Nile

:''For alternative meanings of "Nile", see Nile (disambiguation)'' The Nile (Arabic language: النيل ''an-nīl''), in Africa, is one of the two longest river on Earth. ==Terminology== The word "Nile" comes from the word ''Neilos'' (Νειλος), a Greek name for the Nile. Another Greek name for the Nile was ''Aigyptos'' (Αιγυπτος), which itself is the source of the name "Egypt". ==Longest river== The Nile is usually considered the longest river in the world, but whether the Nile is actually longer than South America's Amazon River still remains the subject of much debate. This is, for the most part, due to two reasons: first, the lengths of rivers vary over time (especially in plains, where rivers often change course), and, second, the point from which the length of a river is measured is not always agreed upon. The Nile carries far less water than the mighty Amazon, partly because it receives not a single tributary from its halfway mark at the Atbara River in Sudan all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. If the remote headstream — the Ruvyironza — is taken as the beginning and followed to the Mediterranean, the Nile is approximately 6695 km (4160 miles) long. Measuring instead from Lake Victoria gives a length of approximately 5584 km (3470 miles). It drains approximately 2.8 million to 3.4 million km² (1.1 million to 1.3 million mile²). ==Branches== There are two great branches of the Nile: the White Nile, from equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile, from Ethiopia. Both branches formed on the western flanks of the East African Rift, which is the southern African part of the Great Rift Valley. ===White Nile=== Lake Victoria, which lies between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania is considered to be the source of the Nile, although the lake itself has feeder rivers of considerable size from the other Great Lakes (Africa) of Africa. In particular, the farthest headstream of the Nile is the Ruvyironza River in Burundi, which is an upper branch of the Kagera River. The Kagera flows for 690 km (429 miles) before reaching Lake Victoria. Leaving Lake Victoria, the river is known as the Victoria Nile. It flows further for approximately 500 km (300 miles), through Lake Kyoga, until it reaches Lake Albert. After leaving Lake Albert, the river is known as the Albert Nile. It then flows into Sudan, where it becomes known as the Bahr al Jabal. At the confluence of the Bahr al Jabal with the Bahr el Ghazal, itself 720 km (445 miles) long, the river beomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile, from the clay suspended in its waters. From there, the river flows to Khartoum. ===Blue Nile=== Meanwhile, the Blue Nile (or Bahr al Azraq to Sudanese; Abbai to Ethiopians) springs from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile flows about 1,400 km (850 miles) to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form "the Nile." Most of the water carried by the Nile originates from Ethiopia, but this runoff only happens in summer, when the great rains fall on the Ethiopian Plateau; the rest of the year the great rivers draining Ethiopia to the Nile (Sobat, Blue Nile, and Atbara) flow weakly or are dry. Composite_image_satellite_image_of_the_Nile_(see_also_the_:Image:Nile_River_and_delta_from_orbit.jpg)">Image:Nile composite NASA.jpg|right|thumb|160px|Composite image satellite image of the Nile (see also the :Image:Nile River and delta from orbit.jpg) ===The Nile=== After the Blue and White Niles merge, the only remaining major tributary is the Atbara River, which originates in Ethiopia north of Lake Tana, and is approximately 800 km (500 miles) long. It joins the Nile approximately 300 km (200 miles) past Khartoum. The Nile is also unusual in that its last tributary (the Atbara) joins it approximately halfway to the sea. From that point north, the Nile diminishes because of evaporation. The Nile in Sudan is distincitve for two reasons: 1) it flows over 6 groups of cataracts, from the first at Aswan to the sixth at Sabaloka (just north of Khartoum); and 2) it reverses course for much of its course, flowing back to the SW before returning to flow north again to the sea. This is the "Great Bend of the Nile". [[Image:ISS006-E-43181.jpg|left|thumb|The Great Bend of the Nile in Sudan, looking north across the Sahara Desert towards Lake Nasser and Egypt. Photograph ISS006-E-43181 taken from the International Space Station, courtesy of NASA.]] The Nile then reaches the man-made Lake Nasser, impounded behind the Aswan High Dam 270 km (170 miles) into Egypt from the Sudanese border. Since 1998 some of Lake Nasser's waters have spilt westward to form the Toshka Lakes. From Lake Nasser the main channel flows north through Egypt and into the Mediterranean Sea; a side channel, the Bahr Yussef, splits from the main channel downriver from the city of Asyut, and empties into the Fayum. Where the Nile meets the Mediterranean, the Nile Delta, is the eponym of all river deltas worldwide. Enrichment from Nile sediments carried eastward by currents nurture the fishing industries of the Eastern Mediterranean, or used to before the Aswan High Dam was built. ==History== The Nile (''iteru'' in Egyptian language) was the lifeline of the Ancient Egypt civilization, with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt resting along those parts of the Nile valley lying north of Aswan. The Nile has been the lifeline for Egypt culture since the Stone Age. Climate change - or perhaps desertification - about 10,000 years ago desiccation the pastoralism lands of Egypt to form the Sahara and the tribes naturally migrated to the river, where they developed a settled agriculture economy and more centralized society. Despite the attempts of the ancient Greece and Rome (who were unable to penetrate the Sudd), the source of the Nile was unknown until the 19th century, when John Hanning Speke was the first to identify it as Lake Victoria. Various earlier expeditions since ancient times had failed to determine the river's source, thus yielding classical Hellenistic and Roman representations of the river as a male god with his face and head obscured in drapery. Speke was part of a 1856-1858 expedition led by Richard Francis Burton to search for the source of the Nile by entering Africa from Dar-Es-Salam (modern Tanzania). Burton was convinced that Lake Tanganyika was the source, but it was Speke who, leaving