The Fulda is a river that flows through Hesse and Lower Saxony. It is one of the two sources of the Weser. It is 220,4 km long. The river rises at Wasserkuppe in the Rhön mountains in Hesse. From there it flows north-east, flanked by the Knüll mountains to the west and the Seulingswald to the east. At Bebra it changes direction to the north-west. After joining the Eder, it flows due north to Kassel, then changes direction to the north-east, passing through the Kaufungen forest to the east and the beginning of the Reinhardswald forest to the north-west. At the northern end the river meets the Werra in the Lower Saxon Hannoversch Münden, where the Fulda and Werra join to form the Weser.
River flows through the towns of Gersfeld, Bad Hersfeld, Bebra, Rotenburg an der Fulda, Melsungen, Kassel.
The 32 km of the river from the confluence with the Werra to above Kassel are among the waterways used for transport. The remaining 77 km up to the Mecklar are used for other inland waterways. At the beginning of the 20th century the Fulda was to become part of a large canal system. It was therefore planned to build a waterway from the North or Baltic Sea to the Black Sea (via the Weser, Fulda, Kinzig, Main and Danube rivers). In some places, tunnels up to 8 km long were planned to run under low mountain ranges. In Bergshausen (about 10 km south-east of Kassel), the construction of a dam was even started and later abandoned.
