Komárom

Komárom sits on the right bank at kilometre 1768.35, 1.3 kilometres upstream of the Slovak town of Komárno. The Danube water level at Komárom is read on a gauge whose zero lies at 103.88 metres; on 24 October 2026, at 08:00, the water stood at 2 centimetres, or 103.90 metres, with 758 cubic metres per second going through. The defence marks are 500, 620 and 680 centimetres, the navigation figures 91 and 555.

A Town Cut in Two by a Treaty

Today's Komárom is the southern half of a split town. In 1896 northern Komárom and the village of Újszőny merged, and since 1892 an iron bridge had linked the two banks. The Treaty of Trianon, signed on 4 June 1920, moved the border onto the Danube: the northern half became Komárno, the southern one stayed Hungarian. The fortifications, begun in the 16th century and finished in the 1870s, were the largest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On the Hungarian bank stands Fort Monostor, built between 1850 and 1871, later a Soviet ammunition depot and today a museum.

Two Bridges Over the River

Two bridges cross the Danube. The Elisabeth Bridge, 415 metres and four spans, opened on 1 September 1892; its two central spans were blown up in March 1945 and rebuilt in 1946, and renovation followed in 2005–2006. Its limit is 20 tonnes. The Monostor Bridge, 622.69 metres, opened on 17 September 2020 at kilometre 1770.57 and pulled heavy traffic out of the town centres.

The Low Water of 2026 and the Neighbour

In June 2013 the Danube climbed to 845 centimetres, the highest figure on this gauge. July 2026 brought the opposite: at 10 centimetres seven cruise ships stayed put and their passengers were bussed to Budapest. On 9 September 2026 the water fell to minus 34 centimetres, the lowest of the series, and on 24 October the gauge read 2 centimetres, far under the normal for the day. The Slovak bank, 1.3 kilometres away, has its own zero, 103.35 metres, and its own marks, 600, 640 and 710, so Komárno, on the far bank cannot be compared with Komárom directly. At Komárno, the mouth of the Váh reaches the Danube at kilometre 1766, about two kilometres below the Hungarian gauge. Downstream, 49 kilometres along, Štúrovo, 49 kilometres marks the border with Hungary.