a sick Burton behind, found the large body of water now known as Lake Victoria and convinced himself that this was the Nile's true source. Speke returned with James Augustus Grant in 1860-1863 for further explorations around Lake Victoria and traced the Nile northwards to Gondokoro, on the southern boundary of the Sudd. On April 28, 2004, geologist Pasquale Scaturro and his partner, kayaker and documentary filmmaker Gordon Brown (cinematographer) became the first people to navigate the entire Nile, from Lake Tana in Ethiopia to the beaches of Alexandria, Egypt on the Mediterranean. Though their expedition included a number of others, Brown and Scaturro were the only ones to remain on the expedition for the entire journey. They chronicled their adventure with an IMAX camera and two handheld video cams, sharing their story in the IMAX film "''Mystery of the Nile''," and in a book of the same title. The Nile still supports much of the population of Egypt, living between otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara Desert. The river flooded every summer, depositing fertile soil on the fields. The flow of the river is disturbed at several points by Cataracts of the Nile, which are sections of faster flowing water with many small islands, shallow water, and rocks, forming an obstacle to navigation by boats. The Nile was, and still is, used to transport goods to different places along its long path; especially the winter winds in this area blow to the south, upriver, so ships could travel up and down the Nile with ease. While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the construction of the Aswan High Dam (finished in 1970) to provide hydroelectricity ended the summer floods and their renewal of the fertile soil. Cities on the Nile include Khartoum, Aswan, Luxor (Thebes, Egypt), and the Giza–Cairo conurbation. The first cataract, the closest to the mouth of the river, is at Aswan to the north of the Aswan Dams. The Nile north of Aswan is a regular tourist route, with cruise ships and traditional wooden sailing boats known as feluccas. In addition, many "floating hotel" cruise boats ply the route between Luxor and Aswan, stopping in at Edfu and Kom Ombo along the way. It used to be possible to sail on these boats all the way from Cairo to Aswan, but security concerns have shut down the northernmost portion for many years. ==Flooding== The annual cycles of the Nile became a central facet in the lives of ancient Egyptians. The annual flood was personified by the god Hapy, who was associated with fertility and regeneration. The Nile was very important for stimulating both religion and science during Pharonic times. The Nile mysteriously and predictably rose each summer to flood and fertilize the land, without rain and in the hottest time of the year. A good flood and Egypt's wealth was assured; a poor flood or too great of a flood and Egypt would suffer. The cyclic mystery created awe and stimulated worship, and the job of recording the history of Nile flooding, when the Nile was expected to flood, and the locations of farmers' plots after the floodwaters receded stimulated creation of the first scientific instrument (the Nilometer), astronomy, and surveying. The concerns of ancient Egyptians for a good flood were justified. The failure of the Nile floods and the generally low level of the river is thought to have been responsible for the collapse of the Old Kingdom about 4200 years ago. These concerns are captured in the Bible, where Joseph correctly interpreted Pharoah's dreams of 7 years of abundance and 7 years of poverty in Egypt to relate to good and then bad Nile floods. Ledyard, in his ''Travels'', speaks contemptuously of this celebrated wonder:—"This is the mighty, the sovereign of rivers—the vast Nile that has been metamorphosed into one of the wonders of the world! Let me be careful how I read, and, above all, how I read ancient history. You have heard, and read too, much of its inundations. If the thousands of large and small canals from it, and the thousands of men and machines employed to transfer, by artificial means, the water of the Nile to the meadows on its banks—if this be the inundation that is meant, it is true; any other is false; it is not an inundating river." More recently, drought conditions during the 1980's led to widespread starvation in Ethiopia and Sudan but Egypt was protected from drought by water impounded in Lake Nasser. ==The Eonile== The present Nile is at least the fifth river that has flowed north from the Ethiopian Highands. Satellite imagery identified dry watercourses in the desert to the west of the Nile. An Eonile Canyon filled by surface drift represents an ancestral Nile, called the Eonile that flowed during the later Miocene, transporting clastics and light sediments to the Mediterranean, where several gas fields have been discovered. South of Cairo, the sand-filled canyon reaches 1400 meters. When the Mediterranean Sea was a hot dry empty salt-floored sink in the late Miocene period, the Nile cut its course down to the new base level until it was several hundred feet below world ocean level at Aswan and 8000 feet below at Cairo. This huge canyon is now full of later sediment. Formerly Lake Tanganyika drained northwards into the Nile, until the Virunga Mountains Volcanoes blocked its course in Rwanda. That would have made the Nile much longer, with its longest headwaters in northern Zambia. External link *[http://www.aber.ac.uk/~qecwww/tana/geology.htm Nile paleogeography] ==External links== *[http://nileriver.port5.com Good summary, and breakdown of the Nile] *[http://earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/maps_detail_static.cfm?map_select=299&theme=2 Information and a map of the Nile's watershed] *[http://www.utdallas.edu/dept/geoscience/remsens/Nile/index.html Geology and History of the Nile] *[http://www.photoglobe.info/spc_nile_delta.html Nile Delta from Space] *[http://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/river-nile-facts.html Facts About The Nile River] *[http://www.ianandwendy.com/OtherTrips/Egypt/NileCruise/slideshow2.htm Photo Gallery from a cruise between Luxor and Aswan] *[http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/Inscrutable%20Nile1.pdf An excellent essay about the challenges of equitably allocating the waters of the Nile] Rivers of Egypt Rivers of Uganda Rivers of Sudan Landmarks Nile African geography

