Praised in countless literature and music masterpieces and glorified by many Europeans as the "Mother of all Rivers", the Danube doesn't really flow through the center of Vienna and fails to impress visitors with all of its mighty grandeur as it does, for instance, in Budapest. Cautious Viennese have always been aware of the floods that this powerful river can cause, and for centuries the banks of the Danube have remained undeveloped.  Substantial development around the river and its channels started only in the 1970s when the Vienna International Center with the UN offices were built, and the surrounding cityscape started raising some serious interest of urban developers.The Danube flow through the city is split into four branches (or fingers) that first separate and then rejoin, all within the city limits of Vienna, along the southwest edge of Donaustadt. The four branches are the Danube Canal (closest to the city center, bordering the busy square of Schwedenplatz in the first district), the  Danube proper, the New Danube (Neue Donau), and the Old Danube (Alte Donau).