Vistula’s mileage

While walking or swimming along Warsaw’s Vistula, on its banks and on the anti-flood dykes we will see white plaques with three digit numbers engraved on them starting with “497” on the left bank of the Vistula, at Kępa Zawadowski. It is Vistula’s mileage. However, the number “497” does not mean that we are so many kilometres from the river’s source or its mouth. It is the distance dividing the place that was considered to be the beginning of Vistula’s navigable route, that is, from the mouth of the Przemsza River to the Vistula, where there is “0 km”. There is a navigable route on a stretch at about 125 km upriver from that sign. And downriver, there is Vistula’s navigable route up to its mouth to Zatoka Gdańska (Gdańsk Bay) at 942 km.
When we wander or sail with the Warsaw Vistula’s current, its mileage increases. At the level of the Old Town above the Vistula, on the left bank, where today there is a water tram stop, we will see a plaque with “514 km”. The spots where a plaque with “514 km” has been placed on the left riverbank and the plaque with “529 km” on the right riverbank can be considered to be ‘the end’ of
Warsaw’s Vistula.