Nile

As requested, I am discussing my changes here. My changes are limited to the opening paragraph of the page. First, I am changing "The Nile, in Africa, is generally accepted to be the longest rivers on Earth." I am changing this because (clearly) it is not generally accepted to be the longest, otherwise there wouldn't have been this edit war in the first place. I am changing it to "The Nile, in Africa, is one of the two longest rivers on Earth, with the Amazon River of South America being the other." I believe that this is a factual statement and NPOV. Second, I am changing "The length of Amazon and Nile have been reason of much debate." I am changing this mostly for grammatical reasons. I am changing it to "Which is longer has long been the subject of much debate." Third, I am removing the sentence "The Amazon River, in South America, is the greatest river in the world." I am removing this for several reasons. First, no mention is made of what "greatest" means. Second, a claim that the Amazon River is "the greatest" river, in some unspecified way, has no place in an article on the Nile River. Third, it certainly has no place in the middle of a paragraph about the length of the Nile. If someone wants to put such a statement back in, I strongly suggest being specific about what you mean instead of relying on the subjective term "greatest", and mentioning it in a subordinate fashion (for example, "Which is longer has been the subject of much debate (although the Amazon unquestionably has a greater volume of flow)."). Fourth, I am changing the sentence "Length of rivers vary over time especially in the plains (where rivers change course) besides the point from which river length is measured is not always agreed upon, hence most sources disagree on the length of the rivers." I am changing this mostly for grammatical purposes and purposes of clarification. I am changing it to "This is, for the most part, due to two reasons: First, the lengths of rivers vary over time (especially in plains, where rivers often change course). Second, the point from which the length of a river is measured is not always agreed upon." -User:Rwv37 01:27, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC) :All seems generally uncontroversial. Do we have a scientific citation or two that addresses the competing claims? Presumably this issue is not something made up by amateurs... User:Stan Shebs 05:05, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC) ::Thanks for your effort to clearly specify why and what changes you made. Please now, can you point to a resource which says that Nile is not generally accepted to be longer than Amazon. From all the google searches I could carry out, I could not find a single resource that said the Nile was not the longest. ::Try these if you may ::*[http://www.google.com/search?q=longest+river longest river] ::*[http://www.google.com/search?q=Amazon+longest+river Amazon longest river] (ofcoz - google does a keyword search not a logic search) ::*[http://www.google.com/search?q=nile+second+longest+river nile second longest river] ::*[http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Amazon+is+the+longest+river%22 "Amazon is the longest river"] 28 Results and not all of them talk about Amazon being the longest. ::*[http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Nile+is+the+longest+river%22 "Nile is the longest river"] 589 Results and most of them talk about Nile being longest. ::*[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=114472&tocid=0&query=nile&ct= Encyclop�dia Britannica Article Nile] ::*[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=117568&tocid=0&query=amazon&ct= Encyclop�dia Britannica Article on Amazon] ::*[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558310/Nile.html Article from Encarta - Nile] ::*[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571466/Amazon_(river).html#s1 Article from Encarta - Amazon] ::If the links do not work please do a search yourself. ::Well if this does not define ''generally accepted'' what does? I must correct myself now -- I am not saying (anymore) that I could not find a single webpage that claimed Amazon is the longest river but none of them were credible enough - in fact quite a few were wikipedia articles. I even did a Google news search to see if there was something new - well I could not find anything. Still, if there is some new discovery that I do not know about - sorry to waste your time. :: ''most sources disagree on the length of the rivers'' should be added. Finally, the problem in the case of Nile (I think) has more to do with the point to which the length is measured rather than from. Not sure tho. -User:Ankur 09:32, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC) ::: Regarding ''"Please now, can you point to a resource which says that Nile is not generally accepted to be longer than Amazon."'': Sure. Try [http://ceos.cnes.fr:8100/cdrom/ceos1/casestud/brasil/brasil3.htm]], from which I quote: :::"The Amazon is known everywhere as the largest (volume and area) basin of fresh water on Earth. Ongoing research undertaken at the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE) indicates that the Amazon is also proving to be the longest river. Brand new features extracted from LANDSAT temporal data are showing new routes for the Amazon main stream, mostly in the flooding season. ''(...)''" ::: "Besides those longer meanders and channels a new birthsite of the Amazon headwaters was mapped following the Ucayalli and the Apurimac waters. The new site liess deep in the snowed cliffs (nevados) of the Chila Mountains part of the Andean Range in the vicinity of Arequipa, south of Peru. The new first slope of the Amazon was depicted through LANDSAT images. ''(...)''" ::: "Following just the longer channels/meanders and measuring the new segment in the Chila Mountains the standing length of the Amazon (6,550km) is increased by more than 300 kilometres. The figures are still partial because