The Nile River is 6,700km long, and hence is the longest river in the world. Despite the fact that the Nile flows through one of the harshest deserts, and travels the last 2,400km without a single tributary, it never runs dry.
The Nile river is said to be the life of the Egyptians. There is an old saying that ‘Egypt is the gift of Nile’. The entire long history of Egypt, even as far back as the days of the Pharoes and the Pyramids, is closely linked to the Nile river. This is still true even to the present day, as the Blue Nile is vital to the livelihood of Egypt. Almost 60% of the water that reaches Egypt originates from the Blue Nile branch of the great river.
The Blue Nile got the ‘blue’ part of its name because of its muddy color due to the huge amount of fertile soil it erodes from the Ethiopian highlands. Why they called it blue rather than the more logical color of brown, dark brown or even black is open to conjecture.
It is this spectacular flood of the Blue Nile that sets it apart from many other great river systems of the world. Each year during the heavy rains, the Blue Nile swells to over 50 times its dry season size and carries with it a staggering 140 million tonnes of rich, fertile silt as it rages, thick and brown, towards the Mediterranean sea.
The Blue Nile from the highlands of Ethiopia, and the White Nile from Lake Victoria meet in Khartoum, and merge in what Arab poets call ‘the longest kiss in history’, to form the Nile river. For most of the year, the Blue Nile provides little water compared to the White Nile, but in summer it is very much the dominant tributary.
