| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
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 inland from the Atlantic Ocean, but the river runs eastward 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, while early 17th-century European explorers thought that it flowed west and joined the Senegal RiverThe Senegal River in West Africa, forms the border between Senegal and Mauritania. It is formed by the confluence of the Semefe and Bafing rivers. Both have their source in Guinea; the Bafing River flows through Mali, and the Semefe is on the Malinese-Sen. While the true course was probably known to many locals, Westerners only firmly 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 (also spelled Tombouctou) 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 SaharaThe Sahara is the world's largest desert, over 3,500,000 sq mi (9,065,000 sq km), located in northern Africa and is 2. 5 million years old. The whole land area of United States of America would fit inside it. Its name Sahara is the Arabic translation of t 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 MaliThe Mali Empire was an Islamic Empire of the Mandinka people in West Africa from the 14th to 17th centuries. The empire was founded by the king, or Mansa, Sundiata Keita, was famous for the generosity and wealth of Mansa Kankan Musa I, and for the fabled, and Gao .