the whole River is being geo-referenced in order to have a GIS support to proceed with the measurements. The current length of the Amazon (6,850km) is slightly longer than the Nile (6,670km) ''(...)''" ::: Would you like more than one resource? I'll find them if you want. Right now, though, I have to go to work. -User:Rwv37 12:35, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC) ::::Interesting - I think this and the Amazon page should reference the issue, and it would be good to have a two-paragraph section in River talking about this in some more depth - first para to explain concept of length measurement and touch on the complexities, and second summarizing the question of longest. Readers interested solely in the Nile just want to know that "longest" is unsettled, if the unsettledness piques interest, they'll click on the link. User:Stan Shebs 16:17, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC) :::::That sounds like a good plan to me. -User:Rwv37 22:13, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC) :::Since I'm back from work now, I figured I would give a few more sources: :::# http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761569915/River.html Encarta's \"River\" entry says, in the "Measuring Rivers" section: "Scientists have traditionally considered the Nile River to be the longest river in the world, although in the 1990s some debate arose as to whether the Amazon River is longer, as new satellite maps revealed a small tributary in the Andes Mountains." Note two things about this: (1) "have traditionally", past tense, and not "do generally"; (2) No refutation of the claim is given. :::#http://www.ecoworld.org/water/ecoworld_Water_Home.cfm EcoWorld says, "the Nile and the Amazon can both be called the longest river in the world depending on how you define longest. With several mouths, the exact point at which the Amazon ends continues to be uncertain. Counting the Para? estuary (the most distant mouth), the Amazon?s length is approximately 4,190 miles. Once officially recorded as having a length of 4,145 miles, the Nile has since lost a few miles due to the formation of Lake Nasser behind the Aswan High Dam." :::#http://archiv.radio.cz/news/EN/2000/19.07.html RadioPrague says, "A joint Czech-Peruvian expedition has confirmed that the Amazon is the longest river in the world, ending years of dispute on the subject. Scientists from Lima's San Carlos University and Prague's Charles University announced after months of research in South America that the remotest source of the Amazon river was a stream in the Peruvian region of Arequipa. Quoted by Russia's Itar-Tass news agency, they said the Amazon was 7,062 kilometres in length, 500 kilometres longer than its nearest rival, the Nile. Their findings now have to be confirmed by satellite." :::#http://www.amazonia.net/Topics/The_Amazon_Basin-25/ The European Working Group on Amazonia says, "The main axis, along the Amazonas, Solim�es, and Ucayali Rivers, is 6,672 kilometres in length, longer, in fact, than the Nile (6,671 kilometres)." :::If you would like more than the four I've listed here plus the one I listed this morning, please let me know and I'll post more. -User:Rwv37 22:13, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC) ::Sorry for the late reply I was away. I am happy with whatever links you have listed, thanks. Again, sorry to waste your time. User:Ankur 13:22, 4 May 2004 (UTC) :::No need to apologize. It wasn't a waste of time. On the contrary, it was interesting, and I learned a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise. -User:Rwv37 22:21, May 4, 2004 (UTC) == "Nelios"? == Contributed by the august [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=209.233.19.9 209.233.19.9], the claim is made that "The word Nile comes from the word Nelios, which is Greek for river valley." I have some doubts on this and would like to see a source, as as far as I can tell: * The word Nile comes to us by way of Latin from Greek "Neilos" (Νειλος), not "Nelios" * (This may be an ordinary typo, as there doesn't seem to be a Greek word "nelios", either with epsilon or eta.) * This word only appears to mean "Nile", not "river valley". (Perhaps it meant "river valley" in the language the Greeks borrowed it from?) Can anyone shed some light on this? If not, "Nelios" should be respelled and the information on meaning removed. —User:Muke 23:21, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC) At some point, I'd like to see added the fact that the source of the Nile was a mystery to which explorers as ancient as Heroditus and as modern as David Livingstone devoted a good portion of their lives to no avail. I don't know when the real source was discovered, but suffice it to say that the debate still caused quite a row even up to the 1880s, especially in places like the Royal Geographical Society. Debates on the subject attracted crowds of Londoners and incited other explorations. DAS == Explorations == Its very odd to me that the article makes no mention of the 19th century (and earlier) explorations of the nile. User:Fawcett5 15:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I know, it's been on my to-do list forever... User:Stan Shebs 16:53, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::There's a lot of stuff like this that needs to be added: how the ancients confused the Niger River with the Nile, adding the Mountains of the Moon, the ancient Greek's fascination not only with the fact this river flowed from the south to the north (the only such river they knew of), but that it flooded in ''summer'', not winter, as did other rivers. I'd happily add these items, but I'm not quite sure how people would react to the resorting of this article these additions would require. -- User:Llywrch 22:15, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::Go for it - sounds like a "The Nile in history" section to me. User:Stan Shebs 06:21, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nile

