The Nile River is commonly called the longest river in Africa.
It runs northward through northeastern Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. The river’s two principal tributaries are the White Nile, whose farthest headwaters are associated with the Great Lakes region, and the Blue Nile, which rises in Ethiopia and contributes much of the sediment and seasonal flow.
The Nile has supported settled life in Egypt for thousands of years. Ancient communities depended on its floodwaters for agriculture, while the river remains central to modern farming, transport, and water supply. The Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, greatly changed the river’s natural flooding pattern and created Lake Nasser.
The Nile’s exact length is debated because researchers define its most distant source differently. Some measurements have argued that the Amazon may be longer, but the Nile remains the conventional answer in standard geographic references. The river flows through or borders 11 countries in its basin.