Everything about The Niger River totally explained
The
Niger River (
NYE-jer) is the principal
river of western
Africa, extending about 4180 km (2600 miles). Its
drainage basin is in area. It runs in a crescent through
Guinea,
Mali,
Niger, on the border with
Benin and then through
Nigeria, discharging through a massive
delta, known as the
Niger Delta of the
Oil Rivers, into the
Gulf of Guinea. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded only by the
Nile and the
Congo River (also known as the Zaïre River). Its main
tributary is the
Benue River.
For much of the 18th century, the exact location and course of the Niger remained virtually unknown to Europe, but many expeditions to plot the river were unsuccessful. In 1788 the
African Association was formed in England to promote the exploration of Africa in the hopes of locating the Niger, and in June of 1786 the Scottish explorer
Mungo Park was the first European to lay eyes on the river.
Etymology
The origin of the name
Niger isn't certain. On early European maps it applied only to the middle reaches of the river, in modern Mali, while
Quorra or
Kworra was used for the lower reaches in modern Nigeria. The name
Niger was extended to cover the entire river on maps once Europeans realized that these were one and the same.
A good possibility for a source is the
Tuareg phrase
gher n gheren "river of rivers", shortened to
ngher, a local name used along the middle reaches of the river around
Timbuktu.
It is often assumed, without evidence, that
Niger derives from the
Latin word for "black",
niger, but it would have been more likely for the
Portuguese explorers who first wrote this name on their maps to have used the Portuguese word,
negro, as they did elsewhere in the world. In any case the Niger isn't a
blackwater river, which was the motivation for all other rivers that were called black. (See
Rio Negro.) Some have rationalized that 'black' may have referred to the color of the people living on the river, but this didn't happen to any other river in Africa. Therefore it would seem that the similarity between the name Niger and the Latin word
niger is either coincidence, or that knowledge of Latin influenced the spelling of an indigenous name like
ngher.
It is worth mentioning that the
Tabula Peutingeriana records a
Flumen Girin ("River Girin") with the remark
Hoc flumen quidam Grin vocant, alii Nilum appellant; dicitur enim sub terra Etyopium in Nylum ire Lacum, "This river which some are naming Grin is called Nile by others, for it's said to flow under the ground of Ethiopia [
for exampleAfrica] into the Nile Lake".
The nations of
Nigeria and
Niger are named after the river. The people who live along it have a variety of names for it, such as
Jeliba or
Joliba "great river" in
Manding,
Isa Ber "big river" in
Songhay, and
Oya, a Yoruba River Niger goddess.
Geography
The Niger River is a relatively "clear" river, carrying only a tenth as much sediment as the
Nile because the Niger's headlands are located in ancient rocks that provide little
silt. Like the Nile, the Niger floods yearly; this begins in September, peaks in November, and finishes by May.
An unusual feature of the river is the
Niger Inland Delta, which forms where its
gradient suddenly decreases. The result is a region of
braided streams,
marshes, and lakes the size of
Belgium; the seasonal floods make the Delta extremely productive for both
fishing and
agriculture.
The Niger takes one of the most unusual routes of any major river, a
boomerang shape that baffled European geographers for two millennia. Its source is just 240
km (150 mi) inland from the
Atlantic Ocean, but the river runs away from the sea into the
Sahara Desert, then takes a sharp right turn near the ancient city of
Timbuktu (Tombouctou) and heads southeast to the Gulf of Guinea.
Ancient Romans thought that the river near
Timbuktu was part of the Nile River (for example,
Pliny, N.H. 5.10), a belief also held by
Ibn Battuta, while early 17th-century European explorers thought that it flowed west and joined the
Senegal River. The true course was probably known to many locals, but Westerners only established it in the late 19th century, firstly mentioned in the book
Travels in the Interior of Africa by the
Scottish explorer
Mungo Park. This strange geography apparently came about because the Niger River is two ancient rivers joined together. The upper Niger, from the source past the trading city of Timbuktu to the bend in the current river, once emptied into a now-gone lake, while the lower Niger started in hills near that lake and flowed south into the
Gulf of Guinea. As the Sahara dried up in 4000-1000 BC, the two rivers altered their courses and hooked up. (This explanation is generally accepted, although some geographers disagree.)
The northern part of the river, known as the
Niger bend, is an important area because it's the closest major river and source of water to that part of the
Sahara desert. This made it the focal point of trade across the western Sahara, and the centre of the
Sahelian kingdoms of
Mali and
Gao.
The surrounding Niger River Basin is one of the distinct physiographic sections of the Sudan province, which in turn is part of the larger
African massive physiographic division.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Niger River'.
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