River mouth Rur Length 54 km Source High Fens Country Germany | River system River Rur (Roer River) Source elevation 400 m Mouth Rur | |
 | ||
Main source Hautes Fagnes
±400 m (1,300 ft) | ||
The River Inde is a small river in Belgium, and in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany.
Contents
Map of Inde, Germany
Geography
The Inde is a left (western) tributary of the River Rur (Roer River), in eastern Belgium and in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany.
Its source is near Raeren, in Eastern Belgium. The Inde runs through Aachen-Kornelimünster, Eschweiler, and Inden. Its mouth is on the River Rur near Jülich. Because of lignite opencast mining, a section of the course was diverted near Inden-Lamersdorf in 2003 .
Tributaries of the Inde include the streams: Omerbach, Otterbach, Saubach, Vichtbach, and Wehebach.
History
Its name is of Celtic origin: Inda. The Inde has a counterpart, a "small Inde", in France: the Andelle, which is a 55-kilometre (34 mi) long river in the French département Seine-Maritime and whose original name was Indella.
The suffix -ella is an example for Celtic river names comparing for instance Mosella (= Moselle, i.e. "small Mosa (= Maas)"). For the name "Inde", the Indoeuropean stem *wed (= water) is supposed, like in words like Italian "onda" and French "onde" (= wave).
The River Inde acquired historical importance when Emperor Louis the Pious founded the Kornelimünster Abbey monastery along one of its old courses in 815.