Thr Nile River

|The River Nile
      The Nile is the great river of northeast Africa.     It begins in well-watered regions near the equator and flows northward across the terrible Sahara Desert before it empties into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It is 6825 km or 4100 miles long and is the longest river on earth. Only the Amazon River of South America rivals the length of the Nile. Both the source of the White Nile in Equatorial Africa and its mouth on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea lie within one degree of longitude. It crosses 35 degrees of latitude, a distance comparable to the width of the continental United States, and flows across regions which differ more from each other than lands drained by any other river. | |
| |In spite of its great length and large drainage basin (3,000,000 km2, or about 10% of Africa, and affecting 9 nations), it carriers relatively little| |
| |water. Yearly flows over the past century ranged from a low of 42 km3 in the drought year of 1984 to a high of 120 km3 for 1916. This relatively low | |
| |flow for such a long river is because no water is added to it north, and much is lost by evaporation. Most other great rivers join with other large   | |
| |streams as they approach the sea, joining their waters into an ever-swelling stream. Instead, the Nile wanders through the largest and most arid     | |
| |region on earth, the Sahara Desert.                                                                                                                   | |
| |     The Nile consists of two principal branches - the White Nile and the Blue Nile - which join at Khartoum to form the main Nile.                     |
| |The main Nile consists of the Egyptian Nile and the Cataract Nile. The White Nile, which is the longest segment, may be further subdivided into: The   |
| |Central Sudan region, The Sudd; and the Lake Plateau region.                                                                                           |
| |   Some...