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Congo-Nile Divide


The Congo-Nile Divide (or Nile Congo Watershed) is the continental divide that separates the drainage basins of the Nile and Congo rivers. It is about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) long.

There are several geologically and geographically distinct sections between the point on the border between the Central African Republic and South Sudan where the Nile and Congo basins meet the Chad Basin, and the southern point in Tanzania to the southwest of Lake Victoria where the boundaries of the Nile and Congo basins diverge.

The people who live along the divide are diverse, mainly speaking Central Sudanic languages in the northern parts and Bantu languages further south. The European colonialists used the Congo-Nile divide as a boundary between British-controlled territories to the east and territories controlled by the French and Belgians to the west. This was decided at a time when few Europeans had visited the area, which had yet to be mapped. It separated members of the ethnic groups that live on both sides of the divide.

The Congo-Nile divide starts where the Congo, Chad and Nile basins meet, and runs southeast and then south along the border between South Sudan and Uganda to the east and the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to the west.

The Ironstone Plateau region between South Sudan and the DRC is cut by many streams that have formed steep and narrow valleys. The vast Sudd wetlands in South Sudan are fed by the Bahr al Jabal river that drains Lake Albert and Lake Victoria in the south, and also from ten smaller rivers flowing from the Congo-Nile divide which together provide 20 billion cubic meters of water annually.


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