An important, but often unseen, water course of Aberdeen City, it is arguably from the Den Burn that Aberdeen takes its name (Aberden - 'the mouth of the Den'). It rises in the vicinity of Kingswells, 5 miles (8 km) west of the city centre and flows east, passing through the Den of Maidencraig and curving around the site of Woodend Hospital. It continues to the east, passing to the north of the Hill of Rubislaw, before entering a culvert in the Gilcomston area and continuing underground until it spills into the Upper Dock of Aberdeen Harbour, having completed a course of 6 miles (9.5 km). The burn had carved out a steep little valley which now defines the topography of the centre of Aberdeen and supported industry such as bleaching-greens. The river had been culverted to make way for the railway in the 1840s, which exploited the Den Burn Valley to pass though the city centre. Today, the valley is most obvious within Union Terrace Gardens and still provides a route for a reduced railway, alongside Denburn Road, which forms an underpass beneath Union Street to connect the north side of the city with the A93 in the south.
