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73-561: The Old Cataract Aswan Hotel , commonly known as the Old Cataract Hotel , is a historic British colonial-era hotel located on the banks of the River Nile in Aswan , Egypt . It was built in 1899 by Thomas Cook and opened under the name Cataract Hotel . In 1961 the hotel was expanded with the addition of a new tower wing, operating as the budget wing of the hotel. From 2008 to 2011 the hotel

146-433: A Turkish officer, Selim Bimbashi, were made between 1839 and 1842, and two got to the point about 30 kilometres (20 miles) beyond the present port of Juba , where the country rises and rapids make navigation very difficult. Lake Victoria was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore while traveling with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate

219-598: A balcony with a river view. The hotel reopened on October 18, 2011, as the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan Hotel. Egypt's CBC used the Old Cataract as the primary filming location for its musalsal adaptation of the popular Spanish series Gran Hotel in 2016. In 20 December 2023, Icon Company, a subsidiary of Talaat Moustafa Group , acquired 51% of Legacy Hotels Company, which owns the hotel. River Nile The Nile (also known as

292-736: A distance of 20 days' journey till it reaches the nearest Ethiopians." Modern exploration of the Nile basin began with the conquest of the northern and central Sudan by the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali , and his sons from 1821 onward. As a result of this, the Blue Nile was known as far as its exit from the Ethiopian foothills and the White Nile as far as the mouth of the Sobat River. Three expeditions under

365-462: A factor of 15 at Aswan. Peak flows of over 8,212 m /s (290,000 cu ft/s) occurred during late August and early September, and minimum flows of about 552 m /s (19,500 cu ft/s) occurred during late April and early May. The Bahr al Ghazal and the Sobat River are the two most important tributaries of the White Nile in terms of discharge. The Bahr al Ghazal's drainage basin

438-400: A new river, to be given its own name, perhaps one already known to the people who live upon its banks. Conversely, explorers approaching a new land from the sea encounter its rivers at their mouths, where they name them on their charts, then, following a river upstream, encounter each tributary as a forking of the stream to the right and to the left, which then appear on their charts as such; or

511-461: Is an archaeological site located in alluvial deposits formed by an ancient channel of the Nile in the Affad region of southern Dongola Reach , Sudan. There are two theories about the age of the integrated Nile. One is that the integrated drainage of the Nile is of young age and that the Nile basin was formerly broken into series of separate basins, only the most northerly of which fed a river following

584-625: Is approximately 1,218 m /s (43,000 cu ft/s) in October and minimum flow is about 609 m /s (21,500 cu ft/s) in April. This fluctuation is caused by the substantial variation in the flow of the Sobat, which has a minimum flow of about 99 m /s (3,500 cu ft/s) in March and a peak flow of over 680 m /s (24,000 cu ft/s) in October. During the dry season (January to June)

657-721: Is in Egypt. Below the Aswan Dam , at the northern limit of Lake Nasser, the Nile resumes its historic course. North of Cairo , the Nile splits into two branches (or distributaries) that feed the Mediterranean: the Rosetta Branch to the west and the Damietta to the east, forming the Nile Delta . The annual sediment transport by the Nile in Egypt has been quantified. Below the confluence with

730-568: Is the largest of any of the Nile's sub-basins, measuring 520,000 square kilometers (200,000 sq mi) in size, but it contributes a relatively small amount of water, about 2 m /s (71 cu ft/s) annually, because tremendous volumes of water are lost in the Sudd wetlands. The Sobat River, which joins the Nile a short distance below Lake No, drains about half as much land, 225,000 km (86,900 sq mi), but contributes 412 cubic meters per second (14,500 cu ft/s) annually to

803-534: Is traditionally considered to be the headwaters stream. However, the Blue Nile is the source of most of the water of the Nile downstream, containing 80% of the water and silt . The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region. It begins at Lake Victoria and flows through Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet at

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876-620: The Democratic Republic of the Congo , Tanzania , Burundi , Rwanda , Uganda , Kenya , Ethiopia , Eritrea , South Sudan , Sudan , and Egypt . In particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan. The Nile is an important economic driver supporting agriculture and fishing. The Nile has two major tributaries : the White Nile and the Blue Nile . The White Nile

