Nile

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For other uses, see Nile (disambiguation).
Nile
River
Evening, Nile River, Uganda.jpg
The river in Uganda
Countries Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea
Cities Jinja, Juba, Khartoum, Cairo
Primary source White Nile
- elevation 2,700 m (8,858 ft)
- coordinates 0216'56?S 02919'53?E
Secondary source Blue Nile
- location Lake Tana, Ethiopia
- coordinates 1202'09?N 03715'53?E
Source confluence near Khartoum
Mouth
- location Mediterranean Sea, Egypt
- elevation 0 m (0 ft)
- coordinates 3010'N 03106'ECoordinates 3010'N 03106'E [1]
Length 6,853 km (4,258 mi)
Width 2.8 km (2 mi)
Depth 811 m (2636 ft)
Basin 3,400,000 km2 (1,312,747 sq mi)
Discharge
- average 2,830 m3s (99,941 cu fts)
River Nile map.svg
The Nile (Arabic ???????, Egyptian Arabic en-Nil, Standard Arabic an-Nil;
Coptic ?????, P(h)iaro; Ancient Egyptian ?'pi and Jtrw; Biblical Hebrew ?????, Ha-
Ye'or or ??????, Ha-Shi?or) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa.
It is commonly regarded as the longest river in the world,[2] though other
conflicting sources cite a 2007 study that gave the title to the Amazon River in
South America.[3] The Nile, which is 6,853 km (4,258 miles) long, is an
international river as its drainage basin covers eleven countries, namely,
Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.[4] In particular, the Nile is the
primary water source of Egypt and Sudan.[5]

The Nile has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is
considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself. The Blue
Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is
longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant
source still undetermined but located in either Rwanda or Burundi. It flows north
through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile
(Amharic ???, ?Abay[6][7]) begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia[8] and flows into Sudan
from the southeast. The two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of
Khartoum.[9]

The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese
desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta and flows into the Mediterranean Sea.
Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since
ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of
the Nile valley north of Aswan, and nearly all the cultural and historical sites of
Ancient Egypt are found along riverbanks.

In the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called ?'pi or Iteru (Hapy), meaning
river. In Coptic, the words piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic) meaning the river
(lit. p(h).iar-o the.canal-great) come from the same ancient name.
The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nl and an-Nl both derive from the
Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek ?e????.[10][11] Beyond that, however, the
etymology is disputed.[11][12] One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic
Nahal, meaning river.[13] The standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to
refer to the river's source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the
Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum.[14]

Contents [hide]
1 Course
1.1 Sources
1.1.1 Lost headwaters
1.2 In Uganda
1.3 In South Sudan
1.4 In Sudan
1.5 In Egypt
2 Tributaries
2.1 Atbara River
2.2 Blue Nile
2.3 Bahr el Ghazal and Sobat River
2.4 Yellow Nile
3 History
3.1 Eonile
3.2 Integrated Nile
3.3 Role in the founding of Egyptian civilization
3.4 Search for the source of the Nile
3.5 Since 1950
4 Water sharing dispute
5 Modern achievements and exploration
6 Crossings
6.1 Crossings from Khartoum to the Mediterranean Sea
6.2 Crossings from Rwanda to Khartoum
7 Images and media of the Nile
8 Annotated bibliography
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
Course[edit]
See also White Nile

The Nile at Dendera, as seen from the SPOT satellite

The Nile's watershed[15]

The Nile near Beni Suef

Composite satellite image of the White Nile

Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, a term also used in a
limited sense to describe the section between Lake No and Khartoum. At Khartoum the
river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa,
and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia. Both branches are on the western flanks of
the East African Rift.

The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers (1,256,591 sq
mi), about 10% of the area of Africa.[16] The Nile basin is complex, and because of
this, the discharge at any given point along the mainstem depends on many factors
including weather, diversions, evaporation and evapotranspiration, and groundwater
flow.
Sources[edit]
The source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake
has feeder rivers of considerable size. The Kagera River, which flows into Lake
Victoria near the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, is the longest feeder, although sources
do not agree on which is the longest tributary of the Kagera and hence the most
distant source of the Nile itself.[17] It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges
in Bururi Province, Burundi,[18] or the Nyabarongo, which flows from Nyungwe Forest
in Rwanda.[19] The two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania
border.

The source of the Nile from the underwater spring at the neck of Lake Victoria,
Jinja
In 2010, an exploration party[20] went to a place described as the source of the
Rukarara tributary,[21] and by hacking a path up steep jungle-choked mountain
slopes in