Rivers of Africa

Nile

User:ClockworkTroll 05:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC) == Ta bu shi da yu == Hi Nile, sorry that I didn't see your comment on my talk page until I ran through it and archived stuff! Yeah, my username does mean "He/She is not a big fish", though it doesn't actually mean anything :-) - User:Ta bu shi da yu 10:05, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) Cool, good to know my Mandarin hasn't fallen apart completely. See you around :-) User:Nile 22:54, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)

Nile

Je suis le Nile. And I don't really speak French either. And Esperanto tempts me at night, but I have issues with large learning projects. But I'm working with Lernu!. G'night.

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Words begining with Nile:

Nile
Nile
Nile
Nile
Nile
Nile(band)
Nileblitz
Niles
Niles,_CA
Niles,_California
Niles,_IL
Niles,_Illinois
Niles,_MI
Niles,_Michigan
Niles,_New_York
Niles,_OH
Niles,_Ohio
Nileshkale
Niles_Canyon
Niles_Car_and_Manufacturing_Company
Niles_Crane
Niles_Eldredge
Niles_Eldredge
Niles_Lofgren
Niles_Standish
Niles_standish
Niles_Township,_MI
Niles_Township,_Michigan
Niles_West
Niles_West_High_School
Niles_West_High_School
Nile_(band)
Nile_(band)
Nile_(disambiguation)
Nile_blue
Nile_Clumps
Nile_Crocodile
Nile_crocodile
Nile_crocodile
Nile_Delta
Nile_delta
Nile_Hef
Nile_Hef
Nile_Kinnick
Nile_kinnick
Nile_Kinnick_Stadium
Nile_Lechwe
Nile_monitor
Nile_Perch
Nile_Perch
Nile_perch
Nile_perch
Nile_red
Nile_River
Nile_river
Nile_Rodgers
Nile_Rodgers
Nile_Valley