The White Nile is a river of Africa, one of the two main branches of the Nile, the other being the Blue Nile.
It rises from Lake Victoria as the Victoria Nile, then flows north and westwards through Uganda, Lake Kyoga, and Lake Albert. The stream exiting Lake Albert is known as the Albert Nile; it flows north to Nimule where it enters Sudan and becomes known as the Mountain Nile. It then flows over rapids entering the Sudan plain, through the vast swamps of the Sudd, and via Lake No before meeting with the Blue Nile at Khartoum in Sudan and forming the Nile. From Lake Victoria to Khartoum, the length of the river is approximately 3700 kilometers (2300 miles).
The 19th century search for the source of the Nile was mainly focused on the White Nile, which disappeared into the depths of what was then known as Darkest Africa. The discovery of the source of the White Nile thus came to symbolise modern civilisation's penetration of unknown jungle in order to finally map and tame the wild and 'barbaric' source of the most influential of early civilisations.
ALBERT NYANZA, a lake of Central Africa, the northern of the two western reservoirs of the Nile, lying in the western (Albertine) rift-valley, near its north end.
At the northern end of the lake the sediment brought down by the VictoriaNile is producing a similar effect.
Of the water received by Albert Nyanza annually (omitting the VictoriaNile from the calculation) between 50 and 60% is lost by evaporation, whilst 24,265,000,000 cubic metres are annually withdrawn by the Bahr-el-Jebel.
Lake Victoria in Uganda is commonly considered to be the source of the Nile, although the Lake itself has feeder rivers of considerable size.
The Nile (iteru in ancient Egyptian) was the lifeline of the ancient Egyptian civilization, with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt in the Nile valley.
The source of the Nile was unknown until the 19th century, when John Hanning Speke was the first to identify it as Lake Victoria.
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