The Nile River

The river Nile is in Egypt and it ends in a large delta that empties intoThe Mediterranean Sea. The River Nile flows through Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea and Kenya. These are the countries that the Nile flows through the cities are Jinja , Juba , Khartoum and Cairo the length of the Nile is 6650km 4132miles.This is an ancient map of the Nile.
The types of fish that are in the Nile are striped mullet, soles, tiger fish, lungfish, catfish, mudfish and eels, crocodiles, turtles, baboons, wildebeest, and more than 300 species of birds, including fishing eagles, ibis, and the Nile Valley Sunbird. The Aswan dam is a very big dam that stops the Nile from flooding its length is 3830m and its height is 111m and its width at base is 980m base and it has 12 turbines. It is 40m wide at the crest it contains 43 million cubic meters of material at maximum 11000 cubic meters of water could pass through the dam each second. The constructor of the dam who is Nasser has a man made lake called lake Nasser. June 1956: Soviets offer Nasser $1,120,000,000 at 2% interest for the construction of the dam.

When the flood starts to go down, farmers become busy plowing and planting their fields almost everyone works to plant crops so that their will be enough food for the rest of the year this is in the planting season.


In the dry season when the flood starts to go down there is little water except what flows through the Nile. The Egyptians store as much water as they can in Wells, Basins and ditches. This water is saved for crops, animals and human use. All of the fields become dry as the water for irrigation is used up.

Egypt gets little rain. But every year at the same time, floodwater swells the Nile River. It covers the fields and fills the wells and Basins with water. The flood also brings fresh, good soil to grow crops in. Where does the water come from? It comes from mountains south of the Nile. Rainfall and melting snow flow downhill, into smaller rivers that feed the Nile River.

Some people say that Egypt is the “gift of the Nile.” Without the Nile, no one could survive in the desert. The Nile River gave life to wild animals also. There where many fish in the Nile and people could catch all the fish they wanted. Fishing was often done by dragging a net between two boats.

The Nile floods every year, bringing good dirt to the sandy ground. Farms were put very close to the river so that it was easier to water them. Feluccas on the Nile are very common for moving goods and for transportation from one town to another. Egypt didn’t need good roads; the Nile was a perfect highway.

As the Nile River gets to its end at the Mediterranean Sea, it divides into about 7 smaller rivers, called tributaries. This area is called the delta, (a deposit of sand at the mouth of a river or inlet). It is a place where papyrus grows wild. There are also many birds and other wild animals that live where there is a lot of water. Stones where transported in boats on the Nile.

Feluccas are wooden traditional sailing boats they could transport goods or used for sightseeing or tours on the Nile. There are also other boats on the Nile Granite stones from Aswan had to be ferried down the river on large barges Ships transporting limestone from Tura had to cross the Nile and then cover about 13-17km on channels until they reached the harbor of Giza.

Unlike Ancient Egyptian ways there are much new transportation with lots of different types of boats but except one boat that is still the same which is the felucca and the new types are motorboats, cruisers, canoes, Dhows and kayaks. In Ancient Egypt they used to measure the height of the water when there is a flood with a nilometer. There is also the goddess of the Nile, which is called Anuket.

In Egypt nowadays we still use the Nile for lots of things like the poor people that can’t afford to pay for tap water use the Nile to have a shower wash there clothes and to drink from they also live on the banks of the Nile. But lots of these people unfortunately die because the Nile is polluted and is full of diseases and dead animals and people throwing rubbish in the river.

Now in Egypt we have a new law that says any body polluting the river has to pay a very big fine. The problem is that people don’t realize that this is the source of Egyptian life without it we can’t live it is the only source that provides us with water so they are polluting it and in they end they are polluting the water that they drink from to and that might cause diseases.

The River Nile is full of leeches and other deadly diseases and the fish in the Nile is poisonous and there are lots of types of snakes in the Nile this is also poisonous 2000 years ago the river was so clean people could drink from it normally and everything but now the Egyptians destroyed it from the stones and rubbish they throw into the rivers.