949-634: The Paleogene and Neogene Periods (66 million to 2.588 million years ago) a series of separate closed continental basins each occupied one of the major parts of the Sudanese Rift System: Mellut rift , White Nile rift , Blue Nile rift , Atbara rift and Sag El Naam rift . The Mellut Basin is nearly 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) deep at its central part. This rift is possibly still active, with reported tectonic activity in its northern and southern boundaries. The Sudd swamp which forms

1022-711: The River Nile or Nile River ) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa . It flows into the Mediterranean Sea . The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river in the world , though this has been contested by research suggesting that the Amazon River is slightly longer. Of the world's major rivers, the Nile is one of the smallest, as measured by annual flow in cubic metres of water. About 6,650 km (4,130 mi) long, its drainage basin covers eleven countries:

1095-456: The discharge at any given point along the main stem depends on many factors including weather, diversions, evaporation and evapotranspiration , and groundwater flow. Upstream from Khartoum (to the south), the river is known as the White Nile , a term also used in a limited sense to describe the section between Lake No and Khartoum. At Khartoum, the river is joined by the Blue Nile . The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and

1168-430: The dry season ) an appreciable incoming surface flow for many kilometres upstream, and found a new source, giving the Nile a length of 6,758 km (4,199 mi). The White Nile leaves Lake Victoria at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda , as the "Victoria Nile." It flows north for some 130 kilometers (81 mi) to Lake Kyoga . The last part of the approximately 200 kilometers (120 mi) river section starts from

1241-540: The Bahr al Jabal at a small lagoon called Lake No , after which the Nile becomes known as the Bahr al Abyad , or the White Nile, from the whitish clay suspended in its waters. When the Nile floods it leaves a rich silty deposit which fertilizes the soil. The Nile no longer floods in Egypt since the completion of the Aswan Dam in 1970. An anabranch river, the Bahr el Zeraf , flows out of

1314-624: The Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia. Both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift . The source of the Blue Nile is Lake Tana in the Gish Abay region in the Ethiopian Highlands . The source of the White Nile, even after centuries of exploration, remains in dispute. The most remote source that is indisputably a source for the White Nile is the Kagera River ; however,

1387-557: The Blue Nile the only major tributary is the Atbarah River , also known as the Red Nile. Roughly halfway to the sea, it originates in Ethiopia north of Lake Tana , and is around 800 kilometers (500 mi) long. The Atbarah flows only while there is rain in Ethiopia and dries very rapidly. During the dry period of January to June, it typically dries up north of Khartoum . The Blue Nile ( Amharic : ዓባይ , ʿĀbay ) springs from Lake Tana in

1460-573: The Congo, but the Nile is not a border river at this point. After leaving Lake Albert, the river continues north through Uganda and is known as the Albert Nile . The White Nile flows into South Sudan just south of Nimule , where it is known as the Bahr al Jabal ("Mountain River" ). Just south of the town is the confluence with the Achwa River . The Bahr al Ghazal , 716 kilometers (445 mi) long, joins

1533-528: The Delta, and would have been pronounced ni-lo-he in the area around Memphis in the 8th century BCE. Hesiod at his Theogony refers to Nilus (Νεῖλος) as one of the Potamoi (river gods), son of Oceanus and Tethys . Another derivation of Nile might be related to the term Nil ( Sanskrit : नील , romanized :  nila ; Egyptian Arabic : نيلة ), which refers to Indigofera tinctoria , one of

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1606-414: The Ethiopian rainy season when rainfall is especially high in the Ethiopian Highlands ; the rest of the year, the great rivers draining Ethiopia into the Nile have a weaker flow. In harsh and arid seasons and droughts, the Blue Nile dries out completely. The flow of the Blue Nile varies considerably over its yearly cycle and is the main contribution to the large natural variation of the Nile flow. During

1679-610: The Ethiopian Highlands, satellite imagery was used to identify dry watercourses in the desert to the west of the Nile. A canyon, now filled by surface drift, represents the Eonile that flowed during 23–5.3 million years before present. The Eonile transported clastic sediments to the Mediterranean; several natural gas fields have been discovered within these sediments. During the late- Miocene Messinian salinity crisis , when

1752-486: The Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile flows about 1,400 kilometres to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form the Nile. Ninety percent of the water and ninety-six percent of the transported sediment carried by the Nile come from the Atbarah and Blue Nile, both of which originate in Ethiopia, with fifty-nine percent of the water coming from the Blue Nile. The erosion and transportation of silt only occurs during

