People frequently settled along rivers because the conditions were favourable for living.

In the 5th millennium BC, people began to settle in the basins of the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Mesopotamia. People settled along the river for strategic and transportation reasons, and the river and riparian area fed them through fishing and agriculture...

Since antiquity, people have built homes along the Drava. Poetovia - Ptuj, Slovenia's oldest town, grew on the banks of the Drava during the Roman period.