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The Niger takes some of the unusual routes of any major river, a boomerang shape that baffled geographers for 2 centuries. This unusual geography apparently happened as a outcome of the Niger River is two quipus creators historic rivers joined together. Over time upstream erosion by the decrease Niger resulted in stream seize of the upper Niger by the lower Niger. To the west the Niger River crosses about 350 miles of Niger’s territory.
Medieval European maps utilized the name Niger to the center reaches of the river, in trendy Mali, but Quorra to the decrease reaches in modern Nigeria, as these weren’t recognized on the time as being the same river. When European colonial powers started to send ships alongside the west coast of Africa within the 16th and 17th centuries, the Senegal River was usually postulated to be the seaward finish of the Niger. The Niger Delta, pouring into the Atlantic via mangrove swamps and 1000’s of distributaries alongside greater than a hundred and sixty kilometres , was regarded as coastal wetlands. The earliest use of the name “Niger” for the river is by Leo Africanus in his Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che ivi sono printed in Italian in 1550.
The dam is intended to offer water for the dry season in addition to irrigation for land downstream in addition to hydroelectric power. The area of the Niger bend, within the Sahel, was a key origin and destination for trans-Saharan commerce, fueling the wealth of nice empires such as the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai Empires. Major trading ports along the river, together with Timbuktu and Gao, became centers of studying and culture. Trade to the Niger bend region also brought Islam to the region in approximately the 14th century CE. Much of the northern Niger basin stays Muslim today, though the southern reaches of the river are typically Christian.
Other vestiges include the kori, which run down from the Aïr and from former tributaries that had their sources within the Iforas Massif, and which flowed to a confluence at what is now the Ti-m-merhsoï Wadi. No waters circulate via the kori now, but water remains to be to be discovered beneath their sands. Other remnants of the old system are formed by the gulbi, via which water still flows annually, occasionally inflicting harm.
He wrote a guide describing the journey, De Saint-Louis au port de Tombouktou; voyage d’une canonnière française, suivi d’un vocabulaire sonraï, which was published in Paris in 1891. Our MissionOur mission is to engage folks with cultural heritage and to improve historical past training worldwide. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike three.0 Unported license.
Needs to review the safety of your connection earlier than continuing. Manga region, in the east, traces of historical watercourses seem on the sandy plain. Videos, information and profiles about a few of the major lakes in Africa where you may be volunteering.
Its solely major mountain vary is the Aïr Mountains in north-central Niger. At 2,022 meters , Mont Idoukal-n-Taghès throughout the Aïr Mountains is the very best peak in Niger. Whereas its lowest level is the Niger River at about 200 meters above sea stage.
Known for its distinctive “boomerang” form, the Niger River flows from the Guinea Highlands to the Sahara before making a pointy flip again to the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Given the river’s historic significance to trade and agriculture in the area, the Niger has been at the coronary heart of probably the most famend civilizations in West Africa such because the Mali Empire. A reconstruction of the Ravenna Cosmography positioned on a Ptolemaic map. Note it’s placed, following Ptolemy, as just south of the land of the Garamantes, in modern Libya, constricting the continent to the land from the central Sahara north. Vast floating meadows of vegetation occupy the areas of deeper water, dominated by an aquatic grass species recognized regionally as bourgou. During the flooding, bourgou, together with wild rice and different species, produce a substantial quantity of habitat for fish and water birds and nutritious fodder for cattle during the dry season.
