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The
Blue Nile Falls are a
waterfallA waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...
on the
Blue NileThe Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile...
river in
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
. They are known as
Tis Abay in Amharic, when translated, means "smoking water" They are situated on the upper course of the river, about 30 km downstream from the town of
Bahir DarBahir Dar is a city in north western Ethiopia. It is the capital of the Amhara Region .Administratively, Bahir Dar is considered a Special Zone, placing it midway between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa which are organized as chartered cities , and cities like Debre Marqos and Dessie, which are...
and
Lake TanaLake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia...
. The falls are considered one of Ethiopia's best known
tourist attractionA tourist attraction is a place of interest where tourists visit, typically for its inherent or exhibited cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, or amusement opportunities....
s.
The falls are estimated to be between 37 and 45 metres high, consisting of four streams that originally varied from a trickle in the dry season to over 400 metres wide in the rainy season. Regulation of Lake Tana now reduces the variation somewhat, and since 2003 a hydro-electric station has taken much of the flow out of the falls except during the rainy season. The Blue Nile Falls have isolated the ecology of Lake Tana from the ecology of the rest of the Nile, and this isolation has played a role in the evolution of the endemic fauna of the lake.
A short distance downstream from the falls sits the first stone bridge constructed in Ethiopia, built at the command of Emperor
SusenyosSusenyos was of Ethiopia...
in 1626. According to
Manuel de AlmeidaManuel de Almeida was a native of Viseu, who entered at an early age into the Society of Jesus, and went out as a missionary to India...
, stone for making
limeLime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
had been found nearby along the tributary Alata, and a craftsman who had come from
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
with Afonso Mendes, the Catholic
PatriarchOriginally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...
of Ethiopia supervised the construction.
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