Rivers of Africa: Natural currents of the black continent

The main African river is the Nilo, which holds the record for the second longest river in the world. It is born in Burundi and has two main tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The first crosses the African Great Lakes area, from Rwanda, through Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan. The second runs through Ethiopia and Sudan.
In the vicinity of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, the channels join and the northern part of the river begins, which runs through Sudan and Egypt. Egyptian civilization has depended on river water for its development since Pharaonic times and even today the country's main cities are located in the Nile Valley, and depend on it for irrigation projects such as the Aswan Dam. Its mouth forms a delta, depositing its waters in the Mediterranean coast. Its hydrographic basin covers about 10% of the African surface.

The second most important river on the continent is the Congo. It has a length of more than four thousand kilometers. Its waters and tributaries run through the second largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon. Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, and Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are located on the banks of the river, which is easily navigable especially in the section between these two cities. It empties through an estuary into the Atlantic.

The Niger River, in West Africa, also exceeds four thousand kilometers in length. It is born in Guinea, and travels through Mali, Niger, Benin and Nigeria, flowing into a large delta in the Atlantic. It is navigable in certain areas, becoming an efficient means of transport between the countries it crosses. Bamako, the capital of Mali, is a river bridge over the Niger.

The Zambezi River is located in the south of the continent. It is just over 2500 kilometers long. It is born in Zambia, crossing Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, where it empties into the Indian Ocean forming a huge delta. Its course is occasionally interrupted by rapids and waterfalls, so it is only navigable in small sections. The biggest interruptions in its course are the Victoria Falls, the largest in the world and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Its waters are also used to generate electricity.

In South Africa, the 1600-kilometer-long Limpopo River runs through that country and Mozambique to finally deposit its waters in the Indian Ocean.