The Nile delta at the time of Herodotus, according to James Rennell (corresponding to the Phatnitic, to the east) and the Rashid (corresponding to notably the Nile, have provided water, transportation, and defense to Egypt for thousands of years.
There is only one year-round river in Egypt, the Nile. It has no non-seasonal tributaries for its entire length in Egypt, though it has two further upstream, the Blue Nile and White Nile, which merge in central Sudan.
In the Nile Delta, the river splits into a number of distributaries and lesser channels. In ancient times there were seven distributaries, of which only two are extant today due to silting and flood relief schemes. From east to west, they were:
the Pelusiac,
the Tanitic,
the Mendesian,
the Phatnitic (extant; now the Damietta or Damyat),
the Sebennytic,
the Bolbitinic,
the Canopic (extant; now the Rosetta or Rashid).
The Nile is intersected by a number of normally dry tributaries or wadis which traverse the Eastern Desert. The wadis drain run-off rainfall from the mountains along the Egyptian Red Sea coast, though it only rarely reaches the main trunk of the wadis to flow downstream to the Nile. The three principal wadis are:
Wadi Abbad (drainage area 7,000km2)
Wadi Shait (length 200km, drainage area 10,000km2)
Wadi El-Kharit (length 260km, drainage area 23,000km2)
Sinai
Sinai has a number of wadis, including the Wadi Mukattab ("The Valley of Writing") and the Wadi Feiran (associated with the biblical Rephidim).
Sources
The Vegetation of Egypt, pp.192, 253. M. A. Zahran, A. J. Willis. Springer, 2008. ISBN978-1-4020-8755-4
The Amazon River in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile.
Africa is a continent comprising 63 political territories, representing the largest of the great southward projections from the main mass of Earth's surface. Within its regular outline, it comprises an area of 30,368,609 km2 (11,725,385 sq mi), excluding adjacent islands. Its highest mountain is Mount Kilimanjaro; its largest lake is Lake Victoria.
The geography of Egypt relates to two regions: North Africa and Southwest Asia.
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest river in the world, though this has been contested by research suggesting that the Amazon River is slightly longer. Of the world's major rivers, the Nile is one of the smallest, as measured by annual flow in cubic metres of water. About 6,650 km (4,130 mi) long, its drainage basin covers eleven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Republic of the Sudan, and Egypt. In particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan. Additionally, the Nile is an important economic river, supporting agriculture and fishing.
Sudan is located in Northeast Africa. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west and Libya to the northwest. Sudan is the third largest country in Africa, after Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It had been the largest country on the continent until the 2011 independence of South Sudan.
Transport in Sudan during the early 1990s included an extensive railroad system that served the more important populated areas except in the far south, a meager road network, a natural inland waterway—the Nile River and its tributaries—and a national airline that provided both international and domestic service. Complementing this infrastructure was Port Sudan, a major deep-water port on the Red Sea, and a small but modern national merchant marine. Additionally, a pipeline transporting petroleum products extended from the port to Khartoum.
A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel, a phenomenon known as river bifurcation. A distributary is effectively the opposite of a tributary, a stream that flows towards and into another, larger stream or river. Distributaries are often found where a stream approaches a lake or an ocean; as such, they are a common feature of river deltas. They can also occur inland, on alluvial fans, or where a tributary stream bifurcates as it nears its confluence with a larger stream. In some cases, a minor distributary can divert so much water from the main channel that it can later become the main route.
The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately 1,450 km (900 mi) through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the water to the Nile during the rainy season.
The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1980s, the Aswan High Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan Low Dam initially completed in 1902 downstream. Based on the success of the Low Dam, then at its maximum utilization, construction of the High Dam became a key objective of the government following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952; with its ability to better control flooding, provide increased water storage for irrigation and generate hydroelectricity, the dam was seen as pivotal to Egypt's planned industrialization. Like the earlier implementation, the High Dam has had a significant effect on the economy and culture of Egypt.
The headwater of a river or stream is the farthest point on each of its tributaries upstream from its mouth/estuary into a lake/sea or its confluence with another river. Each headwater is considered one of the river's source, as it is the place where surface runoffs from rainwater, meltwater and/or spring water begin accumulating into a more substantial and consistent flow that becomes a first-order tributary of that river. The tributary with the longest course downstream of the headwaters is regarded as the main stem of that river.
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers 240 km (150 mi) of Mediterranean coastline and is a rich agricultural region. From north to south the delta is approximately 160 km (100 mi) in length. The Delta begins slightly down-river from Cairo.
The Eastern Desert is the part of the Sahara desert that is located east of the Nile river. It spans 223,000 square kilometres (86,000 sq mi) of North-Eastern Africa and is bordered by the Nile river to the west and the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez to the east. It extends through Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. The Eastern Desert is also known as the Red Sea Hills. The Desert consists of a mountain range which runs parallel to the coast, wide sedimentary plateaus extending from either side of the mountains and the Red Sea coast. The rainfall, climate, vegetation and animal life sustained in the desert varies between these different regions.The Desert has been a mining site for building materials, and precious and semi-precious metals throughout history. It has historically contained many trade routes leading to and from the Red Sea, including the Suez Canal.
River bifurcation occurs when a river flowing in a single stream separates into two or more separate streams which then continue downstream. Some rivers form complex networks of distributaries, typically in their deltas. If the streams eventually merge again or empty into the same body of water, then the bifurcation forms a river island.
Wadi El Natrun is a depression in northern Egypt that is located 23 m (75 ft) below sea level and 38 m (125 ft) below the Nile River level. The valley contains several alkaline lakes, natron-rich salt deposits, salt marshes and freshwater marshes.
Wadi Tumilat is the 50-kilometre-long (31 mi) dry river valley (wadi) to the east of the Nile Delta. In prehistory, it was a distributary of the Nile. It starts near the modern town of Zagazig and the ancient town of Bubastis and goes east to the area of modern Ismaïlia.
Water resources management in modern Egypt, is a complex process that involves multiple stakeholders who use water for irrigation, municipal and industrial water supply, hydropower generation and navigation. In addition, the waters of the Nile support aquatic ecosystems that are threatened by abstraction and pollution. Egypt also has substantial fossil groundwater resources in the Western Desert.
Abu Simbel is a village in the Egyptian part of Nubia, about 240 km (150 mi) southwest of Aswan and near the border with Sudan. As of 2012, it has about 2600 inhabitants. It is best known as the site of the Abu Simbel temples, which were built by King Ramses II.
A river fork is where a river is connected to two or more clearly and equally distinct branches. It describes both tributaries and distributaries.
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