Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria (Nam Lolwe in Luo; 'Nnalubaale in Luganda; Nyanza in some Bantu languages) is one of the African Great Lakes.

They include Lake Victoria, the third-largest fresh water lake in the world by area, Lake Tanganyika, the world's second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth, and Lake Malawi, the world's eighth-largest fresh water lake by area.

The lake was renamed Lake Victoria after Queen Victoria by the explorer John Hanning Speke, in his reports—the first Briton to document it.

He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria.

(It has since been recognized that the native guides used the name Lake Nyanza to describe it to him.) Speke accomplished this in 1858, while on an expedition with Richard Francis Burton to locate the source of the Nile River. However, the most distal source of the Nile Basin, and therefore the ultimate source of the Nile, is more often considered to be one of the tributary rivers of the Kagera River (the exact tributary remains undetermined), and which originates in either Rwanda or Burundi.

It flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan.

The lake's area is divided among three countries: Kenya (6 percent or 4,100 km2), Uganda (45 percent or 31,000 km2), and Tanzania (49 percent or 33,700 km2).

The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania.

Lake Victoria last dried out about 17,300 years ago, and it refilled 14,700 years ago as the African humid period began.

Before the African humid period, during the last glacial maximum, the Sahara was much larger than today and had extensive dune fields; many lakes and rivers such as Lake Victoria and the White Nile were either dry or at low levels and the Sahara mostly uninhabited.

The lake's area is divided among three countries: Kenya (6 percent or 4,100 km2), Uganda (45 percent or 31,000 km2), and Tanzania (49 percent or 33,700 km2).

These movements took place at about the same time as the settlement of the Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika areas.

The uppermost section of the Nile is generally known as the Victoria Nile until it reaches Lake Albert.

Its main sources are the Victoria Nile, ultimately coming from Lake Victoria to the southeast, and the Semliki River, which issues from Lake Edward to the southwest.

The main group in Lake Victoria is the haplochromine cichlids (Haplochromis sensu lato) with more than 500 species, almost all endemic, and including an estimated 300 that still are undescribed.

The introduction of Nile perch (Lates niloticus) to Lake Victoria after 1954 severely upset the lake's ecosystem.

However, the most distal source of the Nile Basin, and therefore the ultimate source of the Nile, is more often considered to be one of the tributary rivers of the Kagera River (the exact tributary remains undetermined), and which originates in either Rwanda or Burundi.

The most distant source of the River Nile is the Ruvyironza River in the Bururi Province of Burundi, the Nile is linked from Lake Victoria to its headwaters via the Kagera River to the Ruvyironza River.

In the Kenya sector, the main influent rivers are the Sio, Nzoia, Yala, Nyando, Sondu Miriu, Mogusi, and Migori.

Migori holds a special place geographically because of its close proximity to Uganda via Lake Victoria, through Migingo Island and its land and lake border with Tanzania at Isebania, Kehancha, Suba West at Kopanga and Kogaja Villages and Muhuru Bay.

(It has since been recognized that the native guides used the name Lake Nyanza to describe it to him.) Speke accomplished this in 1858, while on an expedition with Richard Francis Burton to locate the source of the Nile River.

Burton was again taken ill on the return journey; Speke continued exploring without him, making a journey to the north and eventually locating the great Lake Victoria, or Victoria Nyanza.

The Victoria haplochromines are part of an older group of more than 700 closely related species, also including those of several smaller lakes in the region, notably Kyoga, Edward–George, Albert, and Kivu.

The Victoria Nile flows through the lake on its way from Lake Victoria to Lake Albert.

Although it is a part of the same river system known as the White Nile and is occasionally referred to as such, strictly speaking this name does not apply until after the river crosses the Uganda border into South Sudan to the north. In recent history only Lake Kyoga was easily accessible to Victoria cichlids, as further downstream movement by the Victoria Nile (to Lake Albert) is prevented by a series of waterfalls, notably Murchison.

In the wider sense, "White Nile" refers to all the stretches of river draining from Lake Victoria through to the merger with the Blue Nile.

In contrast, the Owen Falls (now flooded by a dam) between Victoria and Kyoga were essentially a series of rapids that did not effectively block fish movements between the two lakes.

Nalubaale Power Station, formerly known as Owen Falls Dam, is a hydroelectric power station across the White Nile near to its source at Lake Victoria in Uganda.

In terms of volume, Lake Victoria is the world's ninth largest continental lake, containing about 2424 km3 of water.

In the Kenya sector, the main influent rivers are the Sio, Nzoia, Yala, Nyando, Sondu Miriu, Mogusi, and Migori.

It flows south and then west, eventually flowing into Lake Victoria near the town of Port Victoria.

However, the most distal source of the Nile Basin, and therefore the ultimate source of the Nile, is more often considered to be one of the tributary rivers of the Kagera River (the exact tributary remains undetermined), and which originates in either Rwanda or Burundi.

The Nyabarongo-Kagera eventually drains into Lake Victoria, and its source in Nyungwe Forest is a contender for the as-yet undetermined overall source of the Nile.

The Kagera River is the largest river flowing into this lake, with its mouth on the lake's western shore.

It then takes a turn to the east, following the Tanzania-Uganda border and emptying into Lake Victoria in Uganda.

In 1927-1928 Michael Graham conducted the first ever systematic Fisheries Survey of Lake Victoria.

Lake Victoria supports Africa's largest inland fishery, with the majority of present catch being the invasive Nile perch, introduced to the Lake in the 1950s.

Disregarding the haplochromines, the only native Victoria cichlids are two critically endangered tilapia, the Singida tilapia or ngege (Oreochromis esculentus) and Victoria tilapia (''O.

Oreochromis variabilis, the Victoria tilapia, is a critically endangered species of African cichlid native to Lake Victoria and its tributaries, Lake Kyoga, Lake Kwania, and Lake Bisina (Salisbury), as well as being found in the Victoria Nile above Murchison Falls.

The main group in Lake Victoria is the haplochromine cichlids (Haplochromis sensu lato) with more than 500 species, almost all endemic, and including an estimated 300 that still are undescribed.

These are the result of a rapid adaptive radiation in the last circa 15,000 years.

The haplochromine cichlid fishes in the Great Lakes of the East African Rift (particularly in Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, and Lake Victoria) form the most speciose modern example of adaptive radiation.

Lake Victoria and its wetlands has a large population of Nile crocodiles, as well as African helmeted turtles, variable mud turtles, and Williams' mud turtle.

However, in the Ugandan portion of Lake Victoria, true bugs and dragonflies both seem to outnumber beetles notably and up to a length of 1 to 2 m crocodiles had stomach contents that were made up 70–75% of insects.

Disregarding the haplochromines, the only native Victoria cichlids are two critically endangered tilapia, the Singida tilapia or ngege (Oreochromis esculentus) and Victoria tilapia (''O.

Oreochromis esculentus, the Singida tilapia or Graham's tilapia, is a critically endangered species of cichlid endemic to the Lake Victoria basin, including some of its satellite lakes such as Kyoga, in Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya.

In recent history only Lake Kyoga was easily accessible to Victoria cichlids, as further downstream movement by the Victoria Nile (to Lake Albert) is prevented by a series of waterfalls, notably Murchison.

The outlet of Lake Victoria sends around 300 cubic meters per second (11,000 ft³/s) of water over the falls, squeezed into a gorge less than 10 m wide.