed the Delta in the second half of the 20th Century fundamentally. Currently Rhine water runs into the sea, or into former marine bays now separated from the sea, in five places, namely at the mouths of the Nieuwe Merwede, Nieuwe Waterway (Nieuwe Maas), Dordtse Kil, Spui and IJssel.

The Rhine-Meuse Delta is a tidal delta, shaped not only by the sedimentation of the rivers, but also by tidal currents. This meant that high tide formed a serious risk because strong tidal currents could tear huge areas of land into the sea. Before the construction of the Delta Works, tidal influence was palpable up to Nijmegen, and even today, after the regulatory action of the Delta Works, the tide acts far inland. At the Waal, for example, the most landward tidal influence can be detected between Brakel and Zaltbommel.
Geologic history
Alpine orogeny

The Rhine flows from the Alps to the North Sea Basin; the geography and geology of its present-day watershed has been developing, since the Alpine orogeny began.
In southern Europe, the stage was set in the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era, with the opening of the Tethys Ocean, between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates, between about 240MBP and 220MBP (million years before present). The present Mediterranean Sea descends from this somewhat larger Tethys sea. At about 180MBP, in the Jurassic Period, the two plates reversed direction and began to compress the Tethys floor, causing it to be subducted under Eurasia and pushing up the edge of the latter plate in the Alpine Orogeny of the Oligocene and Miocene Periods. Several microplates were caught in the squeeze and rotated or were pushed laterally, generating the individual features of Mediterranean geography: Iberia pushed up the Pyrenees; Italy, the Alps, and Anatolia, moving west, the mountains of Greece and the islands. The compression and orogeny continue today, as shown by the ongoing raising of the mountains a small amount each year and the active volcanoes.
In northern Europe, the North Sea Basin had formed during the Triassic and Jurassic periods and continued to be a sediment receiving basin since. In between the zone of Alpine orogeny and North Sea Basin subsidence, remained highlands resulting from an earlier orogeny (Variscan), such as the Ardennes, Eifel and Vosges.
From the Eocene onwards, the ongoing Alpine orogeny caused a N–S rift system to develop in this zone. The main elements of this rift are the Upper Rhine Graben, in southwest Germany and eastern France and the Lower Rhine Embayment, in northwest Germany and the southeastern Netherlands. By the time of the Miocene, a river system had developed in the Upper Rhine Graben, that continued northward and is considered the first Rhine river. At that time, it did not yet carry discharge from the Alps; instead, the watersheds of the Rhone and Danube drained the northern flanks of the Alps.
Stream capture
The watershed of the Rhine reaches into the Alps today, but it did not start out that way.[23] In the Miocene period, the watershed of the Rhine reached south, only to the Eifel and Westerwald hills, about 450km (280mi) north of the Alps. The Rhine then had the Sieg as a tributary, but not yet the Moselle (river). The northern Alps were then drained by the Danube.
Through stream capture, the Rhine extended its watershed southward. By the Pliocene period, the Rhine had captured streams down to the Vosges Mountains, including  the Main and the Neckar. The northern Alps were then drained by the Rhone. By the early Pleistocene period, the Rhine had captured most of its current Alpine watershed from the Rhône, including the Aare. Since that time, the Rhine has added the watershed above Lake Constance (Vorderrhein, Hinterrhein, Alpenrhein; captured from the Rhône), the upper reaches of the Main, beyond Schweinfurt and the Moselle in the Vosges Mountains, captured during the Saale Ice-age from the Meuse, to its watershed.
Around 2.5million years ago (ending 11,600 years ago) was the geological period of the Ice Ages. Since approximately 600,000years ago, six major Ice Ages have occurred, in which sea level dropped 120m (390ft) and much of the continental margins became exposed. In the Early Pleistocene, the Rhine followed a course to the northwest, through the present North Sea. During the so-called Anglian glaciation (~450,000yrBP, marine oxygen isotope stage12), the northern part of the present North Sea was blocked by the ice and a large lake developed, that overflowed through the English Channel. This caused the Rhine's course to be diverted through the English Channel. Since then, during glacial times, the river mouth was located offshore of Brest, France and rivers, like the River Thames and the Seine, became tributaries to the Rhine. During interglacials, when sea level rose to approximately the present level, the Rhine built deltas, in what is now the Netherlands.
The last glacial ran from ~74,000 (BP = Before Present), until the end of the Pleistocene (~11,600BP). In northwest Europe, it saw two very cold phases, peaking around 70,000BP and around 29,000–24,000BP. The last phase slightly predates the global last ice age maximum (Last Glacial Maximum). During this time, the lower Rhine flowed roughly west through the Netherlands and extended to the southwest, through the English Channel and finally, to the Atlantic Ocean. The English Channel, the Irish Channel and most of the North Sea were dry land, mainly because sea level was approximately 120m (390ft) lower than today.
Most of the Rhine's current course was not under the ice during the last Ice Age; although, its source must still have been a glacier. A tundra, with Ice Age flora and fauna, stretched across middle Europe, from Asia to the Atlantic Ocean. Such was the case during the Last Glacial Maximum, ca. 22,000–14,000yrBP, when ice-sheets covered Scandinavia, the Baltics, Scotland and the Alps, but left the space between as open tundra. Loess (wind-blown topsoil dust) arose from the south and North Sea plain settling on the slopes of the Alps, Urals and the Rhine Valley, rendering the valleys facing the prevailing winds especially fertile.
End of the last ice age
As northwest Europe slowly began to warm up from 22,000 years ago onward, frozen subsoil and expanded alpine glaciers began to thaw and fall-winter snow covers melted in spring. Much of the discharge was routed to the Rhine and its downstream extension.[24] Rapid warming and changes of vegetation, to open forest, began about 13,000BP. By 9000BP, Europe was fully forested. With globally shrinking ice-cover, ocean water levels rose and the English Channel and North Sea re-inundated. Meltwater, adding to the ocean and land subsidence, drowned the former coasts of Europe transgressionally.
About 11000 years ago, the Rhine estuary was in the Strait of Dover. There remained some dry land in the southern North Sea, known as Doggerland, connecting mainland Europe to Britain. About 9000 years ago, that last divide was overtopped / dissected. Man was already resident in the area when these events happened.
Since 7500 years ago the situation of tides, currents and land-forms has resembled the present. Rates of sea-level rise dropped such that natural sedimentation by the Rhine and coastal processes widely compensate for transgression by the sea. In the southern North Sea, due to ongoing tectonic subsidence, the coastline and sea bed are sinking at the rate of about 1–3cm (0.39–1.18in) per century (1metre or 39inches in last 3000years).
About 7000–5000 BP, a general warming encouraged migration of all former ice-locked areas, including up the Danube and down the Rhine by peoples to the east. A sudden massive expansion of the Black Sea as the Mediterranean Sea burst into it through the Bosporus may have occurred about 7500BP.
Holocene delta
At the begin of the Holocene (~11,700 years ago), the Rhine occupied its Late-Glacial valley. As a meandering river, it reworked its ice-age floodplain. As sea-level rise continued in the Netherlands, the formation of the Holocene Rhine-Meuse delta began (~8,000years ago). Coeval absolute sea-level rise and tectonic subsidence have strongly influenced delta evolution. Other factors of importance to the shape of the delta are the local tectonic activities of the Peel Boundary Fault, the substrate and geomorphology, as inherited from the Last Glacial and the coastal-marine dynamics, such as barrier and tidal inlet formations.[25]
Since ~3000 yr BP (= years Before Present), human impact is seen in the delta. As a result of increasing land clearance (Bronze Age agriculture), in the upland areas (central Germany), the sediment load of the Rhine has strongly increased[26] and delta growth has speeded up.[27] This has caused increased flooding and sedimentation, ending peat formation in the delta. In the geologically recent past the main process distributing sediment across the delta has been the shifting of river channels to new locations on the floodplain (termed avulsion). Over the past 6000years, approximately 80avulsions have occurred.[23] Direct human impact in the delta began with the mining of peat for salt and fuel from Roman times onward. This was followed by embankment of the major distributaries and damming of minor distributaries, which took place in the 11–13thcentury AD. Thereafter, canals were dug, bends were straightened and groynes were built to prevent the river's channels from migrating or silting up.
At present, the branches Waal and Nederrijn-Lek discharge to the North Sea through the former Meuse estuary, near Rotterdam. The river IJssel branch flows to the north and enters the IJsselmeer (formerly the Zuider Zee), initially a brackish lagoon but a freshwater lake since 1932. The discharge of the Rhine is divided into three branches: the Waal (6/9 of total discharge), the Nederrijn – Lek (2/9 of total discharge) and the IJssel (1/9 of total discharge). This discharge distribution has been maintained since 1709 by river engineering works including the digging of the Pannerdens canal and the installation, in the 20thcentury, of a series of weirs on the Nederrijn.
Cultural history

