|
Uganda Lakes and Rivers
Uganda is a well-watered country. Nearly one-fifth of
the
total area, or 44,000 square kilometers, is open water or
swampland. Four of East Africa's Great Lakes--Lake
Victoria, Lake
Kyoga, Lake Albert, and Lake Edward--lie within Uganda or
on its
borders. Lake Victoria dominates the southeastern corner
of the
nation, with almost one-half of its
10,200-square-kilometer area
lying inside Ugandan territory. It is the second largest
inland
freshwater lake in the world (after Lake Superior), and it
feeds
the upper waters of the Nile River, which is referred to
in this
region as the Victoria Nile.
Lake Kyoga and the surrounding basin dominate central
Uganda.
Extensions of Lake Kyoga include Lake Kwania, Lake
Bugondo, and
Lake Opeta. These "finger lakes" are surrounded by
swampland
during rainy seasons. All lakes in the Lake Kyoga Basin
are
shallow, usually reaching a depth of only eight or nine
meters,
and Lake Opeta forms a separate lake during dry seasons.
Along
the border with Zaire, Lake Albert, Lake Edward, and Lake
George
occupy troughs in the western Rift Valley.
Leaving Lake Victoria at Owen Falls, the Victoria Nile
descends as it travels toward the northwest. Widening to
form
Lake Kyoga, the Nile receives the Kafu River from the west
before
flowing north to Lake Albert. From Lake Albert, the Nile
is known
as the Albert Nile as it travels roughly 200 kilometers to
the
Sudan border. In southern and western Uganda, geological
activity
over several centuries has shifted drainage patterns. The
land
west of Lake Victoria is traversed by valleys that were
once
rivers carrying the waters of Lake Victoria into the Congo
River
system. The Katonga River flows westward from Lake
Victoria to
Lake George. Lake George and Lake Edward are connected by
the
Kizinga Channel. The Semliki River flows into Lake Edward
from
the north, where it drains parts of Zaire and forms a
portion of
the Uganda-Zaire border.
Spectacular waterfalls occur at Murchison (Kabalega)
Falls on
the Victoria Nile River just east of Lake Albert. At the
narrowest point on the falls, the waters of the Nile pass
through
an opening barely seven meters wide. One of the
tributaries of
the Albert Nile, the Zoka River, drains the northwestern
corner
of Uganda, a region still popularly known as the West Nile
although that name was not officially recognized in 1989.
Other
major rivers include the Achwa River (called the Aswa in
Sudan)
in the north, the Pager River and the Dopeth-Okok River in
the
northeast, and the Mpologoma River, which drains into Lake
Kyoga
from the southeast.
Data as of December 1990
|
