page_title: European watershed
section_title: Atlantic—Mediterranean
hierarchical_section_title: European watershed / Course / Atlantic—Mediterranean
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Autoroute A36, Wasserscheide Français&#160;: Autoroute A36, Ligne de partage des eaux English: Autoroute A36, watershed between North Sea and Mediterranean Sea
context_page_description: The main European watershed is the drainage divide which separates the basins of the rivers that empty into the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea from those that feed the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. It stretches from the tip of the Iberian Peninsula at Gibraltar in the southwest to the endorheic basin of the Caspian Sea in Russia in the northeast.
context_section_description: The Watershed runs northwards through Spain in the Iberian Peninsula towards the Bay of Biscay along the basins of Guadalquivir, Guadiana, Tagus and Douro in the west to the sources of the Ebro in Cantabria. It then follows the main ridge of the Pyrenees eastwards up to Andorra, where it again turns to the north through France along the catchment areas of Garonne (with the summit of the Canal du Midi at Seuil de Naurouze), Loire and Seine in the west and that of the Rhone in the east, marked by the Cévennes mountain range between the sources of the Allier and Ardèche tributaries. 
  At the Belfort Gap south of the Vosges Mountains it separates the Rhone basin in the southwest from the drainage of Meuse and Rhine in the northeast, turns southwards to the Swiss Jura Mountains and passes between Lake Geneva and Lake Neuchâtel. It reaches the Bernese Alps where it crosses the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn, at 4,274 m the high point of the watershed, before dropping to the Grimselpass, rising to the Dammastock before crossing the Furkapass and joining the Alpine divide near the Witenwasserenstock, the triple watershed of the Rhone, Rhine and Po rivers. East of here it crosses the Gotthard Pass and runs  along the Adula Alps until it reaches the tripoint of the Rhine, Po and Danube basins at the "roof of Europe" near Piz Lunghin west of the Maloja Pass.
caption: Atlantic—Mediterranean watershed marker between Belfort and Mulhouse on the A36 autoroute
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