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Cataracts of the Nile
 
 
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The cataracts of the Nile are shallow stretches between Aswan
Aswan

Aswan , Egyptian language: Swenet , Coptic language: Swan; Greek language: Syene; ) is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate....
 and Khartoum
Khartoum

Khartoum is the Capital of Sudan and of Khartoum . It is located at the confluence point of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia....
 where the water's surface is broken by numerous small boulders and stones lying on the river bed, as well as many small rocky islet
Islet

File:Mokolea Rock 2.jpgAn islet is a small island....
s.






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Nubia Today
Nile Sunset Dar Almanasir
The cataracts of the Nile are shallow stretches between Aswan
Aswan

Aswan , Egyptian language: Swenet , Coptic language: Swan; Greek language: Syene; ) is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate....
 and Khartoum
Khartoum

Khartoum is the Capital of Sudan and of Khartoum . It is located at the confluence point of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia....
 where the water's surface is broken by numerous small boulders and stones lying on the river bed, as well as many small rocky islet
Islet

File:Mokolea Rock 2.jpgAn islet is a small island....
s. In some places, these stretches are punctuated by whitewater
Whitewater

Whitewater is formed in a rapid, when a river's Stream gradient drops enough to disturb its laminar flow and create turbulence, i.e. form a bubbly, or aerated and unstable current; the frothy water appears white....
 and are perhaps well characterized as rapids, while in others the water flow is smoother. The six primary cataracts of the Nile were the main obstacles for boats sailing on the Nile in antiquity. Counted upstream (from north to south), the First Cataract is in modern Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
; the rest are in Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
.

  • The First Cataract is in Aswan
    Aswan

    Aswan , Egyptian language: Swenet , Coptic language: Swan; Greek language: Syene; ) is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate....
     
  • The Second Cataract (or Great Cataract) was in Nubia
    Nubia

    Nubia is a region in Southern Egypt along the Nile and in what is now northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt....
     and is now submerged in Lake Nasser
    Lake Nasser

    Lake Nasser is a vast reservoir in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Strictly, "Lake Nasser" refers only to the much larger portion of the lake that is in Egyptian territory , with the Sudanese preferring to call their smaller body of water Lake Nubia ....
     
  • The Third Cataract is around Tombos
    Tombos

    Tombos is a city and municipality in southeast Minas Gerais state, Brazil. It is located in the Zona da Mata region and its population was approximately 12,619 inhabitants in 2004 ....
      / Hannek
  • The Fourth Cataract is in the Manasir Desert
    Dar al-Manasir

    Dar al-Manasir is the region of the Fourth Cataract, the most impassable of all rapids of the Nile. It is the homeland of the Afro-Arab tribe of the Manasir and from them gets its name....
     and will be flooded by the Merowe Dam
    Merowe Dam

    The Merowe High Dam, also known as Merowe Multi-Purpose Hydro Project or Hamdab Dam, is a large construction project in Merowe, Sudan in northern Sudan, about 350 km north of the capital Khartoum....
     from 2006 onwards
  • The Fifth Cataract is near the confluence
    Confluence

    Confluence may refer to:* Confluence , the point where two or more bodies of water meet and merge* Deformation , the streamline air flow convergence of a fluid air parcel...
     with the Atbara River
  • The Sixth Cataract is where the Nile cuts through the Sabaluka pluton
    Intrusion

    In geology, an intrusion is a body of igneous rock that has crystallized from molten magma below the surface of the Earth. Bodies of magma that solidify underground before they reach the surface of the earth are called plutons, named for Pluto , the Roman mythology of the underworld....
     near Bagrawiyah
    Meroë

    Mero? is the name of an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum....
     


The word cataract is, literally "down-rushing", meaning "waterfall" or "floodgate". However, none of the Nile's six primary cataracts would be accurately described as waterfalls, and given the broader definition, many minor cataracts should perhaps also be included in the count. Geologists indicate that the region of the northern Sudan is tectonically
Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompasses the older concepts of continental drift, developed during the first decades of the 20th century by Alfred Wegener, and seafloor spreading, understood during the 1960s....
 active and this activity has caused the river to take on "youthful" characteristics. The Nubian Swell
Nubian Swell

The Nubian Swell is a geologic structural uplift in northern Africa that trends east-west and separates the lower Nile River of Egypt from the Sudan basin....
 has diverted the river's course to the west, while keeping its depth shallow and causing the formation of the cataracts. Even as the river bed is worn down by erosion
Erosion

For morphological image processing operations, see Erosion 'For use of in dermatopathology, see Erosion Erosion is the removal of solids in the natural environment....
, the land mass is lifted keeping parts of the river bed exposed. These distinctive features of the river between Aswan and Khartoum have led to the stretch being often referred to as the Cataract Nile, while the downstream portion is occasionally referred to as the "Egyptian" Nile.

Despite these characteristics, some of the cataracts which are normally impassable by boat, become navigable during the flood season.

The six primary cataracts of the Nile are described extensively by European colonials, notably by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, Order of the Garter, Order of Merit, Order of the Companions of Honour, Territorial Decoration, Fellow of the Royal Society, Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Queen's Privy Council for Canada was a Politics of the United Kingdom known chiefly for his leadership of the United King...
 in The River War
The River War

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan is an 1899 book written by Winston Churchill while he was still an officer in the British army....
 (1899), where he recounts the exploits of the British trying to return to Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
 between 1896 and 1898, after they were forced to leave in 1885.

In ancient times, Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt

File:Ancient Egypt map-en.svgUpper Egypt is a narrow strip of land that extends from the Cataracts of the Nile section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Asyut is sometimes known as Middle Egypt....
 extended from south of the Nile Delta
Nile Delta

The Nile Delta is the River delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas?from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline?and is a rich agricultural region....
 to the first cataract, while further upstream, the land was controlled by the ancient Kush civilization, that would later take over Egypt
Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
.

External links

  • The Cataract Nile and the Great Bend (webpage)
  • The 1905-1907 Breasted Expeditions to Egypt and the Sudan: A Photographic Study (See photos listed in the under "Nile, Third Cataract" and "Nile, Fourth Cataract")
Photo links

  • Second Cataract:
  • Third Cataract:
  • Fourth Cataract:
  • Fifth Cataract:
  • Sixth Cataract: