Nile
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| The Nile in Egypt |
Lake Victoria in Uganda is commonly considered to be the source of the Nile, although the Lake itself has feeder rivers of considerable size. In particular, the farthest headstream of the Nile is the Ruvyironza River in Burundi, which is an upper branch of the Kagera River. The Kagera flows for 429 miles (690 km) before reaching Lake Victoria.
Leaving Lake Victoria, the river is known as the Victoria Nile. It flows for approximately 300 more miles, through Lake Kyoga, until it reaches Lake Albert. After leaving Lake Albert, the river is known as the Albert Nile. It then flows into Sudan, where it becomes known as the Bahr al Jabal. At the confluence of the Bahr al Jabal with the Bahr al Ghazal (itself 445 miles long), the river beomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile. From there, the river flows to Khartoum.
Meanwhile, the Blue Nile (or Bahr al Azraq) springs from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile flows about 850 miles to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form "the Nile".
After the Blue and White Niles merge, the only remaining major tributary is the Atbara River, which originates in Ethiopia north of Lake Tana, and is approximately 500 miles long. It joins the Nile approximately 200 miles past Khartoum.
The Nile then reaches Lake Nasser at the border of Egypt and Sudan, and from there flows through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.
From its most remote headstream - the Ruvyironza - to the Sea, the Nile is approximately 4160 miles (6695 km) long. Measuring instead from Lake Victoria gives a length of approximately 3470 miles (5584 km). It drains approximately 1.1 to 1.3 million square miles.
The Nile (iteru in ancient Egyptian) was the lifeline of the ancient Egyptian civilization, with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt in the Nile valley. It still supports much of the population of Egypt, living between otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara Desert. The river flooded every spring, depositing fertile soil on the fields. The flow of the river is disturbed at several points by cataracts, which are sections of faster flowing water with many small islands, shallow water, and rocks, forming an obstacle to navigation by boats. The first cataract, the closest to the mouth of the river, is at Aswan to the north of the Aswan Dams. The Nile north of Aswan is a regular tourist route, with cruise boats and feluccas, which are traditional wooden sailing boats.
While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the construction of the Aswan High Dam (finished in 1970) to provide hydroelectricity ended the spring floods and their renewal of the fertile soil.
Cities on the Nile include Aswan, Luxor, (Thebes), Kom Ombo, Giza, Cairo, (Tahapanes), and Khartoum.
The source of the Nile was unknown until the 19th century, when John Hanning Speke was the first to identify it as Lake Victoria. Various earlier expeditions since ancient times had failed to determine the source. The word Nile comes from the word Nelios, which is greek for river valley.
Nile is also the name of a death metal band.