White Nile

White Nile

White Nile, river, one of the chief tributaries of the Nile, E Africa. The name is sometimes used for the 600 mi (970 km) long section of the river known as the Bahr el Abiad that extends upstream from Khartoum to the junction of the Bahr el Jebel and the Bahr el Ghazal at Lake No, c.100 mi (160 km) above Malakal. In a wider sense it is applied to the entire c.2,300 mi (3,700 km) long stem of the Nile draining from the headwaters of Lake Victoria (Victoria Nyanza). In this wider sense, its remotest headstream is the Luvironza River in Burundi, which flows into the Ruvuvu River and which, in turn, is a tributary of the Kagera River, one of the principal headstreams feeding into Lake Victoria. Known as the Victoria Nile for approximately the next 260 mi (430 km), it flows N and W through Uganda into Lake Albert. It leaves Lake Albert as the Albert Nile and flows north c.100 mi (160 km) to Nimule, where it enters South Sudan and becomes the Bahr el Jebel. From Nimule to Rejaf is a zone of rapids. At Juba it leaves the highlands of central Africa and enters the broad South Sudan plain; downstream at Bor, it flows through the Sudd, a vast swampy area named after the floating vegetation (sudd) that sometimes hinders navigation. At Lake No it receives the Bahr-el-Ghazal and continues E to Khartoum, where it joins with the Blue Nile to form the Nile.

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

White Nile

 

or Bahr al-Abyad (Arabic, bahr, river, and abyad, white), name of the Nile River in the territory of Sudan, for a distance extending from the river’s convergence with its left tributary, al-Ghazal, up to the mouth of the Blue Nile. The White Nile is 957 km long, and its bed is 1–2 km wide. Its most important tributary is the Sobat on the right; at high water, the Sobat brings much suspended matter into the White Nile, giving the water a whitish appearance, hence its name. From the mouth of the Sobat to the mouth of the Blue Nile the current is slow. In the upper reaches the discharge of water is uniform, averaging 453 m³/sec year round; below the confluence with the Sobat the discharge increases considerably and reaches a year-round average of 808 m³/sec near Khartoum (with a maximum of 1,354 m³/sec in October). The Jabal al-Awliya dam, created to regulate the flow of the lower Nile, is 40 kilometers above Khartoum. The waters of the White Nile are used for irrigation. There is fishing. The river is navigable along its entire expanse. There is a railroad drawbridge near the city of Kusti.

REFERENCES

Hurst, H. Nil. Moscow, 1954. (Translated from English.)
Dmitrevskii, Iu. D. Vnutrennie vody Afriki i ikh ispoizovanie. Leningrad, 1967.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.