Antiquity

The Rhine was not known to Herodotus and first enters the historical period in the 1st century BC in Roman-era geography. At that time, it formed the boundary between Gaul and Germania.
The Upper Rhine had been part of the areal of the late Hallstatt culture since the 6th century BC, and by the 1st century BC, the areal of the La Tène culture covered almost its entire length, forming a contact zone with the Jastorf culture, i.e. the locus of early Celtic-Germanic cultural contact.
In Roman geography, the Rhine formed the boundary between Gallia and Germania by definition; e.g. Maurus Servius Honoratus, Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil (8.727) (Rhenus) fluvius Galliae, qui Germanos a Gallia dividit "(The Rhine is a) river of Gaul, which divides the Germanic people from Gaul."
In Roman geography, the Rhine and Hercynia Silva were considered the boundary of the civilized world;
as it was a wilderness, the Romans were eager to explore it. This view is typified by Res Gestae Divi Augusti, a long public inscription of Augustus, in which he boasts of his exploits; including, sending an expeditionary fleet north of the Rheinmouth, to Old Saxony and Jutland, which he claimed no Roman had ever done before.
Augustus ordered his general Drusus to establish 50 military camps along the Rhine, starting the Germanic Wars in 12 BC. At this time, the plain of the Lower Rhine was the territory of the Ubii.
The first urban settlement, on the grounds of what is today the centre of Cologne, along the Rhine, was Oppidum Ubiorum, which was founded in 38BC by the Ubii. Cologne became acknowledged, as a city by the Romans in AD50, by the name of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.
From the death of Augustus in AD 14 until after AD 70, Rome accepted as her Germanic frontier the water-boundary of the Rhine and upper Danube. Beyond these rivers she held only the fertile plain of Frankfurt, opposite the Roman border fortress of Moguntiacum (Mainz), the southernmost slopes of the Black Forest and a few scattered bridge-heads. The northern section of this frontier, where the Rhine is deep and broad, remained the Roman boundary until the empire fell. The southern part was different. The upper Rhine and upper Danube are easily crossed. The frontier which they form is inconveniently long, enclosing an acute-angled wedge of foreign territory between the modern Baden and Württemberg. The Germanic populations of these lands seem in Roman times to have been scanty, and Roman subjects from the modern Alsace-Lorraine had drifted across the river eastwards.
The Romans kept eight legions in five bases along the Rhine. The actual number of legions present at any base or in all, depended on whether a state or threat of war existed. Between about AD14 and 180, the assignment of legions was as follows: for the army of Germania Inferior, two legions at Vetera (Xanten), I Germanica and XX Valeria (Pannonian troops); two legions at oppidum Ubiorum ("town of the Ubii"), which was renamed to Colonia Agrippina, descending to Cologne, V Alaudae, a Celtic legion recruited from Gallia Narbonensis and XXI, possibly a Galatian legion from the other side of the empire.
For the army of Germania Superior: one legion, II Augusta, at Argentoratum (Strasbourg); and one, XIII Gemina, at Vindonissa (Windisch). Vespasian had commanded IIAugusta, before his promotion to imperator. In addition, were a double legion, XIV and XVI, at Moguntiacum (Mainz).
The two original military districts of Germania Inferior and Germania Superior, came to influence the surrounding tribes, who later respected the distinction in their alliances and confederations. For example, the upper Germanic peoples combined into the Alemanni. For a time, the Rhine ceased to be a border, when the Franks crossed the river and occupied Roman-dominated Celtic Gaul, as far as Paris.
Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine in the Migration period, by the 5th century establishing the kingdoms of Francia on the Lower Rhine, Burgundy on the Upper Rhine and Alemannia on the High Rhine. This "Germanic Heroic Age" is reflected in medieval legend, such as the Nibelungenlied which tells of the hero Siegfried killing a dragon on the Drachenfels (Siebengebirge) ("dragons rock"), near Bonn at the Rhine and of the Burgundians and their court at Worms, at the Rhine and Kriemhild's golden treasure, which was thrown into the Rhine by Hagen.
Medieval and modern history

