The Lower Rhine (German: Niederrhein; kilometres 660 to 1,033 of the River Rhine) flows from Bonn, Germany, to the North Sea at Hoek van Holland, Netherlands (including the Nederrijn or "Nether Rhine" within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta); alternatively, Lower Rhine may be refer to the part upstream of Pannerdens Kop, excluding the Nederrijn.

Almost immediately after entering the Netherlands, the Rhine splits into numerous branches. The main branch is called the Waal which flows from Nijmegen to meet the River Meuse; after which it is called Merwede. Near Rotterdam the river is known as Nieuwe Maas, and becomes the Nieuwe Waterweg flowing into the North Sea at Hoek van Holland.

The Nederrijn refers to the more northern former main branch of the Rhine, which flows past Arnhem; splits off the IJssel which flows into the IJsselmeer and then splits into the Lek river and the Kromme Rijn at Wijk bij Duurstede. The Lek flows into the Merwede. The Kromme Rijn continues past Utrecht, becomes the Leidse Rijn, then Oude Rijn and flows into the North Sea at Katwijk.

Bas-Rhin (French pronunciation: ​[bɑ.ʁɛ̃]; Alsatian: Unterelsàss) is a department in the Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine region of France. The name means "Lower Rhine". It is the more populous and densely populated of the two departments of the traditional Alsace region, with 1,109,460 inhabitants in 2013. The prefecture and the General Council are based in Strasbourg. The INSEE and Post Code is 67.

The inhabitants of the department are known as Bas-Rhinois or Bas-Rhinoises

Geography

The Rhine has always been of great historical and economic importance to the area, and it forms the eastern border of Bas-Rhin. The area is also home to some of the foothills of the Vosges Mountains.

To the north of Bas-Rhin lies the Palatinate forest (Pfälzerwald) in the German State of Rhineland-Palatinate, and the German State of Baden-Württemberg lies to the east. To the south lies the department of Haut-Rhin, the town of Colmar and southern Alsace, and to the west the department of Moselle. On its south-western corner, Bas-Rhin also joins the department of Vosges.

The Lower Rhine region or Niederrhein is a region around the Lower Rhine section of the river Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany between approximately Oberhausen and Krefeld in the East and the Dutch border around Kleve in the West. As the region can be defined either geographically, linguistically, culturally, or by political, economic and traffic relations throughout the centuries, as well as by more recent political subdivisions, its precise borders are disputable and occasionally may be seen as extending beyond the Dutch border. Yet, while the Dutch half of the Lower Rhine geographic area is called Nederrijn in Dutch, it is a separate territory from the adjoining German Niederrhein region, despite both names are a translation of the other.

A cultural bond of the German Lower Rhine region is its Low Franconian language, specifically the Cleverlander dialect (Dutch: Kleverlands, German: Kleverländisch), which is closely related to the Dutch dialects of South Guelderish just across the border and East Bergish to the southeast. In the region's southern portion is spoken Low Bergish, which is the easternmost dialect of Limburgish. Other typicalities of the area include the predominantly Catholic background as well as the Rhenish Carnival tradition.