The Nile (Arab Bahr el-Nil), a rives in north-costern Africa, is the longest in the world. It flows toward noth from the Vittoria lake to the Mediterranean after a course of 5584 Km across Uganda, Sudan and Egypt. If the rives Kagera is included, which is its main spring branch, the whole length of the rives (Nile-Kagera) teaches 6671 Km. The hydrographic basin of the Nile is one of the biggest of the world, with an area of about 2867000 km2.
Description. The Kager, that begins from the confluence of the Nyabarongo and Ruvubu rivers, after boas King for a certain part of its course the border between Tanzania at the east, and Burundi and Ruanda at the west, and Uganda at the north, diverts then toward east, flowing then into Vittoria lake, at 1134 mt of height. The Nile comes out at the lake with the name Nile Vittoria in Jinja, in Ugand, in the Ripon falls, described by the explorers who visited the region in the last century, but today no longer visible. In then goes for 483 Km toward north-west flowing between rocky walls, going over rapids and cataracts and forming lake Kyoga, until it flow into lake Alberto.
At this point it goes out of the lake with the name Nile Alberto. From here it flows toward north across northern Uganda and Sudan, where it takes the name Bahr-al Jabal, up to the point where it receives the water of its affluent Bahr-al Gharal: here it changes name again, becoming the White Nile. A Khartoum the latter joins the Arure Nile: the names of the two rivers come from the colour of their water. The azure Nile., 1529 Km long, has origin in lake Tana, in Etiopia. From Khartoum the Nile flows in the north-east direction and, after about 300 km, it receives the waters from the Atabarah river, its last affluent.
From here the course of the great rives goes towards north, crossing the Nubian desert, where it forms two wide anse, and going over a various cataracts that bring it from a level at 330 m to 95 m above the sea level. In Assuan, in Egypt, the rives is blocked by a great dam (The Assuam dam) that gives origin to lake Nasser. From this point to delta, which begins at about 260 Km from the Mediterranean, the bed of the river has an average width of 500 m and it is completely navigable.
In the wilde delta of the Nile, famous for its fertile lands, that have given life to one of the greatest civilizations in history, the waters of the rives divide in two branches, the Nile Rosetta one and the Nile Damianetta one, besides many navigable canals.
The first Assuan dam was built in 1902. The second dam, which forms lake Nasser, was begun in 1960 and completed in 1971. One of the negative consequences of the building of the dam is reduced flow of sediments towards the delta, a phenomenon on which the fertility of the region depends. Among the many Europeans explorers of the Nile, who tried to discover the mustery of its springs, they are remembered John Hanning Speke, an English who reached lake Vittoria in 1858 and the Ripon falls in 1862; Samuel White Baker, an English who saw found Alberto in 1868 and 1871, the western affluents of the White Nile. He’s remembered, besides, Henry Moston Stanley, an English who, in 1875, circumnavigated lake Vittoria, identified river Semliki in 1889 and reached Edoardo lake and the massif in Ruwenzori.