By the 6th century, the Rhine was within the borders of Francia.
In the 9th, it formed part of the border between Middle and Western Francia,
but in the 10th century, it was fully within the Holy Roman Empire, flowing through Swabia, Franconia and Lower Lorraine. The mouths of the Rhine, in the county of Holland, fell to the Burgundian Netherlands in the 15th century; Holland remained contentious territory throughout the European wars of religion and the eventual collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, when the length of the Rhine fell to the First French Empire and its client states. The Alsace on the left banks of the Upper Rhine was sold to Burgundy by Archduke Sigismund of Austria in 1469 and eventually fell to France in the Thirty Years' War. The numerous historic castles in Rhineland-Palatinate attest to the importance of the river as a commercial route.
Since the Peace of Westphalia, the Upper Rhine formed a contentious border between France and Germany. Establishing "natural borders" on the Rhine was a long-term goal of French foreign policy, since the Middle Ages, though the language border was – and is – far more to the west. French leaders, such as Louis XIV and Napoleon Bonaparte, tried with varying degrees of success to annex lands west of the Rhine. The Confederation of the Rhine was established by Napoleon, as a French client state, in 1806 and lasted until 1814, during which time it served as a significant source of resources and military manpower for the First French Empire. In 1840, the Rhine crisis, prompted by French prime minister Adolphe Thiers's desire to reinstate the Rhine as a natural border, led to a diplomatic crisis and a wave of nationalism in Germany.

The Rhine became an important symbol in German nationalism during the formation of the German state in the 19th century (see Rhine romanticism).
The song Die Wacht am Rhein, which became almost a national anthem.
Das Rheingold – inspired by the Nibelungenlied, the Rhine is one of the settings for the first opera of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The action of the epic opens and ends underneath the Rhine, where three Rheinmaidens swim and protect a hoard of gold.
The Loreley/Lorelei is a rock on the eastern bank of the Rhine, that is associated with several legendary tales, poems and songs. The river spot has a reputation for being a challenge for inexperienced navigators.
At the end of World War I, the Rhineland was subject to the Treaty of Versailles. This decreed that it would be occupied by the allies, until 1935 and after that, it would be a demilitarised zone, with the German army forbidden to enter. The Treaty of Versailles and this particular provision, in general, caused much resentment in Germany and is often cited as helping Adolf Hitler's rise to power. The allies left the Rhineland, in 1930 and the German army re-occupied it in 1936, which was enormously popular in Germany. Although the allies could probably have prevented the re-occupation, Britain and France were not inclined to do so, a feature of their policy of appeasement to Hitler.

In World War II, it was recognised that the Rhine would present a formidable natural obstacle to the invasion of Germany, by the Western Allies. The Rhine bridge at Arnhem, immortalized in the book, A Bridge Too Far and the film, was a central focus of the battle for Arnhem, during the failed Operation Market Garden of September 1944. The bridges at Nijmegen, over the Waal distributary of the Rhine, were also an objective of Operation Market Garden. In a separate operation, the Ludendorff Bridge, crossing the Rhine at Remagen, became famous, when U.S. forces were able to capture it intact – much to their own surprise – after the Germans failed to demolish it. This also became the subject of a film, The Bridge at Remagen.
Seven Days to the River Rhine was a Warsaw Pact war plan for an invasion of Western Europe during the Cold War.
Until 1932 the generally accepted length of the Rhine was 1,230 kilometres (764 miles). In 1932 the German encyclopedia Knaurs Lexikon stated the length as 1,320 kilometres (820 miles), presumably a typographical error.
After this number was placed into the authoritative Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, it became generally accepted and found its way into numerous textbooks and official publications. The error was discovered in 2010, and the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat confirms the length at 1,232 kilometres (766 miles).[note 1]
Lists of features
Cities on the Rhine

Large cities that are situated on the Rhine:
Switzerland:
Basel
France:
Strasbourg
Germany:
Karlsruhe
Mannheim
Ludwigshafen
Wiesbaden
Mainz
Koblenz
Bonn
Cologne
Leverkusen
Neuss
Düsseldorf
Krefeld (Uerdingen)
Duisburg
Netherlands:
Arnhem (Nederrijn)
Nijmegen (Waal)
Utrecht (Kromme Rijn)
Rotterdam (Nieuwe Maas)

Smaller cities that are situated on the Rhine:
Switzerland:
Chur
Kreuzlingen
Schaffhausen
Liechtenstein:
Vaduz
Germany:
Konstanz
Breisach
Speyer
Worms
Bingen am Rhein
Rüdesheim am Rhein
Neuwied
Andernach
Bad Honnef
Königswinter
Niederkassel
Wesseling
Dormagen
Zons
Monheim am Rhein
Wesel
Xanten
Emmerich am Rhein
Netherlands:
Zutphen (IJssel)
Deventer (IJssel)
Zwolle (IJssel)
Kampen (IJssel)
Leiden (Oude Rijn)
Dordrecht (Merwede)
Wageningen (Nederrijn)

