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The
Nile in Africa, is one of the two longest rivers on Earth.
The word "Nile" comes from the word Neilos (NeiloV),
a Greek name for the Nile. Another Greek name for the Nile
was Aigyptos (AiguþtoV), which itself is the source of the
name "Egypt".
The Nile in Egypt:
Origin: Africa
Mouth: Mediterranean Sea
Basin Countries: Uganda, Sudan, Egypt
Length: 6,695 km (4,160 mi)
Elevation: 1,134 m (3,721 ft)
Avg. Discharge: 2,830 mÞ/s (99,956 ftÞ/s)
Watershed Area: 3,400,000 kmÝ (1,312,740 miÝ)
Satellite
image of the Nile
taken by NASA. |
Longest
river
The Nile is usually considered the longest river in the world,
but whether the Nile is actually longer than South America's
Amazon still remains the subject of much debate. This is,
for the most part, due to two reasons: first, the lengths
of rivers vary over time and, second, the point from which
the length of a river is measured is not always agreed upon.
The Nile also carries far less water than the Amazon.
White Nile
Lake Victoria, which lies between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania
is considered to be the source of the Nile, although the lake
itself has feeder rivers of considerable size from the other
Great Lakes of Africa. 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 690
km (429 miles) before reaching Lake Victoria.
Leaving Lake Victoria, the river is known as the Victoria
Nile. It flows further for approximately 500 km (300 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 el Ghazal,
itself 720 km (445 miles) long, the river beomes known as
the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile, from the clay suspended
in its waters. From there, the river flows to Khartoum.
Blue Nile
Meanwhile, the Blue Nile (or Bahr al Azraq to Sudanese; Abbai
to Ethiopians) springs from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands.
The Blue Nile flows about 1,400 km (850 miles) to Khartoum,
where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form "the
Nile." Most of the water carried by the Nile (about 83%)
originates from Ethiopia, but this runoff only happens in
summer, when the great rains fall on the Ethiopian Plateau;
the rest of the year the great rivers draining Ethiopia to
the Nile (Sobat, Blue Nile, and Atbara) flow weakly or are
dry.
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 800 km (500 miles)
long. It joins the Nile approximately 300 km (200 miles) past
Khartoum. The Nile is also unusual in that its last tributary
(the Atbara) joins it approximately halfway to the sea. From
that point north, the Nile diminishes because of evaporation.
The Nile in Sudan is distinctive for two reasons: 1) it flows
over 6 groups of cataracts, from the first at Aswan to the
sixth at Sabaloka (just north of Khartoum); and 2) it reverses
course for much of its course, flowing back to the SW before
returning to flow north again to the sea. This is the "Great
Bend of the Nile".
It then reaches the man-made Lake Nasser, impounded behind
the Aswan High Dam 270 km (170 miles) into Egypt from the
Sudanese border. Since 1998 some of Lake Nasser's waters have
spilt westward to form the Toshka Lakes. From Lake Nasser
the main channel flows north through Egypt and into the Mediterranean
Sea; a side channel, the Bahr Yussef, splits from the main
channel downriver from the city of Asyut, and empties into
the Fayum. Where the Nile meets the Mediterranean, the Nile
Delta, is the eponym of all river deltas worldwide. Enrichment
from Nile sediments carried eastward by currents nurture the
fishing industries of the Eastern Mediterranean, or used to
before the Aswan High Dam was built.
History of the Nile
It (iteru in Ancient
Egyptian ) was the lifeline of the ancient Egyptian civilization,
with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt
resting along those parts of the Nile valley lying north of
Aswan. The Nile has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture
since the Stone Age. Climate change - or perhaps overgrazing
- about 8000 BC desiccated the pastoral lands of Egypt to
form the Sahara and the tribes naturally migrated to the river,
where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more
centralized society.
Despite the attempts of the Greeks and Romans (who were unable
to penetrate the Sudd), 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 river's source,
thus yielding classical Hellenistic and Roman representations
of the river as a male god with his face and head obscured
in drapery.
• Pharaoh
Speke was part of a 1856-1858 expedition led by Richard Francis
Burton to search for the source of the Nile by entering Africa
from Dar-Es-Salam (modern Tanzania). Burton was convinced
that Lake Tanganyika was the source, but it was Speke who,
leaving a sick Burton behind, found the large body of water
now known as Lake Victoria and convinced himself that this
was the Nile's true source. Speke returned with James Augustus
Grant in 1860-1863 for further explorations around Lake Victoria
and traced the Nile northwards to Gondokoro, on the southern
boundary of the Sudd.
On April 28, 2004, geologist Pasquale Scaturro and his partner,
kayaker and documentary filmmaker Gordon Brown became the
first people to navigate the entire Nile, from Lake Tana in
Ethiopia to the beaches of Alexandria on the Mediterranean.
Though their expedition included a number of others, Brown
and Scaturro were the only ones to remain on the expedition
for the entire journey. They chronicled their adventure with
an IMAX camera and two handheld video cams, sharing their
story in the IMAX film "Mystery of the Nile," and
in a book of the same title.
The Nile still supports much of the population of Egypt, living
between otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara Desert.
The river flooded every summer, 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.
View of the Nile from a cruiseboat, between Luxor and Aswan
in Egypt
The Nile was, and still is, used to transport goods to different
places along its long path; especially since winter winds
in this area blow to the upriver, the ships could travel up
with no work by using the sail, and down using the flow of
the river. While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley,
the construction of the Aswan High Dam (finished in 1970)
to provide hydroelectricity ended the summer floods and their
renewal of the fertile soil.
Cities on the Nile include Khartoum, Aswan, Luxor (Thebes),
and the Giza–Cairo conurbation. 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 ships and traditional wooden sailing boats
known as feluccas. In addition, many "floating hotel"
cruise boats ply the route between Luxor and Aswan, stopping
in at Edfu and Kom Ombo along the way. It used to be possible
to sail on these boats all the way from Cairo to Aswan, but
security concerns have shut down the northernmost portion
for many years.
• Map of Egypt
• Economy of Egypt
See:
• List
of Cities in Egypt
• Cairo
• Sharm
El Sheikh
•
Canopic
Jars
• King Tut - Tutankhamun
• Egyptian Hieroglyph
• Mummy
• Giza
• Great Sphinx of Giza
• Great Pyramid of Giza
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Nile".
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