"Tulcea - the gateway to the mirific... " a Tulcea Travel Page by codrutz

Oddly enough, the Danube Delta (UNESCO Heritage) isn't listed as a touristic destination on VT. Hopefully. after I'll finish my pages and talk to the VT guys I will manage to transfer this to its own location.

The Danube, springs from Germany and it gathers all the tributary streams from 10 countries and crosses 4 capital cities. After covering 2860 km and before following into the Black Sea, it forms a delta. Related to the surface of Romania, the Danube Delta is situated in the Southeastern part of the country, it has the shape of the Greek letter "delta" and it is bordered in the Southwestern part by Dobrogea Plateau, in the Northern part by the Ukrainian border and in the Eastern part by the Black Sea.

The Danube Delta is crossed by the parallel latitude of 45š North and by the meridian longitude of 29š East.
Its surface, together with the complex of lagoons Razim-Sinoe measures 5050 kmē; from which 732 kmē belong to Ukraine. Delta alone has a surface of 2540 kmē and this surface increases every year with 40 m because of the 67 million tones of alluvial deposits brought by the river.

The Danube Delta, a buffering interface between the Danube river catchment (805, 300 sq. km and the Western Black Sea (5,165 sq. km) is a unique place not only in Europe, but also among other deltaic ecosystems due to its high biodiversity, to its renewable natural resources and to its beautiful scenery doubled by its cultural sites remnants and worth. The Danube Delta is a large scientific laboratory for a whole range of research-workers and explorers, whether ecologists, biologists, botanists, zoologists, ornithologists, geologists, geographers etc. as it is singles out by being:
* the youngest land in Europe (it grows larger by 40 m of land every year);
* the second largest delta in Europe (Volga is the first) and the 23rd in the world;
* the third in ecological significance among the 300 reserves of the world;
* a highly productive area generating a large range of biological resources;
* one of the largest and most compact reed areas in the world (240,000 ha);
* a place with the richest ornithological fauna in the world (over 250 species);
* a combination of natural and man-made ecosystems and ecotones, i.e. fresh water, sea water, terrestrial ecotones, running and stagnant waters, marshes, easily flooded zones, river levees, maritime levees, reclamation zones for agriculture, pisciculture, forestry etc.. In the Danube Delta there are islands of old forests with subtropical species of vegetation rare for this part of the world placed between 45 degrees latitude north and 29 degrees longitude east, at half-distance between the Equator and the North Pole;
* the most important wetland area in South Eastern Europe, with a significant role to the regional and global water cycle;
* an area of highest diversity with insects, birds and fishes and a crossroads for migratory birds;
* a place where globally endangered and therefore rare species of birds are to be found, like Dalmatian pelicans, pygmy cormorants, red-breasted geese, or the Pelecanus crispus, the Pelecanus onocratslus, Egretta alba, Egretta garzeta.
* a zone of fisheries covering some 90 species of fresh, brackish and salt water fishes, whether sedentary or migratory, among which rare species like the Acipenseriadae;
* one of the fewest places in the world which shelter mammals like Mustella lutreola and the otter (Lutra lutra).