Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria or Victoria Nyanza (also known as Ukerewe and Nalubaale) is one of the African Great Lakes. The lake was named after the United Kingdom's Queen Victoria, by John Hanning Speke, the first European to see the lake. At 68,800 square kilometres (26,600 sq mi), Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake, and the largest tropical lake in the world. As Lake Michigan-Huron is connected at the same elevation pool and is thus treated as one lake ... more

Lake Victoria or Victoria Nyanza (also known as Ukerewe and Nalubaale) is one of the African Great Lakes. The lake was named after the United Kingdom's Queen Victoria, by John Hanning Speke, the first European to see the lake. At 68,800 square kilometres (26,600 sq mi), Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake, and the largest tropical lake in the world. As Lake Michigan-Huron is connected at the same elevation pool and is thus treated as one lake by hydrologists and geographers, Lake Victoria is the world’s third-largest freshwater lake. In terms of volume, it is the world’s seventh-largest freshwater lake, containing 2,750 cubic kilometres (2.2 billion acre-feet) of water. The lake receives most of its water from direct precipitation. Its largest influent is the Kagera River, the mouth of which lies on the lake's western shore. The only river to leave the lake, the White Nile (known as the "Victoria Nile" as it leaves the lake), leaves at Jinja, Uganda, on the lake’s north shore .... less