Guadiana River
| Guadiana River | |
| Rio Guadiana | |
 The River Guadiana in the area around Serpa, Portugal
|
|
| Name origin: Arabic derivative of Wadi Ana, meaning River Ana | |
| Countries | Portugal, Spain |
|---|---|
| Tributaries | |
| - left | |
| - right | |
| Source | Ojos del Guadiana |
| - location | Villarrubia de los Ojos, Castile–La Mancha, Spain |
| - elevation | 608 m (1,995 ft) |
| - coordinates | 39°7′36″N 3°43′36″W / 39.12667°N 3.72667°W |
| Mouth | Gulf of Cádiz |
| - location | Vila Real de Santo António, Algarve, Portugal |
| - elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| - coordinates | 37°10′12″N 7°23′37″W / 37.17000°N 7.39361°WCoordinates: 37°10′12″N 7°23′37″W / 37.17000°N 7.39361°W |
| Length | 818 km (508 mi) |
| Depth | 17 m (56 ft) |
| Basin | 67,733 km2 (26,152 sq mi) |
| Discharge | |
| - average | 600 m3/s (21,189 cu ft/s) |
| - max | 1,500 m3/s (52,972 cu ft/s) |
| - min | 20 m3/s (706 cu ft/s) |
 About 83 percent, 55,000 square kilometres (21,000 sq mi), of the River Guadiana watershed is in Spain; the rest is in Portugal
|
|
The Guadiana River (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡwaˈðjana], Portuguese: [ɡwɐðiˈɐ̃nɐ]), or Odiana, is an international river defining a long stretch of the Portugal-Spain border, separating Extremadura and Andalucia (Spain) from Alentejo and Algarve (Portugal). The river's basin extends from the eastern portion of Extremadura to the southern provinces of the Algarve; the river and its tributaries flow from east to west, then south through Portugal to the border towns of Vila Real de Santo António (Portugal) and Ayamonte (Spain), where it flows into the Gulf of Cádiz. With a course that covers a distance of 829 kilometres (515 mi), it is the fourth-longest in the Iberian peninsula, and its hydrological basin extends over an area of approximately 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi) (the majority of which lies within Spain).
The Romans referred to the river as the Flumen Anas, the river of ducks. During the Moorish occupation and settlement, the name was extended and referred to as Wadi Ana (wadi being the Arab term for river), later passed on to Portuguese and Spanish settlers as the Ouadiana, and later just Odiana. Since the 16th century, due to Castilian influences, the name has slowly evolved to take on the form Guadiana, a cognitive variation that developed from many Moorish-Arab river place-names using the prefix guad (such as the rivers Guadalquivir, Guadalete, Guadalajara or Guadarrama).
...
Wikipedia