Lake Victoria
Lake Victoria is one of the
African Great Lakes. The lake was named after Queen Victoria of the United
Kingdom, by John Hanning Speke, the first European to discover this lake.
With a surface area of
68,800 square kilometers (26,600 sq mi). Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake
by area, and it is the largest tropical lake in the world. Lake Victoria is the
world’s 2nd largest freshwater lake by surface area; only Lake Superior
in North America is larger. In terms of its volume. Lake Victoria is the
world’s ninth largest continental lake, and it contains about 2,750 cubic
kilometers (2.2 billion acre – feet) of water.
Lake Victoria receives its
water primarily from direct precipitation and thousands of small streams. The
largest stream flowing into this lake is the Kagera River. The mouth of which
lies on the lake’s western shore. Two rivers leave the lake, the White Nile
(known as the “Victoria Nile” as it leaves the lake), flows out at Jinja,
Uganda on the lake’s north shore, and the Katonga River flows out at Lukaya on
the western shore connecting the lake to Lake George.
Lake Victoria occupies a
shallow depression in Africa and has a maximum depth of 84 m (276ft) and an
average depth of 40 m (130 ft). Its catchment area covers 184,000 square
kilometers (71,040 sq mi). The lake has a shoreline of 4,828 km (3,000 mi),with
islands constituting 3.7% of this length, and is divided among three countries;
Kenya (6% or 4,100 km2 or 1,600 sq mi). Uganda (45% or 31,000 km2 or 12,000 sq
mi) and Tanzania (49% or 33,700 km2 or 13,000 sq mi).
Since the 1900s, Lake
Victoria ferries have been an important means of transport between Uganda,
Tanzania and Kenya. The main ports on the lake are Kisumu, Mwanza, Bukoba,
Entebbe, Ports Bell and Jinja. Until Kenyan independence in 1963, the fastest
and most modern ferry. MV Victoria, was designated a Royal Mail ship. In 1966,
train ferry services between Kenya and Tanzania were established with the
introduction of MV Uhuru and MV Umoja. The ferry MV Bukoba sank in the lake on
May 21, 1996 with a loss of between 800 and 1,000 lives, making it one of
Africa’s worst maritime disasters.
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