Introducation of Nile Valley

Nile, longest river in the world, c.4,160 mi (6,695 km) long from its remotest headstream, the Luvironza River in Burundi, central Africa, to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea, NE Egypt.

The Nile flows northward and drains c.1,100,000 sq mi (2,850,000 sq km), about one tenth of Africa, including parts of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, and Congo (Kinshasa). Its waters support practically all agriculture in the most densely populated parts of Egypt, furnish water for more than 20% of Sudan’s total crop area, and are widely used throughout the basin for navigation and hydroelectric power.

The Nile is stretching north for approximately 4,000 miles from East Africa to the Mediterranean. Studies have shown that the River (Iteru, meaning, simply, River, as the Egyptians called it) gradually changed its location and size over millions of years. The Nile flows from the mountains in the south to the Mediterranean in the north. Egyptians traveling to other lands would comment on the “wrong” flow of other rivers. For example, a text of Tuthmosis I in Nubia describes the great Euphrates river as the “inverted water that goes downstream in going upstream.”

Three rivers flowed into the Nile from the south and thus served as its sources: the Blue Nile, the White Nile and the Arbara. Within the southern section between Aswan and Khartoum, land which was called Nubia, the River passes through formations of hard igneous rock, resulting in a series of rapids, or cataracts, which form a natural boundary to the south. Between the first and second cataracts lay Lower Nubia, and between the second and sixth cataracts lay upper Nubia.