1825-830: The Kagera has tributaries that are in contention for the farthest source of the White Nile. Two start in Burundi: the Ruvyironza River (also known as the Luvironza) and the Rurubu River . In addition, in 2010, an exploration party in Rwanda went to a place described as the source of the Rukarara tributary, and by hacking a path up steep jungle-choked mountain slopes in the Nyungwe Forest found (in

1898-474: The Mediterranean Sea was a closed basin and evaporated to the point of being empty or nearly so, the Nile cut its course down to the new base level until it was several hundred metres below world ocean level at Aswan and 2,400 m (7,900 ft) below Cairo. This created a very long and deep canyon which was filled with sediment after the Mediterranean was recreated. At some point the sediments raised

1971-570: The Middle East and Africa, and described being told of the source of the Nile in Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Later in the 15th and 16th centuries, travelers to Ethiopia visited Lake Tana and the source of the Blue Nile in the mountains south of the lake. Supposedly, Paolo Trevisani ( c.  1452 –1483), a Venetian traveller in Ethiopia, wrote a journal of his travels to the origin of the Nile that has since been lost. Although James Bruce claimed to be

2044-605: The Nile near the southern point of the Great Bend. The Nile has been the lifeline of civilization in Egypt since the Stone Age , with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt developing along those parts of the Nile valley lying north of Aswan. However, the Nile used to run much more westerly through what is now Wadi Hamim and Wadi al Maqar in Libya and flow into the Gulf of Sidra . As

2117-515: The Nile since ancient times. A tune, Hymn to the Nile , was created and sung by the ancient Egyptian peoples about the flooding of the Nile River and all of the miracles it brought to Ancient Egyptian civilization. Water buffalo were introduced from Asia, and the Assyrians introduced camels in the 7th century BCE. These animals were raised for meat and were domesticated and used for ploughing—or in

2190-450: The Nile valley north of the Aswan Dam . Nearly all the cultural and historical sites of Ancient Egypt developed and are found along river banks. The Nile is, with the Rhône and Po , one of the three Mediterranean rivers with the largest water discharge . The standard English names "White Nile" and "Blue Nile" refer to the river's source, derived from Arabic names formerly applied to only

2263-512: The Nile's Bahr al Jabal section and rejoins the White Nile. The flow rate of the Bahr al Jabal at Mongalla is almost constant throughout the year and averages 1,048 m /s (37,000 cu ft/s). After Mongalla, the Bahr Al Jabal enters the enormous swamps of the Sudd region. More than half of the Nile's water is lost in this swamp to evaporation and transpiration . The average flow rate of

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2336-577: The Nile. When in flood the Sobat carries a large amount of sediment, adding greatly to the White Nile's color. The Yellow Nile is a former tributary that connected the Ouaddaï highlands of eastern Chad to the Nile River Valley c.  8000 to c.  1000 BCE . Its remains are known as the Wadi Howar . The wadi passes through Gharb Darfur near the northern border with Chad and meets up with

2409-520: The Sudanese capital of Khartoum . The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Nubian Desert to Cairo and its large delta , and the river flows into the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria . Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river and its annual flooding since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of

2482-425: The Sudanese stretches that meet at Khartoum . In the ancient Egyptian language , the Nile is called Ḥꜥpy (Hapy) or Jtrw (Iteru), meaning "river". In Coptic , the word ⲫⲓⲁⲣⲟ , pronounced piaro ( Sahidic ) or phiaro ( Bohairic ), means "the river" (lit. p(h).iar-o "the.canal-great"), and comes from the same ancient name. In Nobiin , the river is called Áman Dawū , meaning "the great water". In Luganda ,

2555-541: The Sudd wetlands of South Sudan, the upper reaches of the White Nile remained largely unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Vitruvius thought that source of the Nile was in Mauritania, on the "other" (south) side of the Atlas Mountains . Various expeditions failed to determine the river's source. Agatharchides records that in the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus , a military expedition had penetrated far enough along

2628-408: The White Nile at the tails of the swamps is about 510 m /s (18,000 cu ft/s). From here it meets with the Sobat River at Malakal . On an annual basis, the White Nile upstream of Malakal contributes about 15% of the total outflow of the Nile. The average flow of the White Nile at Lake Kawaki Malakal, just below the Sobat River, is 924 m /s (32,600 cu ft/s); the peak flow

