The Atbarah River in northeast Africa rises in northwest Ethiopia, approximately 50 km north of Lake Tana and 30 km west of Gondar. It flows about 805 km (500 mi) to the Nile in north-central Sudan, joining it at the city of Atbarah (17.677° N 33.970° E). Its tributary, the Tekezé River (Amharic: "Terrible"), is perhaps the true upper course of the Atbarah, as the Tekezé follows the longer course prior to the confluence of the two rivers (at 14° 10' N., 36° E) in northeastern Sudan. The Atbarah is the last tributary of the Nile before it reaches the Mediterranean. Africa is the worlds second-largest continent and second most populous after Asia. ... KM, Km, or km may stand for: Khmer language (ISO 639 alpha-2, km) Kilometre Kinemantra Meditation Knowledge management KM programming language Comoros (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code) the Michaelis-Menten constant Km, see Michaelis-Menten kinetics Kamenz (district), Germany (license plate indication) Messenia, Greece (license plate indication... Lake Tana from space, April 1991 Lake Tana (also spelled Tana; older spellings include Tsana and Dambea) is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia. ... Gondar (less commonly spelled Gonder) was the old imperial capital of Ethiopia and the historic Begemder province, now part of the Amhara region. ... The Nile in Egypt Length 6 695 km Elevation of the source 1 134 m Average discharge 2 830 m³/s Area watershed 3 400 000 km² Origin  Africa Mouth  the Mediterranean Basin countries Uganda - Sudan - Egypt The Nile (Arabic: النيل an-nÄ«l), in Africa, is one of the two... A tributary (or affluent or confluent) is a contributory stream, a river that does not reach the sea, but joins another major river (a parent river), to which it contributes its waters, swelling its discharge. ... The Tekezé River is a major river of Ethiopia, and forms a section the westernmost border of Ethiopia and Eritrea for part of its course. ... Amharic (አማርኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia. ... A confluence is the merger or meeting of two or more objects (or subjects) that seem to inseparably bind their respective forces or attributes into a point of junction. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ...

For much of the year, it is little more than a stream. However during the rainy season (generally June to October), the Atbarah rises some 18 ft (5 m) above its normal level. At this time it forms an formidable barrier between the northern and central districts of Ethiopia. An important tributary of the Atbarah is the Senfa River, which rises west of Lake Tana.

A major battle was fought beside the river in April 1898 between forces of the Khalifa of Sudan and the British Empire, which resulted in the Khalifa's 20,000-strong detachment being destroyed by the British. In 1964, the river was dammed at Kashm-el-Girba in Sudan to provide irrigation in an otherwise fairly arid region. 1898 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Khalifa (خليفة ) is Arabic for stewardship of nature and family, and is a key obligation of a Muslim. ... The British Empire in 1897, marked in pink, the traditional colour for Imperial British dominions on maps The British Empire was one of the worlds first global powers, a product of the European Age of Exploration that began with the global maritime empires of Portugal and Spain in the... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

External link

• Maps of Ethiopia - Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas