The River Nile
No Egypt tour is complete without seeing the Nile - this is the Nile River passing through Cairo, the capital city of Egypt. The Nile is the
longest river in the world, flowing from Lake Victoria in central Africa northwards into the
Mediterranean Sea. From the Lake Victoria beginnings it is called the White Nile as it flows north
through Uganda and into Sudan where it meets the Blue Nile at Khartoum.
Today, 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 River has been providing life to the vast Nile basin for hundreds of thousands of years.
It is a great river, and it plays an important role in Egyptian Mythology. As the Nile flows northward
through Egypt, it nurtures a narrow ribbon of fertile land across the middle of a great desert. The
sharp contrast between the fertility along the Nile and the wasteland of the desert became a main theme
in many myths, and the animals living in or along the river became linked with many of the gods.
From around 5000 BC herdspeople began settling along side the Nile as it provided shelter, water,
protection and land for harvesting. When they first settled into villages they grew wheat and
barley and stored it in pits in the ground, which were lined with rush matting. At this time
people started to take on full time jobs such as potters, hunters and priests, and the different
tribes or villages, by then almost cities, started trading.
Revised: 8th October 2004
©2004
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