2701-502: The White Nile contributes between 70% and 90% of the total discharge from the Nile. Below Renk , the White Nile enters Sudan, it flows north to Khartoum and meets the Blue Nile. The course of the Nile in Sudan is distinctive. It flows over six groups of cataracts , from the sixth at Sabaloka just north of Khartoum northward to Abu Hamad . The tectonic uplift of the Nubian Swell diverts

2774-593: The afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra , the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky. Thus, all tombs were west of the Nile, because the Egyptians believed that in order to enter the afterlife, they had to be buried on the side that symbolized death. As the Nile was such an important factor in Egyptian life,

2847-482: The ancient calendar was even based on the three cycles of the Nile. These seasons, each consisting of four months of thirty days each, were called Akhet , Peret , and Shemu . Akhet, which means inundation, was the time of the year when the Nile flooded, leaving several layers of fertile soil behind, aiding in agricultural growth. Peret was the growing season, and Shemu, the last season, was the harvest season when there were no rains. Owing to their failure to penetrate

2920-411: The camels' case, carriage. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efficient means of transportation for people and goods. The Nile was also an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapi was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and

2993-470: The central part of the basin may still be subsiding. The White Nile Rift system, although shallower than the Bahr el Arab rift , is about 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) deep. Geophysical exploration of the Blue Nile Rift System estimated the depth of the sediments to be 5–9 kilometers (3.1–5.6 mi). These basins were not interconnected until their subsidence ceased, and the rate of sediment deposition

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3066-459: The course of the Blue Nile to determine that the summer floods were caused by heavy seasonal rainstorms in the Ethiopian Highlands, but no European of antiquity is known to have reached Lake Tana. The Tabula Rogeriana depicted the source as three lakes in 1154. Europeans began to learn about the origins of the Nile in the 14th century when the Pope sent monks as emissaries to Mongolia who passed India,

3139-492: The development of Egyptian civilization. Because the river overflowed its banks annually and deposited new layers of silt, the surrounding land was very fertile. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, flax , papyrus and other crops around the Nile. Wheat was a crucial crop in the famine-plagued Middle East. This trading system secured Egypt's diplomatic relationships with other countries and contributed to economic stability. Far-reaching trade has been carried on along

3212-402: The dry season the natural discharge of the Blue Nile can be as low as 113 m /s (4,000 cu ft/s), although upstream dams regulate the flow of the river. During the wet season, the peak flow of the Blue Nile often exceeds 5,663 m /s (200,000 cu ft/s) in late August (a difference of a factor of 50). Before the placement of dams on the river the yearly discharge varied by

3285-410: The etymology is disputed. Homer called the river Αἴγυπτος , Aiguptos , but in subsequent periods, Greek authors referred to its lower course as Neilos ; this term became generalized for the entire river system. Thus, the name may derive from Ancient Egyptian expression n ꜣ r ꜣ w-ḥ ꜣ w(t) (lit. 'the mouths of the front parts'), which referred specifically to the branches of the Nile transversing

3358-500: The first European to have visited the headwaters, modern writers give the credit to the Jesuit Pedro Páez . Páez's account of the source of the Nile is a long and vivid account of Ethiopia. It was published in full only in the early 20th century, although it was featured in works of Páez's contemporaries, including Baltazar Téllez, Athanasius Kircher and Johann Michael Vansleb . Europeans had been resident in Ethiopia since

3431-459: The great lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this "vast expanse of open water" for the first time, Speke named the lake after Queen Victoria . Burton, recovering from illness and resting further south on the shores of Lake Tanganyika , was outraged that Speke claimed to have proven his discovery to be the true source of the Nile when Burton regarded this as still unsettled. A quarrel ensued which sparked intense debate within

3504-451: The handedness is from the point of view of an observer facing upstream. For instance, Steer Creek has a left tributary which is called Right Fork Steer Creek. These naming conventions are reflective of the circumstances of a particular river's identification and charting: people living along the banks of a river, with a name known to them, may then float down the river in exploration, and each tributary joining it as they pass by appears as

