A Bridge Too Far

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million... inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields. A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Age, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire.
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The Rhine is a river that flows from Grisons in the eastern Swiss Alps to the North Sea coast in the Netherlands and is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at about 1,233 km , with an average discharge of more than 2,000 m/s . The Rhine and the Danube formed most of... the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days, the Rhine has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. It has also served as a defensive feature and has been the basis for regional and international borders. The many castles and prehistoric fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway. River traffic could be stopped at these locations, usually for the purpose of collecting tolls, by the state that controlled that portion of the river. The English name of the Rhine derives from Old English Rīn, which descends from Proto-Germanic *Rīnaz. This is also the source of the name in the other Germanic languages such as Dutch Rijn , German Rhein, Romansh Rain and also French Rhin and Spanish Rin, which came into the language through Old Frankish.
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Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has almost 150,000 residents as one of... the larger cities of the Netherlands. The municipality is part of the city region Arnhem-Nijmegen, a metropolitan area with 736,500 inhabitants. Arnhem is home to the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen and ArtEZ Institute of the Arts. Arnhem was first mentioned as such in 893 as Arneym or Arentheym, referring to the many eagles that inhabited the hills and forests of Arnhem back then. Traces of human residence date back much further, however. The oldest archeological findings of human activity around Arnhem are two firestones of about 70,000 years ago. This comes from the stone age, when the Neanderthals lived in this part of Europe. In Schuytgraaf, tracks of a hunter's camp have been discovered from around 5000 BC.
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