Cinca River (Aragon)

Catchment area of ​​the Cinca

Upper reaches of the Cinca in the Valle de Pineta

The Cinca (Spanish: Río Cinca ) is 170 km, the longest tributary of the Segre, in northeastern Spain.

It rises in the Spanish Pyrenees, near the French border area in the national park Ordesa y Monte Perdido. Several waterfalls of msnm with 3355 third-highest Pyrenees mountain Monte Perdido supply the cirque lake Lago Tucarroyal whose outflow marks the beginning of the river.

The Cinca first flows through the Valle de Pineta to the southeast, taking in the further course of many mountain streams of the Pyrenees foothills Sierra Marqués, Sierra de las Sucas, Suerra de Chia, Sierra Sardanera and Sierra Ferrera on and constrained by the Cañon Desfiladero de las Desvoltas.

After passing through the small town of Ainsa, at the mouth of the River Ara, the flow to the Embalse de Mediano expands (about 10 km long and 2 km wide), whose dam uses the narrowness of the Desfiladero de Entremón. Just a few kilometers downstream of the Cinca is jammed again. The reservoir Embalse de El Grado is about 15 km long and serves the flood protection and drinking water. The channels Canal de Aragón y Cataluña and Canal del Cinca branch off from El Grado reservoir and ensure the irrigation of agricultural crops in the more arid tracts of land between Huesca, Barbastro and Lleida.

Near the town is the area Barbastro flat, the Cinca flows in a wider, largely untreated bed. South of the city Fraga is the Cinca on the last kilometers before it joins the Segre ( which in turn after a short distance into the Ebro flows ) the border between the autonomous regions of Aragon and Catalonia.

After the Cinca river districts Bajo Cinca ( Niederer Cinca ) and Cinca Medio (Middle Cinca ) are named.