Niger River

Course of the River Niger with the river catchment area (green)

Island at a wide point of the Niger in Mali

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Niger is after the Nile and the Congo with 4184 km length of the third longest in Africa. It flows in a nearly 2000 km measured semicircle five countries: according to the origin in the mountains of Guinea it flows through Mali, south of Niger, along the border of Benin and finally through the populous Nigeria, where in a 200 km wide he Delta empties into the Gulf of Guinea.

Almost all of the 110 million people who live right on the river, are supplied from Niger with water. Its catchment area includes another four to five states and about 2.3 million square kilometers. However, the assignment of the desert areas is uncertain.

River

The Niger rises in the mountains of Faranah region, in the state of Guinea, near the border with Sierra Leone. He joins the Mafou, Niandan, Milo and reached the city Siguiri before leaving Guinea. The river flows in an arc to the northeast crosses Bamako in Mali and forms the great Niger inland delta, which is the most important port city of Mopti Massina. He then turns to Timbuktu, where he crosses the Südsahara and changes its direction of flow towards the southeast. In Gao, it flows past the red dunes of koyma and reached again the Sahel region. He then crosses the state of Niger, whose capital Niamey is built on its banks. Later it forms part of the border with Benin, where is the W National Park on a W-shaped bend in the river in the border triangle of countries Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin. From there, it flows on to Nigeria. After leaving the Kainji Dam, it flows through the western part of Nigeria, the Kaduna Lower -Middle Niger Flood Plains, a protected area of the Ramsar Convention. At the height of Lokoja he will take the left tributary of the Benue on, leaving the Sudan region and reaches the rainforest areas of Nigeria. At the height of the city of Onitsha Niger begins fan out and form the Niger Delta. The water of the Niger reaches the Gulf of Guinea that is part of the South Atlantic, in several river tributaries of the the Forcados, Escravos and now form the three major estuaries. Thus he crosses mountains, rain forest, desert, savannah and desert.

At the mouth of the Niger flowing annual average about 6,000 m³ / s in the Atlantic. While its length is estimated in addition to the above value in various reference books on 4184 km, its catchment area is 2.262 million km ². The main tributary of the Niger, the Benue.

The atypical course of the River Niger has European researchers abandoned puzzles over two millennia. In ancient Roman geographers assumed that the river near Timbuktu was part of the Nile, while European explorers in the 17th century were convinced that the river would flow to west into Senegal. 1796 reached the British African explorer Mungo Park as one of the first Europeans to run the Niger. His travelogue Travels in the Interior of Africa is still considered a classic. In 1805 he sailed in a second expedition the course of the Niger between Bamako and Bussa in northwestern Nigeria, where he died in 1806. It was only discovered in 1830, an expedition of the English brothers Richard and John Lander the course of the Niger River to the mouth. The source of the Niger was ( the Frenchman Marius Moustier and the Swiss Joshua doubt) discovered by European explorers until 1879.

The boomerang shape of the river explain today's geographers usually with a theory according to which the Niger consists of two old, interconnected rivers. The upper Niger, from the source to the Loma Mountains to the Niger knee resulted initially in a now dry lake, whereas the lower Niger originated in hills near the lake and flowed south to the Gulf of Guinea. As the Sahara dried up 4000-1000 BC, both rivers changed their course and met. This theory is now generally prevalent, but is confronted with occasional contradiction.

Navigability

In the upper part of the Niger is navigable in small boats, but which represent a certain risk, among other hippos. From Koulikoro, about 60 km downstream from Bamako, the current way to Lokoja, near the mouth of the creek in the Niger Benue, be driven with larger boats and ships, and only during the flood season between October and January. Due to silting due to progressing dune formation, the navigability of the Niger deteriorated on the Niger knee in recent years.

Etymology

The name of the river probably comes from the Latin and Portuguese word for black ( niger) as a misinterpretation of the word of the Tuareg language Ghir n- igheren (English: River of the rivers ). The term has been used in a map of Claudius Ptolemy for a river south of the Atlas Mountains. The West African countries Niger and Nigeria are named after the river. Their inhabitants, a large number of different names for the river, including Joliba in the Manding languages and Isa Ber in Songhai. Both words mean big river. In estuaries near the Niger was also known as Kworra or Quorra, before it was recognized only in the 19th century by Europeans, that the upper inland flowing section opens neither in the Lake Chad still in the Nile, but veers off to the south to the already known Quorra.

Tributaries

Milo
Tinkisso
Niandan
Sankarani
Bani
Sokoto
Kebbi
Kaduna
Gorouol
Béli
Dargol
Sirba
Tapoa
Goroubi
Diamangou
Mekrou
Alibori
Sota
Kaduna
Benue

Places

Bamako
Gao
Lokoja
Mopti
Niamey
Onitsha
Port Harcourt - east of the Niger Delta
Ségou
Timbuktu

Hydrometrie

The flow rate of the river was about 40 years measured (1952 to 1992) in Malaville, a city in Benin, about 1100 kilometers upstream from the mouth of the Niger. The observed in Malaville mean annual flow rate during this period was 1053 m³ / s

The Niger is a very big river, but it also flows stimulate time-dependent, as most of the rivers in the region and is under the influence of the rainfall regime of the West African monsoon system. In the observation period of 40 years, a maximum flow rate of 2726 was a minimum flow of 18 m³ / s ( almost completely dry), and m³ / s observed.

Niger Basin Authority

The Niger Basin Authority ( frz Autorité du Bassin du Niger; NBA or ABN ) is to use an intergovernmental organization for the resources of the Niger Basin share and promote.

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