The Gilo River is a river in the

Gambela Region The Gambela Region, also spelled Gambella, and officially the Gambela Peoples' Region (), is a regional state in western Ethiopia. Previously known as Region 12, its capital and largest city is Gambela. It is bordered by the Oromia Region to t ...

of southwestern

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. A variety of names also knows it: the Gimira of Dizu call it the "Mene", while the Gemira of Chako call it "Owis", and Amhara and Oromo settlers in the early 20th century knew it by a third name, "Bako". From its source in the

Ethiopian Highlands The Ethiopian Highlands (also called the Abyssinian Highlands) is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , whil ...

near

Mizan Teferi Mizan Teferi (also called Mizan-Aman or simply Mizan) is the largest town in South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region and one of four Capital cities of the region. Mizan is also the administrative centre, of the Bench Maji Zone, Bench Sheko Zone in t ...

it flows to the west, through Lake Tata to join the

Pibor River The Pibor River (also called the River Pibor) is a river in eastern South Sudan, which defines part of South Sudan's border with Ethiopia. From its source near Pibor Post it flows north for about , joining the Baro River to form the Sobat River, w ...

on Ethiopia's border with

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

. The combined waters then join the

Sobat River The Sobat River is a river of the Greater Upper Nile region in northeastern South Sudan, Africa. It is the most southerly of the great eastern tributaries of the White Nile, before the confluence with the Blue Nile. Geography The Sobat River is ...

and the

White Nile The White Nile ( ') is a river in Africa, the minor of the two main tributaries of the Nile, the larger being the Blue Nile. The name "White" comes from the clay sediment carried in the water that changes the water to a pale color. In the stri ...

. The Gilo River flows mainly through the Baro Salient, a portion of Ethiopia that juts westward into Sudan. The river valley was subjected to much prospecting for

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

before World War II and in the 1950s, but not enough was found to make commercial extraction viable."Local History in Ethiopia"
The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 1 June 2008) Burchard Heinrich Jessen, who was part of W.N. McMillan's expedition that traveled through this part of southwestern Ethiopia in 1904, estimated its length at 200 miles and noted that at flood the width of the Gilo reaches 80 to 100 yards, with a depth of about 20 feet. Jessen further wrote that at the time of his visit:

References

Gambela Region Rivers of Ethiopia Sobat River {{Ethiopia-river-stub

See also

References