The Nile River - Jewel of Africa

The Nile River is a huge river in north-western Africa, flowing from south to north. It is widely regarded as the longest river in the world. There is some confusion more than no matter whether the Amazon is bigger than the Nile or not, and the answer is that the Amazon River is larger in terms of the volume of water that passes by means of it, though the Nile River is the longest in terms of distance. Its length measures at 6650 kilometers (four,132 miles), stretching from near Khartoum, Sudan to the Nile Delta in northern Egypt, near Alexandria. But that is just the mainstem river of the Nile. The Nile also has two huge tributaries that flow into it and in effect lengthen it.

The 1st of the two main tributaries is the White Nile. This is the longer of the two tributaries, which begins at Lake Victoria in Uganda. Lake Victoria is fed by a network of rivers that start in Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda, so the ultimate source of the Nile's water lies there. But Lake Victoria is exactly where the White Nile itself begins, and it flows through Uganda and Sudan where it connects with the mainstem river near Khartoum.

The second of the two major tributaries is the Blue Nile. It is shorter than the White Nile, but supplies even more water and fertile soil to the mainstem river than the White Nile does. It begins its journey at Lake Tana, Ethiopia and flows northwest into Sudan, exactly where it converges with the White Nile to form the mainstem Nile Proper. The length of the Blue Nile is 1400 km (800 miles).

The Nile flows via desolate regions of desert, bringing life and fertility to the land around it. The vast majority of cities and consumers in Egypt live along the Nile or its Delta, for the reason that of the vegetation that, for the most component, only exists on the banks of the Nile. Simply because of economic value of the river and its vegetation, there are ongoing political disputes over how to share the water resources equally, considering that Egypt is viewed as disproportionately benefiting from the river's water.