Countries and borders
During its course from the Alps to the North Sea, the Rhine passes through four countries and constitutes six different country borders. On the various parts:
the Anterior Rhine lies entirely within Switzerland, while at least one tributary to Posterior Rhine, Reno di Lei originates in Italy, but is not considered a part of the Rhine proper.
the Alpine Rhine flows within Switzerland till Sargans, from which it becomes the border between Switzerland (to the west) and Liechtenstein (to the east) until Oberriet, and the river never flows within Liechtenstein. It then becomes the border between Switzerland (to the west) and Austria (to the east) until Diepoldsau where the modern and straight course enters Switzerland, while the original course Alter Rhein makes a bend to the east and continues as the Swiss-Austrian border until the confluence at Widnau. From here the river continues as the border until Lustenau, where the modern and straight course enters Austria (the only part of the river that flows within Austria), while the original course makes a bend to the west and continues as the border, until both courses enters Lake Constance.
the first half of Seerhein, between the upper and lower body of Lake Constance, flows within Germany (and the city of Konstanz), while the second is the German (to the north) – Swiss (to the south) frontier.
the first parts of the High Rhine, from Lake Constance to Altholz, the river alternates flowing within Switzerland and being the German-Swiss frontier (three times each). From Altholz the river is the German – Swiss border until Basel, where it enters Switzerland for the last time.
the Upper Rhine is the border between France (to the west) and Switzerland (to the east) for a short distance, from Basel to Hunningue. Here it becomes the Franco (to the west) – German (to the east) frontier until Au am Rhein. Hence, the main course of the Rhine never flows within France, although some river canals do. From Au am Rhein the river flows within Germany.
the Middle Rhine flows entirely within Germany.
the Lower Rhine flows within Germany until Emmerich am Rhein, where it becomes the border between The Netherlands (to the north) and Germany (to the south). At Millingen aan de Rijn the river enters the Netherlands.
all parts of the Delta Rhein flows within the Netherlands until they enters the North Sea, IJsselmeer (IJssel) or Haringvliet (Waal) at the Dutch coast.
Bridges

Former distributaries
Order: panning north to south through the Western Netherlands:
Vecht (Utrecht) (minor channel in Roman times, flowing into former Zuider Zee lagoon)
Kromme Rijn – Oude Rijn (Utrecht and South Holland) (main channel in Roman times, dammed in the 12th century)
Hollandse IJssel (formed after Roman times, dammed in the 13thcentury AD)
Linge (big channel in Roman times, dammed in the 14thcentury AD)
De Biesbosch-area (initiated by AD 1421–1424 storm surges and river floods, by-passed since the digging of Nieuwe Merwede canal in AD1904)
Canals
Order: upstream to downstream:
Rhine–Main–Danube Canal – southeastern Germany
Grand Canal d'Alsace – eastern France
Rhine-Herne Canal – northwest Germany, connection to the Dortmund-Ems Canal and the Mittellandkanal
Maas-Waal Canal – eastcentral Netherlands
Amsterdam-Rhine Canal – central Netherlands
Scheldt-Rhine Canal – southwest Netherlands
Canal of Drusus
See also
Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine
EV15 The Rhine Cycle Route
Köln-Düsseldorfer
Piz Lunghin (triple watershed: Po–Rhine–Danube)
Witenwasserenstock (triple watershed: Rhone–Rhine–Po)
List of old waterbodies of the Rhine
Notes and references
Notes

Bibliography
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 with maps and details of navigation through the French section; places, ports and moorings, by the author of Inland Waterways of France, Imray
 (French waterways website section)

What is the largest tributary of the Rhine?


