Pripyat River Information & Pripyat River Links at HealthHaven.com

Pripyat River
Origin	Ukraine
Mouth	Dnieper
Basin countries	Ukraine, Belarus
Length	710 km (440 mi)
Source elevation
Avg. discharge
Basin area

The Pripyat River or Prypiat River (Ukrainian: Прип’ять, pronounced [ˈprɪpjɑtʲ]; Belarusian: Прыпяць, Prypiać, [ˈprɨpʲatsʲ]; Polish: Prypeć, [ˈprɨpɛtɕ]; Russian: Припять, [ˈpripjatʲ]) is a river in Eastern Europe, of approximately 710 km (440 mi) length. It flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and Ukraine again, draining into the Dnieper.

The Pripyat passes through the Zone of alienation around the Chernobyl reactor, where the nuclear disaster happened. Therefore it transported and still transports radionuclides downstream. The concentration of caesium-137 is still increasing in dredges and has not been reduced in the river sediments.

The city of Prypiat, Ukraine (population 45,000) was completely evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster.

Pripyat River at Mazyr, Belarus

[edit] Name etymology

Map displaying the passage of the river through southern Belarus through the cities of Mazyr, Pinsk and Brest.

There are three possible reasons for the name:-

The part of the word "Pri" literally means "near" which in the local context translates to being "near the river's mouth", as well as "pyat" means "5", derived from the Russian language. This river has a confluence with 5 other rivers.^{[citation needed]}

The Prypiat River is heavly used by Belarusian and Ukrainian container vessels.

It might derive from the local word pripech used for a sandy bank river.^[1]
From a Western-Baltic name Preipente "the river at (till) the spurs"^{[citation needed]}, the Pripyat river being very shallow in the area inhabited by Western Balts.