Tisza River, Romanian, Russian, and Serbian Tisa, a major tributary of the middle Danube River, rising in the Bukovina segment of the Carpathian Mountains. Its two headstreams, the Black and White Tisza, unite east of Sighet on the Ukraine-Romania border. From Sighet, Romania, the Tisza flows northwest through a small portion of Ukraine and then into Hungary. It then flows in a great northward loop to where the Slovak, Ukrainian, and Hungarian frontiers converge near Chop, Ukraine. The Tisza continues southwest through Hungary to Szolnok; then it cuts southward across the Great Alfold, paralleling the Danube, which it joins 28 miles (45 km) north of Belgrade, Serbia, after a meandering course (largely canalized) of 600 miles (966 km). Its drainage area is 60,690 square miles (157,186 square km).
The Tisza in its mountain course is a clear, rapid stream; the lack of an extensive lake system in the Carpathians to steady the seasonal runoff explains the spectacular contrast between its maximum and minimum levels and results in three annual floods—in early spring, early summer, and fall. When high water in the Tisza meets similar conditions in the Danube, the Tisza flows back into its own course, causing severe flooding. Such a coincidence destroyed Szeged, Hungary, in the spring of 1879; dikes were subsequently built to protect the city. Regulation of the river was begun in the second half of the 19th century, and there are 2,400 miles (3,860 km) of flood-control levees along its course. The main east-bank tributaries are the Szamos, Körös, and Maros (Romanian Someș, Criș, Mureș); on the west bank are the Bodrog and the Sajó. The Tiszalök Dam (1954) on the river’s upper course forms the largest reservoir in Hungary, provides hydroelectric power, and, with the Eastern Main Canal linking the Tisza and the Berettyö to the Körös, supplies year-round irrigation water to the Hajdúság and Hortobágy plains. The Tisza is navigable for river boats for about 200 miles (320 km) up to Szolnok, and for smaller craft almost to the Hungary-Slovakia border. Szolnok, Csongrád, and Szeged rank as river ports. A canal in Serbia links the Tisza with the Danube before their natural confluence.