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Wiktionaryvt
First Nations in Alberta are Indigenous peoples who live in the Canadian province of Alberta.  The First Nations are peoples (or nations) recognized as Aboriginal peoples in Canada excluding the Inuit and the Métis.  According to the 2011 Census, a population of 116,670 Albertans self-identified as First Nations.  Specifically there were 96,730 First Nations people with registered Indian Status[1] and 19,945 First Nations people without registered Indian Status.[2] Alberta has the third largest First Nations population among the provinces and territories (after Ontario and British Columbia).[2]  From this total population, 47.3% of the population lives on an Indian reserve and the other 52.7% live in urban centres[2].  According to the 2011 Census, the First Nations population in Edmonton (the provincial capital) totalled at 31,780, which is the second highest for any city in Canada (after Winnipeg).[3]  The First Nations population in Calgary, in reference to the 2011 Census, totalled at 17,040.[3]  There are 48 First Nations or "bands" in Alberta (in the sense of governments made up of a council and a chief), belonging to nine different ethnic groups or "tribes" based on their ancestral languages.[4]
Classifications
There are a variety of ways of classifying the various First Nations groups in Alberta. In anthropological terms there are two broad cultural groupings in Alberta based on different climactic/ecological regions and the ways of life adapted to those regions.  In the northern part of the province the Subarctic peoples relied on boreal species such as moose, woodland caribou, etc. as their main prey animals,[5] extensively practised ice fishing, and utilized canoes, snowshoes, and toboggans for transportation.  The Plains Indians of the south lived primarily in a prairie grasslands environment (but with access as well to the nearby Rocky Mountains) and relied on the plains bison (or "buffalo") as their major food source and used the travois for transportation.  Peoples in the central, aspen parkland belt of Alberta practiced hybrid cultures with features of both the aforementioned groups.
At the time of contact with Euro-Canadian observers, all of the indigenous peoples in Alberta belonged to several overlapping groups: lodges, bands, tribes, and confederacies.  The smallest unit was the lodge, which is what observers called an extended family or any other group living in the same dwelling such as a teepee or wigwam.  Several lodges living together formed a band.  Bands were highly mobile small groups consisting of a respected (male) leader sometimes called a chief, possibly his extended family, and other unrelated families.  The band was a fundamental unit of organization, as a band was large enough to defend itself and engage in communal hunts, yet small enough to be mobile and to make decisions by consensus (leaders had only charismatic authority and no coercive power). Lodges and individuals were free to leave bands, and bands regularly split in two or merged with another, yet no one would want to be without the protection of living in a band for very long.  Bands among the Peigan people in southern Alberta ranged in size from 10 to 30 lodges, or about 80 to 240 persons.[6]
By contrast, a tribe is an ethnic affiliation.  A tribe is a group of people who recognize each other as compatriots due to shared language and culture.  Bands from the same tribe, speaking the same language, usually relied on each other as allies against outsiders, but in Alberta tribes were not institutionalized, and decision making consisted of leaders from various bands meeting together in council to reach consensus.  There are approximately nine indigenous ethnic or tribal groups in Alberta in the twenty-first century, depending on how they are counted.  They are the Beaver / Daneẕaa, Blackfoot / Niitsítapi, Chipewyan / Denésoliné, Plains Cree / Paskwāwiyiniwak, Sarcee / Tsuu T'ina, Saulteaux (Plains Ojibwa) / Nakawē, Slavey / Dene Tha', Stoney / Nakoda,  and the Woodland Cree / Sakāwithiniwak.  Within these boundaries there is much fluidity, however, as intermarriages and bilingual bands are once very common.  Scholar Neal McLeod points out that bands were loose, temporary groupings which were often polyethnic and multilingual, so that most mentions of "the Cree" by historians of previous decades actually refer to mixed Cree-Assiniboine-Saulteax groups.  As well the smallpox outbreak of 1780–1781 and the whooping cough outbreak of 1819–1820 decimated many bands, forcing them to merge with neighbours.[7]
Anthropologists and others often group peoples together based on which language family their ancestral language is from, as peoples with related languages often also have cultural similarities.  All of the groups presently represented in Alberta belong to one of three large language families, and are related to other languages across the continent.  These are the Algonquian (Blackfoot, Cree, and Saulteaux), the Athabaskan or Dene (Beaver, Chipewyan, Slavey, and Sarcee), and the Siouan (Stoney) families.[8]  The list of tribal groups in Alberta is not fixed and is based on differing interpretations of what constitutes a "tribe".  The Blackfoot people consist of three dialect groups who were close allies, the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai; they are sometimes considered separate tribes or nations in their own right.  The largest First Nations cultural group by population in Alberta is the Cree, if the Woodlands Cree and Plains Cree are counted together.  Thirty-two First Nations bands in Alberta are affiliated with Cree culture and are related to other Cree peoples across Canada as far east as Labrador.  The Woodland Cree practised a Subarctic culture, and the Plains Cree a Plains culture and they spoke different but related dialects of the Cree language.  Several peoples in Alberta fall under the term Dene, which is a name used by many related peoples in the Northwest Territories.  In Alberta this includes the Beaver, Chipewyan, Slavey, and Sarcee.  All Dene peoples share similar spiritual beliefs and social organization, but the Sarcee people are a Plains people, while the others are Subarctic.  The Stoney people are related to the Assiniboine and Sioux and may be considered a branch of either of those groups.  The Stoney themselves are divided into Woodlands (Paul and Alexis bands) and Plains sections (Bearspaw, Chiniki, and Welsey bands).  The Saulteaux people are represented by only one band in Alberta, the O'Chiese First Nation.  There many other Saulteaux bands in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, however, and the Saulteaux themselves a branch of the larger Ojibwe and Anishinaabe groups.  Besides all of these groups, there are also non-Status Indians of mixed Cree-Iroquois origin living in Hinton-Grande Cache region of the Rocky Mountains and foothills.  They are represented by the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation of Canada, which is a non-for-profit society and not a band under the Indian Act.[8]
Other tribes are known to have inhabited Alberta in the past.  The Cluny Earthlodge Village at Blackfoot Crossing is a unique-in-Canada example of a permanent fortified village of earthlodges probably built around 1740 CE by Hidatsa or Mandan peoples.[9][10]  The Assiniboine people lived in Alberta at the time of European contact, and it is thought that the Stoney people who still live in the province began as a branch of the Assiniboine.[11] Early accounts by European explorers suggest that the Eastern Shoshone are thought to have lived in Alberta before being displaced by in Blackfoot by 1787.[12]  The Gros Ventres were reported living in two north-south tribal groups; one, the so-called Fall Indians (Canadian or northern group) of 260 lodges (≈2,500 population) traded with the North West Company on the Saskatchewan River and roamed between the Missouri and Bow Rivers.  They were active in southern Alberta through the late 1800s, but were based near present-day Fort Belknap, Montana by 1862 when Jesuit missionaries arrived there.  The U.S. and Canadian governments sought to keep nomadic peoples from crossing the border, and the Americans opened an Indian agency to supply the Gros Ventre with aid at Fort Belknap first from 1871-1876, and permanently in 1878, with a reservation there being established in 1881.  The Kutenai migrated westwards out of Alberta, possibly in the early eighteenth century, but still occasionally ventured into the Bow River region to hunt bison by the time of European contact.[13]  As well, people from other ethnic groups, such the Métis and Iroquois occasionally intermarried with local peoples and were adopted into existing bands or created their own new bands of mixed heritage.  An example is the Michel Band from the Calahoo area, many of whom are descended from William Callihoo, an Iroquois or Métis fur trader from the east who married one or more local Cree women and founded the band.[14]
Plains peoples were able to congregate into larger communities often when following large buffalo herds and had more complex political structures than Subarctic peoples who had to remain dispersed to find enough food (even centuries later there are more First Nations band governments in the north, but the fewer southern communities are much more populous).[5]  A group of bands united into a semi-permanent alliance for common defence was called a confederacy by non-Native observers.  Such confederacies were often multi-ethnic in that they included bands from a number of tribes.  The two key confederacies in what later became central and southern Alberta during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were the Blackfoot Confederacy (consisting of bands from the Piegan, Kainai, Sikisika nations, later joined by the Tsuu T'ina and, for a time, Gros Ventre) and the Iron Confederacy (bands of Plains Cree, Assiniboine, and Saulteaux, and Stoney).  Initially on friendly terms, these two grouping eventually become long-term enemies (the Battle River was named for conflict between the two groups that happened near it approximately 1810, around the beginning of their hostilities[15]) until the Battle of the Belly River on October 25, 1870 near present-day Lethbridge.[16]
When Canada acquired a claim in what is now Alberta in 1870, a process of treaty-making began.  The federal government negotiated with various chiefs and councils made up of groups of allied bands.  But each band was free to sign or not sign a treaty.  There are three main treaties affecting Alberta.  Treaty 6 is between Canada and the Plains Cree and allied bands, with the main signings occurring from 1876 to 1879 with many later additions, and covers the area of central Alberta.  Treaty 7 involves the member tribes of Blackfoot Confederacy as well as the Stoney and was signed in 1877 and covers southern Alberta.  Treaty 8 involves the Woods Cree, Beaver, and Chipweyan, was signed in 1899 and covers northern Alberta.  Under the terms of these treaties, more southerly bands accepted the presence of Canadian settlers on their lands in exchange for emergency and ongoing aid to deal with the starvation being experienced by the plains people due to the disappearance of the bison herds.  Northern bands did not face agricultural settlement (to the same extent), but instead mining and lumber companies wanted access to their lands.  In both cases Indian reserves were to be created where First Nations were expected to settle (meaning to end the nomadic hunting lifestyle) perhaps to begin farming, but certainly to be accessible to the authorities such as the Indian agents, North-West Mounted Police, and Christian missionaries.  Not all bands were equally reconciled to the ideas of the treaties, however.  Piapot's band signed into a treaty but refused to choose a site for a reserve, preferring to remain nomadic.  The "Battle River Crees" under the leadership of Big Bear and Little Pine refused to sign altogether.[17]  Under the reserve system, each band is attached to one or more reserves.  The band has a list of members, part of the nationwide Indian Register, and these members are eligible to live on reserve and receive treaty benefits.  The band is now considered the fundamental unit of governance under the Indian Act, first passed in 1876 and still in force with modifications.  Modern band governments are the legal successors to the bands that signed the treaties.  In the case of the Blackfoot Confederacy, each dialect group is considered a "band" (government) though they historically comprised many hunting bands, while in other cases band governments are direct successors to much smaller historic hunting bands, many of less than 100 people.
As of 2013 there were 48 band governments with their own councils and chiefs.  For the purposes of the Indian Act, however, the federal government lists 45 separate band governments: the Saddle Lake First Nation and the Whitefish Lake (Goodfish) Nation are administered separately but considered one band,[18] likewise the Chiniki, Wesley, and Bearspaw First Nations have separate administrations but for the purposes of the Indian Act are one band government called the Stoney Nakoda Nation.[19][20] The above count also does not include bands headquartered in other provinces with reserves that are partially in Alberta, such as the Onion Lake Cree Nation of Saskatchewan.  Band names and sizes, and well as reserve sizes are not static and have continued to change since the signing of the treaties. The newest First Nation band in Alberta is the Peerless Trout First Nation, which was created in 2010 as a separation from the Bigstone Cree Nation as part of a land claims agreement with the federal government.[21]
Bands can pool their resources by creating regional councils (often called "Tribal Councils" though they may not represent a tribe in the usual sense) and treaty councils related to one of the three treaties dealing with Alberta.  Alberta bands are members of the Athabasca Tribal Council, Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, Four Nations Administration, Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council, Lesser Slave Lake Indian Regional Council, North Peace Tribal Council, Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta, Treaty 7 Management Corporation, Western Cree Tribal Council, and Yellowhead Tribal Council.[22]
List

