This is an educational module on the Nile River

1. Geography of Africa
Nile River watersheds
Lake Victoria
Great Rift Valley

2. UN Region Name Country
ISO 3166
alpha-3
codes
Northern Africa
Egypt EGY
Sudan SDN
Eastern Africa
Burundi BDI
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Kenya KEN
Rwanda RWA
South Sudan SSD
Uganda UGA
Tanzania TZA
Middle Africa
Democratic Republic
of the Congo
COD
Our area of interest
Nile River Basin countries

3. Nile River Watersheds
• At 6853 km (4,258 miles), the Nile River is commonly
regarded as the longest river in the world (although
some sources cite the Amazon River as the longest).
• The Nile has two major tributaries: White Nile and Blue
Nile.
• The White Nile is the headwaters and primary stream of
the Nile. It rises near Lake Victoria. It flows north
through Uganda, Sudan, and South Sudan.
• The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows
into Sudan from the southeast.
• The White Nile and Blue Nile meet north of Khartoum.
• The Nile then flows north through the Sudanese desert
to Egypt, ends in a large delta, and flows into the
Mediterranean Sea.

4. Lake Victoria
• Lake Victoria is considered the source of the Nile,
although the most distant source might be in
Burundi or Rwanda.
• With a surface area of approximately 59,947
square km (23,146 sq mi), it is Africa's largest lake,
the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's
second largest fresh water lake, after Lake Superior
in North America.
• Its surface elevation is 1,135 m (3,724 ft).
• Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania border Lake Victoria.
• Burundi and Rwanda are also basin countries.

5. Great Rift Valley
• The term Great Rift Valley most often refers to the
valley of the East African Rift, which is the divergent
plate boundary that is splitting the African Plate
into two separate plates.
• Geologists generally call these incipient plates the
Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.
• The Afar Triangle is a junction where three plates
are pulling away from one another: the Arabian
Plate, the Nubian Plate, and the Somali Plate.
• The Great Rift Valley has two branches, the Western
Rift Valley and the Eastern Rift Valley.
• Lake Victoria lies between the two branches.
• Some of Africa’s highest mountains in Africa border
the Western Rift, which also contains some of the
deepest lakes in the world (up to 1,470 meters, or
4,820 ft).

6. Great Rift Valley. (2018, November 06). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rift_Valley
Lake Victoria. (2018, November 13). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Victoria
Nile. (2018, November 15). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile
Textual sources

7. Data sources
10m-cultural-vectors | Natural Earth. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from
https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/ open data
10m-physical-vectors | Natural Earth. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from
https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-physical-vectors/ open data
10m-raster-data | Natural Earth. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from
https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-raster-data/ open data
Google Earth/KML Files. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kml.php Tectonic plate
boundaries
Harvard WorldMap. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from
http://worldmap.harvard.edu/data/geonode:great_rift_valley_ofb Great Rift Valley
Maps and spatial data. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/maps/index.stm
Watersheds
UNSD - Methodology. (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2018, from https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/
geographical regions used by the UN Statistics Division and alpha-3 country codes
World Cities Database. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2018, from https://simplemaps.com/data/world-cities World Cities

8. Data processing
Data was processed in QGIS, a free and open Geographic Information System
software program.
Maps created through QGIS were saved to images, which were subsequently
inserted into a PowerPoint presentation.

9. Vocabulary
Afar Triangle, African Plate, Arabian Plate, Blue Nile, Burundi, Democratic Republic
of the Congo, East African Rift, Eastern Rift Valley, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Geographic Information System, GIS, Great Rift Valley, Kenya, Khartoum, Lake Tana,
Lake Victoria, Mediterranean Sea, middle school, Nile River, Nubian Plate, Open
data, Open source, PowerPoint, QGIS, Radiant Earth, Republic of the Sudan,
Rwanda, Somali Plate, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Western Rift Valley, White
Nile

10. Test your knowledge
Go to https://quizlet.com/342747052/geography-of-africa-diagram/