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Luxor
(Arabic: الأقصر
) is a city in Upper (southern) Egypt and the capital of the Al
Uqsur governorate, population approximately 200,000. As the site
of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been
characterised as the "world's greatest open air museum",
the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor standing
within the modern city. Immediately opposite, across the Nile
River* , lie the monuments, temples and tombs on the West Bank
Necropolis, which include the Valley of the Kings and Valley of
the Queens. Thousands of international tourists arrive each year
to visit these monuments, their presence forming a large part of
the economic basis for the modern city. As a result, Luxor
represents an excellent base for touring Upper Egypt, and is a
popular holiday destination, both in its own right and as a
starting or finishing point for Nile cruises.
*The
Nile River
Origin
Africa
Mouth
Mediterranean
Sea
Basin
countries
Uganda,
Sudan, Egypt
Length
6,695
km (4,160 mi)
Source
elevation
1,134
m (3,721 ft)
Avg.
discharge
2,830
m³/s (99,956 ft³/s)
Watershed
area
3,400,000
km² (1,312,740 mi²)
There
are two great branches of the Nile: the White Nile**, from
equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile***, from Ethiopia. Both
branches formed on the western flanks of the East African Rift,
which is the southern African part of the Great Rift Valley.
**
White Nile
Lake
Victoria, which lies between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, is
considered to be the source of the Nile, although the lake itself
has feeder rivers of considerable size from the other Great Lakes
of Africa. In particular, the farthest headstream of the Nile is
the Ruvyironza River in Burundi, which is an upper branch of the
Kagera River. The Kagera flows for 690 km (429 miles) before
reaching Lake Victoria.
Leaving
Lake Victoria, the river is known as the Victoria Nile. It flows
further for approximately 500 km (300 miles), through Lake Kyoga,
until it reaches Lake Albert. After leaving Lake Albert, the river
is known as the Albert Nile. It then flows into Sudan, where it
becomes known as the Bahr al Jebel. At the confluence of the Bahr
al Jebel with the Bahr el Ghazal, itself 720 km (445 miles) long,
the river becomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile,
from the clay suspended in its waters. From there, the river flows
to Khartoum.
***
Blue Nile
Meanwhile,
the Blue Nile (or Bahr al Azraq to Sudanese; Abbay to Ethiopians)
springs from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile
flows about 1,400 km (850 miles) to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile
and White Nile join to form "the Nile." Most of the
water carried by the Nile (about 80-85%) originates from Ethiopia,
but this runoff happens only in summer, when the great rains fall
on the Ethiopian Plateau; the rest of the year, the great rivers
draining Ethiopia to the Nile (Sobat, Blue Nile, and Atbara) flow
weakly or are dry.