First Nations in AlbertaNationPopulation[23]ReservesAlexander First Nation930AlexanderAlexis Nakota Sioux Nation878Alexis,
Alexis Cardinal River Indian Reserve,
Alexis Elk River Indian Reserve,
Alexis Whitecourt Indian ReserveAthabasca Chipewyan First Nation11ChipewyanBeaver First Nation (Dunneza)380Boyer,
Child LakeBeaver Lake Cree Nation320Beaver Lake,
Blue Quills First Nation Indian ReserveBigstone Cree Nation2,247Desmarais,
Jean Baptiste Gambler,
WabascaBlood Tribe (Kainai Nation)7,437BloodChipewyan Prairie First Nation321Cowper Lake Indian Reserve,
Janvier,
Winefred Lake Indian ReserveCold Lake First Nations1,189Blue Quills First Nation Indian Reserve,
Cold LakeDene Tha' First Nation1,801Amber River,
Bistcho Lake,
Bushe River,
Hay Lake,
Jackfish Point,
Upper Hay River,
Zama LakeDriftpile First Nation775Drift Pile RiverDuncan's First Nation124Duncan's,
William MckenzieEnoch Cree Nation #4401,475Stony PlainErmineskin Cree Nation2,633Ermineskin,
Pigeon LakeFort McKay First Nation303Fort McKay,
Namur LakeFort McMurray #468 First Nation240Clearwater,
Gregoire LakeFrog Lake First Nation1,559Blue Quills First Nation Indian Reserve,
Puskiakiwenin,
UnipouheosHeart Lake First Nation186Blue Quills First Nation Indian Reserve,
Heart LakeHorse Lake First Nation349Clear Hills,
Horse LakesKapawe'no First Nation85Kapawe'no First Nation 229, 231, 150Kehewin Cree Nation957Blue Quills First Nation Indian Reserve,
KehiwinLittle Red River Cree Nation3,045Fox Lake,
Garden Creek Indian Settlement,
John D'Or PrairieLoon River Cree Nation341Loon Lake Indian Reserve,
Loon Prairie Indian Reserve,
Swampy Lake Indian ReserveLouis Bull Tribe (Cree)1,417Louis Bull,
Pigeon LakeLubicon Lake Band16Little BuffaloMikisew Cree First Nation162Allison Bay,
Charles Lake,
Collin Lake, Cornwall Lake,
Devil's Gate,
Dog Head,
Old Fort,
Peace Point,
Sandy PointMontana Cree Nation657Montana,
Pigeon LakeO'Chiese First Nation608O'chiese, O'Chiese CemeteryPaul First Nation1,174Buck Lake,
WabamunPeerless Trout First NationLand not yet designation[24]:16,46Piikani Nation2,313Peigan,
Peigan Timber Limit "B"Saddle Lake Cree Nation5,820Blue Quills First Nation Indian Reserve,
Saddle Lake,
White Fish LakeSamson Cree Nation5,268Pigeon Lake,
SamsonSawridge First Nation35SawridgeSiksika Nation3,423SiksikaSmith’s Landing First NationN/AHokedhe Túe Indian Reserve,
K'i Túe Indian Reserve,
Li Dezé Indian Reserve,
Thabacha Náre Indian Reserve,
Thebathi Indian Reserve,
Tsu K'adhe Túe Indian Reserve,
Tthe Jere Ghaili Indian ReserveStoney (Bearspaw) Band1,340Big Horn,
Stoney,
Eden ValleyStoney (Chiniki) Band1,369Big Horn,
Stoney,
Eden ValleyStoney (Wesley) Band1,194Big Horn,
Stoney,
Eden ValleySturgeon Lake Cree Nation1,240Sturgeon LakeSucker Creek First Nation618Sucker CreekSunchild First Nation727SunchildSwan River First Nation324Assineau River,
Swan RiverTallcree First Nation488Beaver Ranch,
Fort Vermilion,
Tall Cree,
Wadlin Lake Indian ReserveTsuu T'ina Nation1,292Tsuu T'ina Nation 145Whitefish Lake First Nation1,051Utikoomak LakeWoodland Cree First Nation656Cadotte Lake Indian Settlement,
Woodland Cree 226, 227, 228Other4

See also
List of Indian reserves in Alberta
List of Aboriginal communities in Canada
List of First Nations governments
List of First Nations peoples
Indian Act
Métis in Alberta

Footnotes

Sources
Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)

How many registered First Nations are there?


