The German Thaya or Austrian Thaya is a river in Lower Austria

Lower Austria

Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...

.

The river originates southwest of Schweiggers

Schweiggers

Schweiggers is a municipality in the district of Zwettl, in Lower Austria, Austria....

 at an altitude of 657.5 meters. First, it flows in north-easterly direction to the village of Vitis

Vitis

Vitis is a genus of about 60 species of vining plants in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The genus is made up of species predominantly from the Northern hemisphere. It is economically important as the source of grapes, both for direct consumption of the fruit and for fermentation to produce...

, where it is joined by the left tributary Jaudlingbach. It flows further eastward to Schwarzenau

Schwarzenau, Lower Austria

Schwarzenau is a market town in the District Zwettl, in Lower Austria, Austria. It has 1,591 inhabitants and covers 28.12 square kilometers. Schwarzenau is located on the German Thaya....

 and gradually turns to the north, zig-zagging through Waidhofen

Waidhofen an der Thaya

Waidhofen an der Thaya is an Austrian town, with a population of 5,750 as of the 2001 census. Located on the German Thaya river in the district of the same name in Lower Austria and is the northernmost of the capitals of the Districts of Austria....

, Thaya

Thaya, Austria

Thaya is a municipality in the district of Waidhofen an der Thaya in Lower Austria, Austria....

, and Dobersberg

Dobersberg

Dobersberg is a municipality in the district of Waidhofen an der Thaya in Lower Austria, Austria....

. Then it turns to the east and southeast, flowing through Karlstein

Karlstein an der Thaya

Karlstein an der Thaya is a municipality in the district of Waidhofen an der Thaya in Lower Austria, Austria....

 and Raabs an der Thaya

Raabs an der Thaya

Raabs an der Thaya is a municipality with 3,114 inhabitants in Waidhofen an der Thaya in the Waldviertel of Lower Austria, near the Austrian border with the Czech Republic. The area of the municipality is 134.65 square kilometers, 27.6% of which is forested.The German Thaya and the Moravian Thaya...

, where it joins the Moravian Thaya

Moravian Thaya

The Moravian Thaya is a river in the Czech Republic and in Austria, and a left tributary of the Thaya.The Moravian Thaya originates about southeast of Třešť near the village of Stajiště. From there it flows southward through or near the communities of Bezděkov, Panenská Rozsíčka, Urbanov, Žatec,...

.

From here the unified Thaya

Thaya

The Thaya is a river in Central Europe, tributary to the Morava River. It is about 235 km long and meanders from west to east in the border area between Lower Austria and South Moravia , but does not exactly follow the border in most parts...

 flows generally eastward into the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

.

Trivia

Eduard Mörike

Eduard Mörike

Eduard Friedrich Mörike was a German Romantic poet.-Biography:Mörike was born in Ludwigsburg. His father was Karl Friedrich Mörike , a district medical councilor; his mother was Charlotte Bayer...

's 1856 novella Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag (Mozart on the trip to Prague) mentions the German Thaya, claiming that Mozart and his wife crossed it on September 14, 1787 (see Mozart in fiction

Mozart in fiction

The celebrated composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart led a life that was dramatic in many respects, including his extraordinary career as a child prodigy, his struggles to achieve personal independence and establish a career, his brushes with financial disaster, and his somewhat mysterious death in the...

).

Despite its name, no part of the river is in Germany

Germany

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 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.