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African Great Lakes

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: African Geography

   The Great Lakes and the East African coastline as seen from space. The
   Indian Ocean can be seen to the right.
   Enlarge
   The Great Lakes and the East African coastline as seen from space. The
   Indian Ocean can be seen to the right.

   The Great Lakes of Africa are a series of lakes in and around the Great
   Rift Valley. They include Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water
   lake in the world in terms of surface area, and Lake Tanganyika, the
   world's second largest in terms of volume as well as the second
   deepest. The Great Lakes are:
     * Lake Tanganyika
     * Lake Victoria
     * Lake Albert
     * Lake Edward
     * Lake Kivu
     * Lake Malawi

   Some call only Lake Victoria, Lake Albert, and Lake Edward the Great
   Lakes as they are the only three that empty into the White Nile. Lake
   Tanganyika and Lake Kivu both empty into the Congo River system, while
   Lake Malawi is drained by the Shire River into the Zambezi.

Great Lakes region

   African Great Lakes
   Enlarge
   African Great Lakes

   Great Lakes also refers to the region around these lakes. These include
   the entirety of the nations of Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda as well as
   portions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Kenya.

   It is one of the most densely populated areas of the world, with an
   estimated 107 million people living in the Great Lakes region. Because
   of past volcanic activity this part of Africa contains some of the
   world's best farmland. Its altitude also gives it a rather temperate
   climate despite being right on the equator. This has left it out of the
   disease zone allowing widespread use of livestock, especially cattle
   and goats.

   Because of the density of population and the agricultural surplus in
   the region the area became highly organized into a number of small
   states. The most powerful of these monarchies were Rwanda, Burundi,
   Buganda, and Bunyoro. Unusually for sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional
   borders were largely maintained by the colonial powers.

   Being the long sought after source of the Nile, the region had long
   been of interest to Europeans. The first Europeans to arrive in the
   region in any numbers were missionaries who had limited success in
   converting the locals, but did open the region to later colonization.
   The increased contact with the rest of the world led to a series of
   devastating epidemics affecting both humans and livestock. These
   decreased the region's population dramatically, by up to 60% in some
   areas. The region did not return to its precolonial population until
   the 1950s.

   While seen as a region with great potential after independence, the
   region has in recent years been marred by civil war and immense
   violence, leaving the region in great poverty from which only Kenya and
   Tanzania are largely exempt.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Great_Lakes"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