The following is a list of Chinese languages and dialects, many of which are mutually unintelligible.
Classification
Linguists classify these varieties as the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Within this broad classification, there are between seven and fourteen subgroups, depending on the classification.
Traditional classification
The traditional Chinese classification lists seven groups, comprising:
Guan (including Beijing and Nanjing variants)
Wu (including the Shanghainese and Suzhounese variants)
Yue (including the Cantonese and Taishanese variants)
Min (including the Hokkien and Fuzhounese variants)
Hakka (Kejia)
Xiang (Hunanese)
Gan (Jiangxinese)
(shown here with the romanized Standard Chinese names of the categories, ordered alphabetically).
Modern linguistic classification
James Matisoff's classification is as follows:
Mandarin → Jin
Wu → Huizhou
Yue → Pinghua
Min
Xiang
Hakka (Kejia)
Gan
Matisoff's list uses the common English names of the groups, ordered by decreasing number of speakers of languages within the group.
Distinction between dialects and languages
In addition to the varieties listed below, it is customary to speak informally of dialects of each province (such as Sichuan dialect and Hainan dialect). These designations do not generally correspond to classifications used by linguists, but each nevertheless has characteristics of its own.
List of dialects and languages
Gan
赣语/贛語

Mandarin
官话/官話

Hui
徽语/徽語

Sometimes subcategory of Wu.

Jin
晋语/晉語

Sometimes a subcategory of Mandarin.

Hakka
客家话/客家話

Min
闽语/閩語

Wu
吴语/吳語

Xiang
湘语/湘語

Yue
粤语/粵語

Pinghua
平话/平話

Ba-Shu
巴蜀语/巴蜀語

Other
The non-Min dialects of Hainan were once considered Yue, but are now left unclassified:

Mixed languages
In addition to the varieties within the Sinitic branch of Sino-Tibetan, a number of mixed languages also exist that comprise elements of one or more Chinese varieties with other languages.

List in the Atlas
The extensive 1987 Language Atlas of China groups Chinese topolects (geographical varieties) as follows.  Units are:
Supergroup (dàqū), of which there are but two: Mandarin and Min
Group (qū), corresponding to the varieties of Chinese of the ISO standard
Subgroup (piàn), which may be mutually unintelligible with other subgroups[4]
Cluster (xiǎopiànn), which may be mutually unintelligible with other clusters
Local dialect (diǎn), which are the dialects sampled by the Atlas
In the list below,[5] local dialects are not listed.  Groups are in bold, subgroups are numbered, and clusters are bulleted.

MANDARIN
Northeastern Mandarin
Jishen
Jiaoning
Tongxi
Yanji
Hafu
Zhaofu
Changjin
Heisong
Nenke
Jiafu
Zhanhua
Beijing Mandarin
Jingshi
Huaicheng
Chaofeng
Shike
Jilu Mandarin
Baotang
Laifu
Dingba
Tianjin
Jizun
Luanchang
Fulong
Shiji
Zhaoshen
Xingheng
Liaotai
Canghui
Huangle
Yangshou
Juzhao
Zhanghuan
Jiaoliao Mandarin
Qingzhou
Denglian
Gaihuan
Central Plains Mandarin
Zhengcao
Cailu
Luoxu
Xinbeng
Fenhe
Pingyang
Jiangzhou
Xiezhou
Guanzhong
Qinlong
Longzhong
Nanjiang
Lanyin Mandarin
Jincheng
Yinwu
Hexi
Tami
Southwestern Mandarin
Chengyu
Dianxi
Yaoli
Baolu
Qianbei
Kungui
Guanchi
Minjiang
Renfu
Yamian
Lichuan
Ebei
Wutian
Cenjiang
Qiannan
Xiangnan
Guiliu
Changhe
Jianghuai Mandarin
Hongchao
Tairu
Huangxiao
(unclassified Mandarin)
Hubeihua
Henanhua
Nanping dialect
Yangyu dialect
Junhua
Longmen dialect

Jin
Bingzhou
Lüliang
Fenzhou
Xingxi
Shangdang
Wutai
Dabao
Zhanghu
Hanxin
Cizhang
Huoji
Zhiyan
Wu
Taihu
Piling
Suhujia
Tiaoxi
Hangzhou
Linshao
Yongjiang
Taizhou
Oujiang
Wuzhou
Chuqu
Chuzhou
Longqu
Xuanzhou
Tongjin
Taigao
Shiling
Hui
Jishe
Xiuyi
Qide
Yanzhou
Jingzhan
Gan
Changjing
Yiliu
Jicha
Fuguang
Yingyi
Datong
Leizi
Dongsui
Huaiyue
Xiang
Changyi
Loushao
Jixu
Yue
Guangfu
Yongxun
Gaoyang
Siyi
Goulou
Wuhua
Qinlian
Pinghua
Guibei
Guinan
Hakka
Yuetai
Jiaying
Xinghua
Xinhui
Shaonan
Yuezhong
Huizhou
Yuebei
Tingzhou
Ninglong
Yugui
Tonggu
MIN
Southern Min
Quanzhang
Datian
Chaoshan
Teochew
Puxian
Eastern Min
Houguan
Funing
Northern Min
Central Min
Qiongwen
Fucheng
Wenchang
Wanning
Yaxian
Changgan
Leizhou
Shaojiang

Unclassified topolects
Shehua (the Chinese variety now spoken by the She people)
Danzhou dialect
Xianghua
Shaoguan Tuhua
Southern Hunan Tuhua
See also
Chinese spoken language
Chinese written language
Dialect (discussion of human)
Notes and references


Body composition may be analyzed in terms of molecular type e.g., water, protein, connective tissue, fats (or lipids), hydroxylapatite (in bones), carbohydrates (such as glycogen and glucose) and DNA. In terms of tissue type, the body may be analyzed into water, fat, muscle, bone, etc. In terms of cell type, the body contains hundreds of different types of cells, but notably, the largest number of cells contained in a human body (though not the largest mass of cells) are not human cells, but bacteria residing in the normal human gastrointestinal tract.
Elements