3577-820: The hotel for many years, while the original wing was eventually renamed the Old Cataract Hotel. In 1973 United States Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger and his aides stayed in the New Cataract Hotel during the negotiations to end the Yom Kippur War . In the 1990s, the French Accor hotel company assumed management of the Old Cataract and the New Cataract, placing them first in their Pullman Hotels division, and then in their Sofitel division. Both wings of

3650-559: The hotel were closed from 2008 to 2011 for a complete restoration, during which the 1961 New Cataract tower was combined with the historic Old Cataract wing into one hotel. The Old Cataract wing, which previously had 131 rooms and eight suites, was renamed the Palace Wing, and rebuilt to house 76 rooms and 45 suites. The New Cataract wing, which previously had 144 rooms, was renamed the Nile Wing, rebuilt with 62 rooms including 37 suites, all with

3723-424: The joining of tributaries. The opposite to a tributary is a distributary , a river or stream that branches off from and flows away from the main stream. Distributaries are most often found in river deltas . Right tributary , or right-bank tributary , and left tributary , or left-bank tributary , describe the orientation of the tributary relative to the flow of the main stem river. These terms are defined from

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3796-403: The lake's northern shore. Tributary A tributary , or an affluent , is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ( main stem or "parent" ), river, or a lake . A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean . Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they flow, drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater , leading

3869-592: The late 15th century, and one of them may have visited the headwaters even earlier without leaving a written trace. The Portuguese João Bermudes published the first description of the Tis Issat Falls in his 1565 memoirs, compared them to the Nile Falls alluded to in Cicero 's De Republica . Jerónimo Lobo describes the source of the Blue Nile, visiting shortly after Pedro Páez. Telles also uses his account. The White Nile

3942-562: The main Nile during the 70,000–80,000 years B.P. wet period. The White Nile system in Bahr El Arab and White Nile Rifts remained a closed lake until the connection of the Victoria Nile to the main system some 12,500 years ago during the African humid period . The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that "Egypt was the gift of the Nile". An unending source of sustenance, it played a crucial role in

4015-406: The opposite bank before approaching the confluence. An early tributary is a tributary that joins the main stem river closer to its source than its mouth, that is, before the river's midpoint ; a late tributary joins the main stem further downstream, closer to its mouth than to its source, that is, after the midpoint. In the United States, where tributaries sometimes have the same name as

4088-459: The original sources of indigo dye . Another may be Nymphaea caerulea , known as "The Sacred Blue Lily of the Nile", which was found scattered over Tutankhamun 's corpse when it was excavated in 1922. Another possible etymology derives from the Semitic term Nahal , meaning "river". Old Libyan has the term lilu , meaning water (in modern Berber ilel ⵉⵍⴻⵍ means sea ). With a total length of about 6,650 km (4,130 mi) between

4161-476: The perspective of looking downstream, that is, facing the direction the water current of the main stem is going. In a navigational context, if one were floating on a raft or other vessel in the main stream, this would be the side the tributary enters from as one floats past; alternately, if one were floating down the tributary, the main stream meets it on the opposite bank of the tributary. This information may be used to avoid turbulent water by moving towards

4234-404: The present course of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan. Rushdi Said postulates that Egypt supplied most of the waters of the Nile during the early part of its history. The other theory is that the drainage from Ethiopia via rivers equivalent to the Blue Nile, the Atbara and the Takazze flowed to the Mediterranean via the Egyptian Nile since well back into Tertiary times. Salama suggests that during

4307-403: The region of Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea , the Nile is among the longest rivers on Earth. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers (1,256,591 sq mi), about 10% of the area of Africa. Compared to other major rivers, though, the Nile carries little water (5% of that of the Congo River , for example). The Nile basin is complex, and because of this,

4380-399: The resort and wrote many capters about the Old Cataract, Queen Noor and Agatha Christie , who set portions of her novel Death on the Nile at the hotel. The 1978 film of the novel was shot at the hotel. The Dining Room was added in 1902. The architect was Henri Favarger. A new modern tower wing was built in 1961. It was known as the New Cataract Hotel and operated as a budget wing of

4453-432: The river into which they feed, they are called forks . These are typically designated by compass direction. For example, the American River in California receives flow from its North, Middle, and South forks. The Chicago River 's North Branch has the East, West, and Middle Fork; the South Branch has its South Fork, and used to have a West Fork as well (now filled in). Forks are sometimes designated as right or left. Here,

