The longest river - Nile Reading Answers

The Nile is a foremost north-flowing river in northeastern Africa, generally considered  as the longest river in the world. It is 6,853 km (4,258 miles) long. The Nile is an "international" river as its water resources are shared by eleven countries, namely, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt. In particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and the northern Sudan. 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 majority of the water and fertile soil. The White Nile is longer and augments in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most far-flung source still vacillating but located in either Rwanda or Burundi. It flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile commence at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers convene near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

The northern section of the river flows almost entirely through desert, from Sudan into Egypt, a country whose civilization has depended on the river since primordial 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 established along riverbanks. The Nile ends in a large delta that empties into the Mediterranean Sea. The source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has Feeder Rivers of substantial size. The Kagera River, which surges into Lake Victoria near the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, is the longest

feeder, although sources do not consent on which is the longest tributary of the Kagera and hence the most distant source of the Nile itself. It is either the Ruvyironza, which comes into view in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, which gushes from Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda. The two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border.

The Nile leaves Lake Victoria at Ripon Falls close to Jinja, Uganda, as the Victoria Nile. It flows north for some 130 kilometers (81 mi). to Lake Kyoga. The last part of the approximately 200 kilometers (120 mi) river section initiates from the western shores of the lake and flows at first to the west until just south of Masindi Port, where the river twirls north, then makes a great half circle to the east and north until Karuma Falls. For the enduring part it flows merely westernly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta. The lake itself is on the border of DR Congo, but the Nile is

not a border river at this point. After leaving Lake Albert, the river continuously carries on north through Uganda and is known as the Albert Nile.

The river flows into South Sudan just south of Nimule, where it is recognized as the Bahr al Jabal ("Mountain River"). Just south of the town it has the confluence with the Achwa River. The Bahr al Ghazal, itself 716 kilometers long, joins the Bahr al Jabal at a small lagoon called Lake No, after which the Nile becomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile, from the whitish clay perched in its waters. When the Nile floods it leaves a rich salty deposit which fertilizes the soil. The Nile no longer floods in Egypt since the completion of the Aswan Dam in 1970. An anabranch river, the Bahr el Zeraf, flows out of the Nile's Bahr al Jabal section and rejoins the White Nile. Below Renk the White Nile enters Sudan, it flows north to Khartoum and convenes the Blue Nile. The course of the Nile in Sudan is distinctive. It flows over six groups of cataracts, from the first at Aswan to the sixth at Sabaloka just north of Khartoum) and then turns to flow southward before again returning to flow north. One name for this is the "Great Bend". In the north of Sudan the river enters Lake Nasser (known in Sudan as Lake Nubia), the larger part of which is in Egypt.

The Nile has long been used to transport freight along its length. Winter winds blow south, up the river, so ships could sail up river, and down river using the flow of the river. While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the 1970 completion of the Aswan High Dam ended the summer floods and their renewal of the fertile soil, fundamentally changing farming practices. The Nile supports much of the population living along its banks, enabling Egyptians to live in otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara. The river's flow is disturbed at several points by the Cataracts of the Nile, which are sections of faster- flowing water with many small islands, shallow water, and rocks, which form an obstacle to navigation by boats. The Sudd wetlands in Sudan also forms a formidable navigation obstacle and impede water flow, to the extent that Sudan had once attempted to canalize (the Jonglei Canal) to bypass the swamps.