Almost 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Only about 0.85% is composed of another five elements: potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. All 11 are necessary for life. The remaining elements are trace elements, of which more than a dozen are thought on the basis of good evidence to be necessary for life. All of the mass of the trace elements put together (less than 10 grams for a human body) do not add up to the body mass of magnesium, the least common of the 11 non-trace elements.
Other elements
Not all elements which are found in the human body in trace quantities play a role in life. Some of these elements are thought to be simple bystander contaminants without function (examples: caesium, titanium), while many others are thought to be active toxics, depending on amount (cadmium, mercury, radioactives). The possible utility and toxicity of a few elements at levels normally found in the body (aluminium) is debated. Functions have been proposed for trace amounts of cadmium and lead, although these are almost certainly toxic in amounts very much larger than normally found in the body. There is evidence that arsenic, an element normally considered a toxin in higher amounts, is essential in ultratrace quantities, in mammals such as rats, hamsters, and goats.[1]
Some elements  (silicon, boron, nickel, vanadium) are probably needed by mammals also, but in far smaller doses. Bromine is used abundantly by some (though not all) lower organisms, and opportunistically in eosinophils in humans. One study has found bromine to be necessary to collagen IV synthesis in humans.[2] Fluorine is used by a number of plants to manufacture toxins (see that element) but in humans only functions as a local (topical) hardening agent in tooth enamel, and not in an essential biological role.[3]
Elemental composition list

The average 70kg (150lb) adult human body contains approximately 7×1027 atoms and contains at least detectable traces of 60 chemical elements.[4] About 29 of these elements are thought to play an active positive role in life and health in humans.[5]
The relative amounts of each element vary by individual, mainly due to differences in the proportion of fat, muscle and bone in their body. Persons with more fat will have a higher proportion of carbon and a lower proportion of most other elements (the proportion of hydrogen will be about the same).
The numbers in the table are averages of different numbers reported by different references.
The adult human body averages ~53% water. This varies substantially by age, sex, and adiposity. In a large sample of adults of all ages and both sexes, the figure for water fraction by weight was found to be 48 ±6% for females and 58 ±8% water for males.[6] Water is ~11% hydrogen by mass but ~67% hydrogen by atomic percent, and these numbers along with the complementary % numbers for oxygen in water, are the largest contributors to overall mass and atomic composition figures. Because of water content, the human body contains more oxygen by mass than any other element, but more hydrogen by atom-fraction than any element.
The elements listed below as "Essential in humans" are those listed by the (US) Food and Drug Administration as essential nutrients,[7] as well as six additional elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen (the fundamental building blocks of life on Earth), sulfur (essential to all cells) and cobalt (a necessary component of vitamin B12). Elements listed as "Possibly" or "Probably" essential are those cited by the National Research Council (United States) as beneficial to human health and possibly or probably essential.[8]

*Iron = ~3 g in men, ~2.3 g in women
Of the 94 naturally occurring chemical elements, 60 are listed in the table above. Of the remaining 34, it is not known how many occur in the human body.
Most of the elements needed for life are relatively common in the Earth's crust. Aluminium, the third most common element in the Earth's crust (after oxygen and silicon), serves no function in living cells, but is harmful in large amounts.[30] Transferrins can bind aluminium.[31]
Periodic table

Nutritional elements in the periodic tableHHeLiBeBCNOFNeNaMgAlSiPSClArKCaScTiVCrMnFeCoNiCuZnGaGeAsSeBr
KrRbSrYZrNbMoTcRuRhPdAgCdInSnSbTeIXeCsBaLa*HfTaWReOsIrPtAuHgTlPbBiPoAtRnFrRaAc**RfDbSgBhHsMtDsRgCnNhFlMcLvTsOg*CePrNdPmSmEuGdTbDyHoErTmYbLu**ThPaUNpPuAmCmBkCfEsFmMdNoLr

The four basic organic elementsQuantity elementsEssential trace elementsDeemed essential trace element by U.S., not by European UnionSuggested function from deprivation effects or active metabolic handling, but no clearly-identified biochemical function in humansLimited circumstantial evidence for trace benefits or biological action in mammalsNo evidence for biological action in mammals, but essential in some lower organisms.
(In the case of lanthanum, the definition of an essential nutrient as being indispensable and irreplaceable is not completely applicable due to the extreme similarity of the lanthanides. Thus Ce, Pr, and Nd may be substituted for La without ill effects for organisms using La, and the smaller Sm, Eu, and Gd may also be similarly substituted but cause slower growth.)
Molecules
The composition of the human body is expressed in terms of chemicals:
Water
Proteins – including those of hair, connective tissue, etc.
Fats (or lipids)
Hydroxylapatite in bones
Carbohydrates such as glycogen and glucose
DNA
Dissolved inorganic ions such as sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, phosphate
Gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, methanethiol. These may be dissolved or present in the gases in the lungs or intestines. Ethane and pentane are produced by oxygen free radicals.[32]
Many other small molecules, such as amino acids, fatty acids, nucleobases, nucleosides, nucleotides, vitamins, cofactors.
Free radicals such as superoxide, hydroxyl, and hydroperoxyl.
The composition of the human body can be viewed on an atomic and molecular scale as shown in this article.
The estimated gross molecular contents of a typical 20-micrometre human cell is as follows:[33]

Tissues
Body composition can also be expressed in terms of various types of material, such as:
Muscle
Fat
Bone and teeth
Nervous tissue (Brain and nerves)
Hormones
Connective tissue
Body fluids (blood, lymph, Urine)
Contents of digestive tract, including intestinal gas
Air in lungs
Epithelium
Composition by cell type

There are many species of bacteria and other microorganisms that live on or inside the healthy human body. In fact, 90% of the cells in (or on) a human body are microbes, by number[34][35] (much less by mass or volume). Some of these symbionts are necessary for our health. Those that neither help nor harm humans are called commensal organisms.
See also
List of organs of the human body
Hydrostatic weighing
Dietary element
Composition of blood
List of human blood components
Body composition
Abundance of elements in Earth's crust
Abundance of the chemical elements

How many atoms are there in the average human being?