World's longest river (4187 miles); flows northern through Africa into the Mediterranean; the Nile River valley in Egypt was the site of the world's first great civilization; Also called: Nile River.
River in Africa, the world’s longest, 6,695 km/4,160 mi. The Blue Nile rises in Lake Tana, Ethiopia, the
White Nile at Lake Victoria, and they join at Khartoum, Sudan. The river enters the Mediterranean Sea at a vast delta in N Egypt.
Its remotest headstream is the Luvironza, in Burundi. The Nile proper begins on leaving Lake Victoria above Owen Falls. From Lake Victoria it flows over rocky country, and there are many cataracts and rapids, including the Murchison Falls, until it enters Lake Mobutu (Albert). From here it flows across flat country and in places spreads out to form lakes. At Lake No it is joined by the Bahr el Ghazal, and from this point to Khartoum it is called the White Nile. At Khartoum it is joined by the Blue Nile, which rises in the Ethiopian highlands, and 320 km/200 mi below Khartoum it is joined by the Atbara. From Khartoum to Aswan there are six cataracts. The Nile is navigable to the second cataract, a distance of 1,545 km/960 mi. The delta of the Nile is 190 km/120 mi wide. From 1982 Nile water has been piped beneath the Suez Canal to irrigate Sinai. The water level behind the Aswan Dam fell from 170 m/558 ft in 1979 to 150 m/492 ft in 1988, threatening Egypt's hydroelectric power generation. The 1988 water level
was the lowest in a century.