The river of Dnepr, c.1,430 miles (2,300 km) long, in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Known as Borysthenes to the ancients, the river was (9th-11th cent.) a commercial route for the Vikings, Slavs, and Byzantines.

One of the longest rivers in Europe and the main river of Ukraine, it rises in the Valdai Hills, West of Moscow. It flows generally southwards past Smolensk, through Belarus, past Mogilev, then through Ukraine, past Kiev, Cherkasy, Kremenchug, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhie (site of the Dneprohes dam), Nikopol, and Kherson into the Black Sea. Between Kremenchug and Nikopol the Dnepr makes a vast bend to the east. It is.

Since the construction (1932) of the Dneproges dam the Dnepr is navigable for virtually its entire course. Its tributaries include the Berezina, the Pripyat, and the Inhulets from the west and the Sozh, the Desna, the Orel, and the Samara from the east. The Dnepr is linked by canal with the Western Bug.

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