Lake Victoria borders Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania and is traditionally considered the source of the White Nile.
Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake by surface area and the world’s largest tropical lake. It occupies a shallow depression between the Western and Eastern Rift Valley branches. The lake’s northern outlet is the Victoria Nile, which flows through Uganda toward Lake Kyoga and Lake Albert before joining the White Nile system.
The lake was named by the British explorer John Hanning Speke in 1858 in honor of Queen Victoria. Indigenous communities had their own names and deep relationships with the lake long before European mapping. Lake Victoria supports major fisheries, transport routes, agriculture, and dense populations around its shores.
Its ecology has been heavily altered by introduced Nile perch, pollution, shoreline development, and fluctuating water levels. Although the lake is commonly described as the source of the Nile, the wider Nile source question includes the more distant headwaters of the Kagera River. That distinction is why “traditional source” is more precise than claiming a single universally accepted spring.