Nile River

Nile River Nile River, Arabic Baḥr Al-Nīl or Nahr Al-Nīl, the longest river in the world, called the father of African rivers.

It rises south of the Equator and flows northward through northeastern Africa to drain into the Mediterranean Sea

The Crocodylus niloticus or the Nile crocodile is one of the most feared and revered residents of the Nile River. It is ...
25/09/2021

The Crocodylus niloticus or the Nile crocodile is one of the most feared and revered residents of the Nile River. It is the second biggest extant reptile in the world after the saltwater crocodile. This species is found in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and lives in lakes, rivers, and even marshlands. Occasionally, the Nile crocodile has been detected in saline water environments like brackish lakes and deltas but is generally a freshwater species. A male Nile crocodile has a length ranging from 3.5 to 5 m while females are about 30% smaller than males. Nile crocodiles are feared for their aggressive nature. They are apex predators in their ecosystem and feed on a variety of prey including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, etc. They ambush and attack their prey. They move at high speeds in water. They also have a very powerful bite. Nile crocodiles are quite social in nature and are known to share food and basking spots with others of their species. They have their own order where larger and older males occupy the top of the hierarchy. The Nile crocodile is also known to attack humans are responsible for many human deaths in the Nile river system.

Ancient Egyptians revered the Nile as their source of life, but it was inevitably shrouded in mystery. It would be for c...
24/09/2021

Ancient Egyptians revered the Nile as their source of life, but it was inevitably shrouded in mystery. It would be for centuries, too, as expeditions repeatedly failed to find its source, with Egyptians, Greeks and Romans often foiled by a region called the Sudd (in what's now South Sudan), where the Nile forms a vast swamp. This fed the river's mystique, and it's why classical Greek and Roman art sometimes portrayed it as a god with a hidden face.

The Blue Nile gave up its secrets first, and an expedition from ancient Egypt may have even traced it back to Ethiopia. The White Nile's source proved much more elusive, though, despite many efforts to find it — including those by Scottish explorer David Livingstone, who was rescued from one mission in 1871 by Welsh journalist Henry Morton Stanley, via the famous quote "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" European explorers had only recently found Lake Victoria, and after Livingstone's death in 1873, Stanley was one of many who helped confirm its link to the Nile, along with the prolific East African guide and explorer Sidi Mubarak Bombay.

The search still hadn't ended, however. The White Nile begins even before Lake Victoria, although not everyone agrees where. There is the Kagera River, which flows into Lake Victoria from Lake Rweru in Burundi, but it too receives water from two other tributaries: the Ruvubu and the Nyabarongo, which flows into Lake Rweru. The Nyabarongo is also fed by the Mbirurume and Mwogo rivers, which arise from Rwanda's Nyungwe Forest, and some cite this as the farthest source of the Nile.

The Nile has three main tributaries: the White Nile, Blue Nile and Atbara. The White Nile is the longest, starting with ...
24/09/2021

The Nile has three main tributaries: the White Nile, Blue Nile and Atbara. The White Nile is the longest, starting with streams that flow into Lake Victoria, the world's largest tropical lake. It emerges as the Victoria Nile, then traverses swampy Lake Kyoga and Murchison (Kabalega) Falls before reaching Lake Albert (Mwitanzige). It continues north as the Albert Nile (Mobutu), later becoming the Mountain Nile (Bahr al Jabal) in South Sudan, and joins the Gazelle River (Bahr el Ghazal), after which it's called the White Nile (Bahr al Abyad). It finally becomes just "the Nile" near Khartoum, Sudan, where it meets the Blue Nile.

The White Nile flows steadily all year, while the Blue Nile fits most of its work into a few wild months each summer. Along with the nearby Atbara, its water comes from the highlands of Ethiopia, where monsoon patterns cause both rivers to shift between a summer torrent and winter trickle. The White Nile may be longer and steadier, but the Blue Nile supplies nearly 60% of the water that reaches Egypt each year, mostly during summer. The Atbara joins in later with 10% of the Nile's total flow, almost all of which arrives between July and October. It was these rains that flooded the Nile each year in Egypt, and because they eroded basalt lavas on their way out of Ethiopia, their water turned out to be especially valuable downstream.

The Nile River delta was also an ideal growing location for the papyrus plant. Ancient Egyptians used the papyrus plant ...
23/09/2021

The Nile River delta was also an ideal growing location for the papyrus plant. Ancient Egyptians used the papyrus plant in many ways, such as making cloth, boxes, and rope, but by far its most important use was in making paper. Besides using the river's natural resources for themselves and trading them with others, early Egyptians also used the river for bathing, drinking, recreation, and transportation.

Today, 95 percent of Egyptians live within a few kilometers of the Nile. Canals bring water from the Nile to irrigate farms and support cities. The Nile supports agriculture and fishing. The Nile also has served as an important transportation route for thousands of years. Today, some residents of El Qâhira (Cairo) have begun using private speed boats, water taxis, or ferries to avoid crowded streets. Dams, such as the Aswân High Dam in Egypt, have been built to help to tame the river and provide a source of hydroelectric power.

However, the silt and sediment that used to flow north, enriching the soil and building the delta, is now building up behind the dam instead. Instead of growing in size through the soil deposits, the delta is now shrinking due to erosion along the Mediterranean Sea. In addition, routine annual flooding no longer occurs along parts of the Nile. These floods were necessary to flush and clean the water of human and agricultural waste. As a result, the water is becoming more polluted.

The soil of the Nile River delta between El Qâhira (Cairo) and the Mediterranean Sea is rich in nutrients, due to the la...
23/09/2021

The soil of the Nile River delta between El Qâhira (Cairo) and the Mediterranean Sea is rich in nutrients, due to the large silt deposits the Nile leaves behind as it flows into the sea. The banks of the Nile all along its vast length contain rich soil as well, thanks to annual flooding that deposits silt. From space, the contrast between the Nile's lush green river banks and the barren desert through which it flows is obvious.

For millennia, much of Egypt's food has been cultivated in the Nile delta region. Ancient Egyptians developed irrigation methods to increase the amount of land they could use for crops and support a thriving population. Beans, cotton, wheat, and flax were important and abundant crops that could be easily stored and traded.

The name Nile is derived from the Greek Neilos (Latin: Nilus), which probably originated from the Semitic root naḥal, me...
22/09/2021

The name Nile is derived from the Greek Neilos (Latin: Nilus), which probably originated from the Semitic root naḥal, meaning a valley or a river valley and hence, by an extension of the meaning, a river. The fact that the Nile—unlike other great rivers known to them—flowed from the south northward and was in flood at the warmest time of the year was an unsolved mystery to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. The ancient Egyptians called the river Ar or Aur (Coptic: Iaro), “Black,” in allusion to the colour of the sediments carried by the river when it is in flood. Nile mud is black enough to have given the land itself its oldest name, Kem or Kemi, which also means “black” and signifies darkness. In the Odyssey, the epic poem written by the Greek poet Homer (7th century BCE), Aigyptos is the name of the Nile (masculine) as well as the country of Egypt (feminine) through which it flows. The Nile in Egypt and Sudan is now called Al-Nīl, Al-Baḥr, and Baḥr Al-Nīl or Nahr Al-Nīl.

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