Lake Victoria is the principal source region of the White Nile and is traditionally regarded as the world’s second-largest freshwater lake by surface area.
Lake Victoria lies between Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. The lake’s northern outlet near Jinja, Uganda, feeds the Victoria Nile, which later joins the Albert Nile and then the White Nile. The White Nile continues north to meet the Blue Nile at Khartoum before flowing through Sudan and Egypt.
With a surface area of about 59,947 square kilometres, Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake by area. Only North America’s Lake Superior is larger among freshwater lakes by surface area. Lake Victoria is relatively shallow compared with the nearby rift lakes Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi, and it occupies a broad depression between the Western and Eastern Rift systems.
The lake was named by the British explorer John Hanning Speke in 1858 after Queen Victoria. Its watershed supports tens of millions of people, but pollution, overfishing, invasive species, and changing water levels have created major environmental pressures. Nile perch introductions also transformed the lake’s fishery and ecosystem.