Donauinseln: Danubian Island of the year 2023

13 October 2023

Danubian Island of the year 2023

This is the 11th time the Donauinseln blog announces the traditional poll for the Danubian Island of the year!

You can vote for the three nominated islands between 13th October and 30st December 2023!

MAGYARUL

Last year's winner: The Prímás Island at Esztergom, Hungary

The aim of this contest is to focus attention on the often unknown islands of the Danube. Most of you probably visited the Seychelle Islands before any Danubian Island. This is the ninth poll, and we are happy we have started a tradition and more and more people will learn about these islands across the World.

The winners so far (you might noticed, this is a Hungary-based blog):

2013. Kompkötő Island, Vác

2014. Helemba Island, Esztergom

2015. Kismarosi Island, Kismaros

2016. Szalki Island, Dunaújváros

2017. Csallóköz/Žitný ostrov, Slovakia

2018. Molnár Island, Soroksár, Budapest

2019. The Great Island of Rácalmás

2020. Kerekzátony Island, Ráckeve

2021. The Island of Mohács, Hungary

2022. Prímás Island, Esztergom

This year, a long-planned change to the voting process has been introduced. For 10 years, readers could nominate two of the three islands to be joined by the blog's candidate in the final vote. As the majority of the blog's readers live along the Esztergom-Dunaújváros stretch of the river, the islands here have become over-represented, and often the same islands have been competing we've seen in the past. From this year, we present you the three candidates, representing one existing island, one disappeared island and one island beyond Hungary's borders.

We present the candidates in alphabetical order, which is also the reverse order of the river's flowing direction:

The island of Bár lies on the Hungarian stretch of the Danube between Baja and Mohács. Its speciality is its diverse fauna, which is derived from the area's wide variety of wetland types. This landscape has been created and is being destroyed by anthropogen impacts. A tributary of the island was closed by a stone dyke, that is why its side-arm is constantly being filled-up, and since the 1970s several hectares of floodplain forest have grown up on the sand banks. In the meantime, what is left of the island on the main branch is gradually dying, with erosion processes characterised by impassable banks and waterlogged trees. The area belongs to the Danube-Drava National Park.

Southern tip of the Bár Island

The Island of Bár in 1968, during low-water (fentrol.hu)

There is almost no trace of Gubacsi Island in Soroksár. Only those who know what they are looking for will find remaining traces of the island, despite the fact that the island, named after the nearby Árpád village, existed less than a century and a half ago. Its fate was sealed by the closure of the Soroksár Danube in 1871, its tributary drying up as a result of the water level descending in the northern section, which over time has been eroded by agriculture and a clay mine for brick-making. What makes it special is that it is now a veritable urban jungle in the Wild West sense of the word.

About what is left of Gubacsi Island in Budapest

The Gubacsi Island right before its disappearence (1880. mapire.eu).

The island of Mitterau, also known as Ledererhaufen, near Wallsee in Austria, is a pseudo-optical illusion to look for in old and present-day photographs. If you want to identify the island from an aerial photograph taken in 1930, today's best guess would be the island next to the Wallsee-Mitterkirchen hydroelectric power station. However, this island has since been extensively reshaped and is located directly opposite side of the Wallsee castle. However, the river has been creating new reefs and removing old islands on this once very braided section. Mitterau/Ledererhaufen was finally connected to the opposite left bank by river regulation, and since then nature has largely forested the sediment deposited in the closed tributary.