northwest Europe. In the 18th century around a thousand mills were standing alongside the banks of the River Zaan, near the trading centre of Amsterdam. They were used to process timber, flour and paper, and

Sevan-Hrasdan Cascade, a chain of seven power plants fed by water from Lake Sevan and the Hrasdan River. At the same time, urgently needed irrigation canals for agriculture were built. Moscow intensified [...] power plants, the construction of an almost 50-kilometre-long tunnel bringing water from the Arpa River began. In 1980, the Metsamor nuclear power plant went into operation. Nevertheless, the country remained

the biggest industries in Belarus? Grodno. Bridge of Saint Petersburg-Warsow Railway crossing Neman river Belarus was a union republic of the 'Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)', which was dissoluted

stock exchange was opened as early as 1531, a model for London and Amsterdam. In addition, the great rivers Meuse and Scheldt facilitated the transport of goods and efficient agriculture provided the large

and specific character. The history of beer Mesopotamia, the area between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, is considered to be the place that gave the world beer. As early as around 7000 BC, the Sumerians

established: new railways linked the centres of Bohemia and Moravia with Vienna, traffic on the Elbe River grew and exports to Austria, Germany and the less-industrialised neighbouring countries to the east

toxins that collected in rivers and deposited on plants. While contemporaries had long been blind to air pollution, by the end of the 19th century the stench and discolouration of rivers and the damage to forestry [...] economic crises hampered research into environmental degradation, let alone the fight against it. In the rivers of Europe's mining and industrial regions, whether the Tawe in Wales, the Rio Tinto in Spain or the

Narva in 1857, whose cotton spinning and weaving machinery was driven by the waterfalls of the Narova River. With workers’ housing, schools, etc., the plant gradually developed into a full-fledged industrial

German steel group Krupp invested in mining the rich manganese deposits in the gorge of the Kvirila River. This spawned the mining town of Chiatura. Silk production developed from an agricultural trade to [...] power began in 1927 with the hydroelectric plant in Avchala, near Tbilisi; the plant on the Rioni River near the expanding industrial city of Kutaisi went into operation in 1933. In order to expand the

connection – was completed in 1847. Up till then the River Emscher still contained fish and crabs and the occasional windmill turned lazily along river banks that were full of reeds. All around was a thinly [...] railway network expanded and the population in the area exploded. The rivers were straightened up and lined with concrete: the River Emscher in particular was officially destined to conduct waste industrial [...] the wild flowers and mountain plants [and the] Sabbath stillness". Then coalmining arrived and the River Rhondda became "a dark, turgid, and contaminated gutter [ ]. The hills have been stripped of their

The network of roads was expanded, and in 1756 the Grand Canal was opened, linking Dublin with the River Shannon, the north-south axis of the island. Belfast developed into a centre for trade, attracting

only reached the level of British industry in the 19th century. The Belgian iron region around the rivers Sambre and Maas received a boost in 1827 when the first coke furnace went into action in Charleroi

potential of the Alps: the Edison Company built the largest hydroelectric plant in Europe on the Adda river near Paderno. Machine tool companies and cement works emerged, and the electrical and chemical industries

continental border runs from the mountains of the Urals through western Kazakhstan along the Ural River to the Caspian Sea. Historically, the nomadic country, in whose soils lie an abundance of raw materials [...] help of foreign investors, the "black gold" was extracted on a large scale between the Ural and Emba rivers. Russia also became involved in railway construction - not least for strategic reasons: from 1904

became a leading financial and administrative centre there were textile factories on the banks of the River Alzette. As so often these were the forerunners of industrialisation. In 1828 the Godchaux brothers [...] Collieries were set up, above all by Belgian firms, and the quiet villages in the valley of the River Korn were transformed into working class housing estates. A new railway line was built to transport

production of building materials. Therefore, especially in the heartland between the Pruth and Dniester rivers in today's Republic of Moldova, the conditions for industrialisation were poor and the population

stretch lies a few kilometres north of Podgorica: a viaduct that crosses the gorge of the Mala Rijeka river at a height of 198 metres. It was recognised as the highest railway bridge in the world until Chinese

Southeast Europe’s main transit routes passes right through the middle of the country: the Vardar River valley continues northward into the Ibar valley in Kosovo and the Morava valley in Serbia. To the

Scheduled passenger and freight services developed on the Danube. Thanks to its location on the river and its proximity to the metropolis of Vienna, Bratislava gradually developed into an urban centre

where backward agriculture dominated. Spain remained an agrarian country with a high emigration rate, riven by social divisions which ultimately exploded in 1936 in a bitterly fought civil war that stifled