I.

Introduction

Nile, river, eastern Africa, the longest river in the world. From Lake Victoria in east central Africa, it flows generally north through Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea, for a distance of 5,584 km (3,470 mi). From its remotest headstream, the Luvironza River in Burundi, the river is 6,695 km (4,160 mi) long. The river basin has an area of about 3,350,000 sq km (1,293,000 sq mi). Its average discharge is 3.1 million litres (680,000 gallons) per second. The lower course of the river in Egypt has become centrally important to tourism, linking as it does all the major sites of Egyptian antiquity (see Ancient Egypt).