Niger River
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Map of Niger River with Niger River basin in green. Note how it starts in Guinea, then curves inland and finally reaches the ocean in Nigeria |
The
Niger River is the principal
river of western
Africa, extending over 2500 miles (about 4000 km). It runs in a crescent through
Guinea,
Mali,
Niger, on the border with
Benin and then through
Nigeria, discharging through a massive
delta, known as the
Oil Rivers, into the
Gulf of Guinea. The Niger is the third longest river in Africa, exceeded only by the
Nile and the
Congo River (also known as the Zaïre River). Its main
tributary is the
Benue River.
The origin of the name
Niger is unknown. It is often assumed that it derives from the
Latin word for "black",
niger, but there is no evidence for this, and it would have been more likely for
Portuguese explorers to have used their own word,
negro, or
preto as they did elsewhere in the world; in any case the Niger is not a
blackwater river (see
Rio Negro). The name is thus thought to be indigenous, but no convincing origin has been found among the 30 languages of the Niger delta and lower reaches of the river. One hypothesis is that it comes from the
Tuareg phrase
gher n gheren "river of rivers" (shortened to
ngher), originating in the middle reaches of the river around
Timbuktu.
The nations of
Nigeria and
Niger are named after the river. The people who live along it have a variety of names for it, notably
Jeliba in
Manding and
Isa Ber "big river" in
Songhay. The
Romans had heard of the Niger and called it
Dasibari; the middle and lower course of the Niger was also known as
Quorra, also of unknown origin.
The Niger River is a relatively "clear" river, carrying only a tenth as much sediment as the
Nile; this is because the Niger's headlands are located in ancient rocks that provide little
silt.
[Reader, John. Africa. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2001. p. 191] Like the Nile though, the Niger floods yearly; this begins in September, peaks in November, and finishes by May.
[Reader, p. 191]A unique feature of the river is the
Niger Inland Delta, which forms where its
gradient suddenly decreases.
[Reader, p. 191] The result is a region of
braided streams,
marshes, and lakes the size of
Belgium; the seasonal floods make the Delta extremely productive for both
fishing and
agriculture.
[Reader, pp. 191-2]The Niger takes one of the most unusual routes of any major river, a
boomerang shape that baffled European geographers for two millennia. Its source is just 150
miles (240
km) inland from the
Atlantic Ocean, but the river runs away from the sea into the
Sahara Desert, then takes a sharp right turn and heads southeast to the Gulf of Guinea.
Ancient Romans thought that the river near
Timbuktu was part of the Nile River (e.g.,
Pliny, N.H. 5.10), a belief also held by
Ibn Battuta, while early 17th-century European explorers thought that it flowed west and joined the
Senegal River. The true course was probably known to many locals, but Westerners only established it in the late 19th century.
This strange geography apparently came about because the Niger River is two ancient rivers joined together. The upper Niger, from the source past the fabled trading city of
Timbuktu to the bend in the current river, once emptied into a now-gone lake, while the lower Niger started in hills near that lake and flowed south into the Gulf of Guinea. As the Sahara dried up in 4000-1000 BC, the two rivers altered their courses and hooked up. (This explanation is generally accepted, although some geographers disagree.)
This unusual geography had made the northern part of the river, known as the
Niger bend, an important area. The bend is the closest major river and source of water to the
Sahara desert and it thus became the focal point of trade across the western Sahara. This lucrative trade made the bend the centre of the
Sahelian kingdoms of
Mali and
Gao.
The longer downstream stretch of the Niger River served as the setting for much of author
Clive Cussler's novel
Sahara, and for the 2005
action-adventure film Sahara. The river serves as the backdrop for much of T. Coraghessan Boyle's Magnum Opus, "Water Music".
*
Bibliography on Water Resources and International Law See
Niger River. Peace Palace Libray
* Fabio Spadi, "The ICJ Judgment in the Benin-Niger Border Dispute: the interplay of titles and ‘effectivités' under the uti possidetis juris principle",
Leiden Journal of International Law(2005) 4, pp. 777-794.
*
Information and a map of the Niger's watershed *
Map of the Niger River basin at Water Resources eAtlas*
Niger Currents: Exploring life and technology along the Niger River
