Don (Russian Federation)

Navigable river in the western Russian Federation; length 1,870 km/1,162 mi; basin covers 422,000 sq km/163,000 sq mi. The Don rises in the central Russian uplands near the city of Tula, flows southeast towards the Volga near Volgograd, then turns southwest to empty into the northeast of the Sea of Azov. In its lower reaches the Don is 1.5 km/1 mi wide, and for about four months of the year it is closed by ice. It has long been a major traffic artery linking inland European Russia with the Black Sea. Its chief tributaries are the Donets, Voronezh, Khoper, and Medveditsa, and it is linked to the Volga by the Volga–Don Canal. The main port is Rostov-on-Don, which lies near the river's mouth.

From the 16th century, the Don basin was colonized by Cossacks, and remained their principal settlement area until the Russian Civil War.