A Nile Journey MEDITERRANEAN SEA he time to Delta Damietta River lexandria Srt Said Suez Canal Giza Cai AFRICA The Nile is the longest river in the world From the source of the White Nile in Burundi its water takes six months to reach the sea You will follow its 4 130 mile 6 650 km journey from south to north Valley of The Kings nak SAUDI ARABIA Luxor Aswan EGYPT Abu Simbel Aswan Nasser Cataracts a Bend Khartoum SUDAN Tana The Sudd ETHIOPIA A Vital Waterway For thousands of years the Nile has been a transportation route a source of water for farming and a home for fish plants and wildlife The first people to live on the banks of the Nile were hunters and fishers who settled there 8 000 years ago By 3000 BC the ancient Egyptians were living in the Nile Valley using the river to water their crops Only 1 inch 2 5 cm of rain falls in Egypt each year Without the Nile all of Egypt would be desert SOUTH SUDAN a Juba Murchison UGANDA DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO KENYA Lake Edward The Great Lakes Regio RWANDA HA Kagera Ruvubu BURUNDI TANZANIA
Which Nile The Nile is really many rivers Most of its water comes from the Blue Nile This river starts at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast This traditional Nile sailing boat is called a felucca The White Nile is longer than the Blue Nile and is named after the whitish clay that clouds its waters It rises in Burundi in the Great Lakes region of central Africa then flows north through Uganda and South Sudan Where is the source The two rivers meet near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum The river north of Khartoum is sometimes known as the United Nile Since the third century BC people have tried to find out where the Nile begins In 1613 the Spanish explorer Pedro Paez discovered Lake Tana in Ethiopia the source of the Blue Nile In 1857 the British explorer John Speke traced the White Nile as far south as Lake Victoria Today the Nile is measured from the Kagera River and its tributary the Ruvubu in Burundi All along the river farmers depend on Nile water to grow crops and irrigate their
