River Nile tour discussion

[T.Dooley]

This is a discussion thread for the following file:

River Nile tour

The River Nile, the worlds longest river, is a major north-flowing river in Africa. The Nile has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and fertile soil, but the former being the longer of the two. The White Nile rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant source in southern Rwanda/northern Burundi and flows north from there through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and southern Sudan, while the Blue Nile starts at Lake Tana in Ethiopia flowing into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet near the Sudanese capital Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows almost entirely through desert, from Sudan into Egypt, a country whose civilization has depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population of Egypt and all of its cities, with the exception of those near the coast, lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan; and nearly all the cultural and historical sites of Ancient Egypt are found along the banks of the river. The Nile ends in a large delta that empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

About the "River Nile tour": Take a tour along the entire River Nile of 6650 kilometers, 4135 miles from the most distant spring to the vast delta of the combined rivers. More than 700 placemarks, in average one every 9,5 km, 6 mile, guide you along the river. Dont forget to checkout the overlays in the folder at the end of the placemarks :-) Tour creator: Tom Kjeldsen, created may 2009. Recommended to be viewed as a 'Play tour' in Google Earth with terrain feature enabled.

[peteraboyer]

OK, since there are no comments on this file yet, I’ll offer one: to whit, this is a pretty amazing piece of work.

As an amateur African historian (that’s African history, I’m not an African), I’ve naturally been pretty interested in the Nile, and I can vouch for this file’s interest.

Now, having said that, I do have one relatively minor criticism: this tour follows only the Rukarara and Nyabarongo Rivers as though they are the sole source of the Nile . In fact, there are a number of rivers which feed into the Kagera River and which together constitute the headwaters of the Nile. The Rukarara and Nyabarongo are part of these headwaters, but they also include the Ruvyironza River which rises in Burundi, on the far Northeastern side of Lake Tanganyika, and flows into the Rurubu River. The Rurubu then hooks up with the Nyarabongo to form the Kagera River which ultimately flows into Lake Victoria, out of which flows the White Nile itself.

Notwithstanding, this is still a worthy and commendable contribution, and obviously entailed a lot of research.

[Appletom]

Welcome to GEH Peteraboyer, thanks for a fantastic response.

[T.Dooley]

Hi Peteraboyer, like Appletom, I bid you welcome in this forum. And thank you for a very constructive criticism.

Originally Posted by peteraboyer

Now, having said that, I do have one relatively minor criticism: this tour follows only the Rukarara and Nyabarongo Rivers as though they are the sole source of the Nile . In fact, there are a number of rivers which feed into the Kagera River and which together constitute the headwaters of the Nile. The Rukarara and Nyabarongo are part of these headwaters, but they also include the Ruvyironza River which rises in Burundi, on the far Northeastern side of Lake Tanganyika, and flows into the Rurubu River. The Rurubu then hooks up with the Nyarabongo to form the Kagera River which ultimately flows into Lake Victoria, out of which flows the White Nile itself.

You are completely right. When making the initial version of 'only' 530 placemarks I focused on the 'outline' of the 'entire' nile. This was limited to the 'official' source of the White (Rukarara) Nile spring in the Nyungwe Forest.

Like with most rivers, and maybe especially with the Nile, the precise source is a bit diluted :-) since several nearly equal tributaries/rivers forms the Nile during the flow from the source(s) to the delta. In the same way the delta are so big that it consist of two major rivers, each with it's own estuary and beside that hundreds of minor rivers. One could say a reverse of many sources. When working with an area like the 'upper nile' above the the Victoria Lake, you could find a new possible tributary almost every time you zoom in.

I have added placemarks (to a total of 700+) which among many new places adds the Ruvyironza Nile and the Ruvubu Nile which ends up joining the Nyarabongo Nile thus forming the Kagera Nile. This should form the major of the 3(+) White Nile sources. Some of the imagery in the area are currently a bit unsharp, so please allow for 'best bid' on some of the locations. Even in conjunction with other maps, on and offline, these areas of Africa are vast and seems often uninhabited and desolated. You may not be Henry Morton Stanley or David Livingstone but I bet you still can take a tour around there and see areas noone has seen before.

Best regards
Tom