Ripon Falls at the northern end of
Lake Victoria in
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
was formerly considered the source of the river
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...
. In 1862–3
John Hanning Speke
Captain John Hanning Speke (4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864) was an English explorer and officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nil ...
was the first European to follow the course of the Nile downstream after discovering the falls that his intuition had marked as the source of the Nile.
The water from Ripon Falls falls into a narrow opening, which some define as the start of the River Nile.
He named the falls after
George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon, who was President of the
Royal Geographical Society during 1859–60.
The Falls functioned as a natural outlet for Lake Victoria, until in 1954 the construction of
Owen Falls Dam was completed, effectively extending Lake Victoria and submerging Ripon Falls.
File:Ripon Falls01.jpg
File:Ripon Falls.jpg
File:Jules Leclercq- Aux sources du Nil-1913-chutes Ripon.jpg
References
(See p. 694.)
Waterfalls of Uganda
Lake Victoria
Nile
Submerged waterfalls
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