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4526-447: The river is called Kiira or Kiyira . In Runyoro , it is called Kihiira . In Egyptian Arabic , the Nile is called en-Nīl , while in Standard Arabic it is called an-Nīl . In Biblical Hebrew , it is הַיְאוֹר ‎, Ha-Ye'or or הַשִׁיחוֹר ‎, Ha-Shiḥor . The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος . Beyond that, however,

4599-406: The river south-west for over 300 km, following the structure of the Central African Shear Zone embracing the Bayuda Desert . At Al Dabbah it resumes its northward course towards the first cataract at Aswan forming the S-shaped Great Bend of the Nile mentioned by Eratosthenes . In the north of Sudan, the river enters Lake Nasser (known in Sudan as Lake Nubia), the larger part of which

4672-415: The riverbed sufficiently for the river to overflow westward into a depression to create Lake Moeris . Lake Tanganyika drained northwards into the Nile until the Virunga Volcanoes blocked its course in Rwanda. The Nile was much longer at that time, with its furthest headwaters in northern Zambia. The currently existing Nile first flowed during the former parts of the Würm glaciation period. Affad 23

4745-407: The scientific community and interest by other explorers keen to either confirm or refute Speke's discovery. British explorer and missionary David Livingstone pushed too far west and entered the Congo River system instead. It was ultimately Welsh-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley who confirmed Speke's discovery, circumnavigating Lake Victoria and reporting the great outflow at Ripon Falls on

4818-465: The sea level rose at the end of the most recent ice age , the stream which is now the northern Nile captured the ancestral Nile near Asyut . This change in climate also led to the current extents of the Sahara desert, around 3400 BCE. The Giza pyramid complex originally overlooked a branch of the Nile that no longer exists. This branch was highest during the African Humid Period . The existing Nile has five earlier phases: Flowing north from

4891-418: The smaller stream designated the little fork, the larger either retaining its name unmodified, or receives the designation big . Tributaries are sometimes listed starting with those nearest to the source of the river and ending with those nearest to the mouth of the river . The Strahler stream order examines the arrangement of tributaries in a hierarchy of first, second, third and higher orders, with

4964-432: The streams are seen to diverge by the cardinal direction (north, south, east, or west) in which they proceed upstream, sometimes a third stream entering between two others is designated the middle fork; or the streams are distinguished by the relative height of one to the other, as one stream descending over a cataract into another becomes the upper fork, and the one it descends into, the lower ; or by relative volume:

5037-419: The water out into an ocean. The Irtysh is a chief tributary of the Ob river and is also the longest tributary river in the world with a length of 4,248 km (2,640 mi). The Madeira River is the largest tributary river by volume in the world with an average discharge of 31,200 m /s (1.1 million cu ft/s). A confluence , where two or more bodies of water meet, usually refers to

5110-425: The western shores of the lake and flows at first to the west until just south of Masindi Port , where the river turns north, then makes a great half circle to the east and north to Karuma Falls . For the remaining part, it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta. Lake Albert is on the border of the Democratic Republic of

5183-449: Was closed and underwent a complete restoration, reopening in October 2011 as the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan Hotel. The Cataract Hotel was built in 1899 by Thomas Cook to house European travelers to Assouan (as Aswan was then known). Its guests have included Tsar Nicholas II , Winston Churchill , Howard Carter , Margaret Thatcher , Jimmy Carter , François Mitterrand , Princess Diana , Violaine Vanoyeke who wrote many books in

5256-562: Was enough to fill and connect them. The Egyptian Nile connected to the Sudanese Nile, which captures the Ethiopian and Equatorial headwaters during the current stages of tectonic activity in the Eastern, Central and Sudanese Rift systems. The connection of the different Niles occurred during cyclic wet periods. The Atbarah overflowed its closed basin during the wet periods that occurred about 100,000 to 120,000 years ago. The Blue Nile connected to

5329-582: Was even less understood. The ancients mistakenly believed that the Niger River represented the upper reaches of the White Nile. For example, Pliny the Elder writes that the Nile had its origins "in a mountain of lower Mauretania ", flowed above ground for "many days" distance, then went underground, reappeared as a large lake in the territories of the Masaesyli , then sank again below the desert to flow underground "for

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