Bega canal, Navigable canal in Timiș County, Romania, and Vojvodina, Serbia

The Bega Canal is a 114.5 km navigable waterway, of which 44.5 km lie in Romania and 70 km in Serbia. It runs from Timișoara through Timiș County and joins the Begej River near the village of Klek. Its course is regulated by six locks, two in Romania and four in Serbia, with a maximum chamber length of 70 m and width of 10 m.

Count Claude Florimond de Mercy ordered the canal dug in 1728 to drain the marshes around Timișoara; the first vessel reached Pančevo in 1732. Between 1735 and 1754 a straighter route was cut from Timișoara to Klek, and engineer Maximilian Fremaut added embankments and the Coșteiu node on the Timiș. A 1744 imperial decree made riverside communes maintain the banks.

The canal is named after the Bega River, whose waters it carries from Timișoara to Klek. In 1869 it introduced passenger boat services, making Timișoara the first city in present-day Romania with public water transport. Today rowers and anglers use the water, and the cobbled quay of the old Port of Timișoara, between Podul Muncii and Pasarela Gelu, still shows its early 20th-century paving.

The canal runs 44.5 km through Romania and 70 km through Serbia, joining the Begej near Klek. Six locks were built between 1900 and 1916, two in Romania and four in Serbia; the Romanian locks have a draught of 1.5 m. In Timișoara the left bank between Podul Muncii and Pasarela Gelu is the former Port of Timișoara quay, 450 m long, with early-20th-century stone setts still visible.

The Fabric hydroelectric plant, commissioned on 3 May 1910, is among Romania's oldest hydroelectric stations and runs on Bega water. In 1917, 563 commercial vessels were registered on the canal, which was navigable 305 days a year. The canal's locks measure up to 70 m long and 10 m wide, with a 1.5 m draught on the Romanian stretch.