In ancient timesthe river was known as Dravus or Draus in Latin, and Δράβος in Greek. Medieval attestations of the name include Dravis, Drauva, Drauus, Trauum, and Trah. The name is pre-Roman and pre-Celtic, but probably of Indo-European origin, from the root *dreu̯- 'flow'. The river gives its name to the dravite species of tourmaline.
Geography
The Drava and the Spöl are the only two rivers originating in Italy that belong to the Danube drainage basin. Its main left tributaries are the , the Möll, the , the Gurk and the Lavant in Austria, and the Mur near Legrad at the Croatian–Hungarian border. Its main right tributaries are the Gail in Austria, the Meža and Dravinja in Slovenia, and the Bednja in Croatia.
The Drava sources are located at the drainage divide between the market town of Innichen and neighbouring Toblach in the west, where the Rienz River rises, a tributary of the Adige. At Innichen itself the 16+ km, originating near the Sextener Rotwand, joins the ~2 km long source creek. The river than flows eastwards and after 8 kilometres crosses into East Tyrol in Austria. At Lienz it flows into the, sourced from the glaciers of the Venediger and Glockner Groups. The Isel is almost three times larger than the Drava where they meet and, starting from the source of its tributary under the Rötspitze, the Isel is also longer than the combined Drava and Sextner Bach to that point. The river then flows east into Carinthia at Oberdrauburg. The river separates the Kreuzeck range of the High Tauern in the north and the Gailtal Alps in the south, passes the Sachsenburg narrows and the site of the ancient city of Teurnia, before it reaches the town of Spittal an der Drau. Downstream of Villach, it runs along the northern slopes of the Karawanks to Ferlach and Lavamünd. The Drava passes into Slovenia at Gorče near Dravograd, from where it runs for via Vuzenica, Muta, Ruše, and Maribor to Ptuj and the border with Croatia at Ormož. The river then passes Varaždin, Belišće and Osijek in Croatia, and Barcs in Hungary. It is navigable for about from Čađavica in Croatia to its mouth. The hydrological parameters of Drava are regularly monitored in Croatia at Botovo, Terezino Polje, Donji Miholjac and Osijek.
The Drava River is one of the most exploited rivers in the world in terms of hydropower, with almost 100% of its water potentialenergy being exploited. As the region of the river is a place of exceptional biodiversity, this raises several ecological concerns, together with other forms of exploitation such as use of river deposits.
