Global InformationLake Victoria information
| Lake Victoria | |
|---|---|
| |
 Lake Victoria partially obscured by clouds taken on the International Space Station | |
  Lake Victoria | |
| Location | African Great Lakes |
| Coordinates | 1°S 33°E / 1°S 33°E |
| Primary inflows | Kagera River |
| Primary outflows | White Nile |
| Catchment area | 169,858 km2 (65,583 sq mi) 229,815 km2 (88,732 sq mi) basin [1] |
| Basin countries | Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda[1] |
| Max. length | 359 km (223 mi)[2] |
| Max. width | 337 km (209 mi)[2] |
| Surface area | 59,947 km2 (23,146 sq mi)[3] |
| Average depth | 40.4 m (133 ft)[3] |
| Max. depth | 81 m (266 ft)[3] |
| Water volume | 2,424 km3 (582 cu mi)[3] |
| Shore length1 | 7,142 km (4,438 mi)[3] |
| Surface elevation | 1,135 m (3,724 ft)[4] |
| Islands | 985 (Ukerewe Island, Tanzania;Ssese Islands,[3] Uganda; Maboko Island, Kenya)[5] |
| Settlements |
|
| 1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure. | |
Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately 59,947 km2 (23,146 sq mi),[6][7] Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake,[8] and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North America.[9] In terms of volume, Lake Victoria is the world's ninth-largest continental lake, containing about 2,424 km3 (1.965×109 acre⋅ft) of water.[7][10] Lake Victoria occupies a shallow depression in Africa. The lake has an average depth of 40 m (130 ft) and a maximum depth of 80–81 m (262–266 ft).[7][10][11] Its catchment area covers 169,858 km2 (65,583 sq mi).[12] The lake has a shoreline of 7,142 km (4,438 mi) when digitized at the 1:25,000 level,[13] with islands constituting 3.7% of this length.[14]
The lake's area is divided among three countries: Tanzania occupies 49% (33,700 km2 (13,000 sq mi)), Uganda 45% (31,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi)), and Kenya 6% (4,100 km2 (1,600 sq mi)).[15]
Though having multiple local language names (Swahili: Ukerewe; Dholuo: Nam Lolwe; Luganda: 'Nnalubaale; Kinyarwanda: Nyanza),[16][17] the lake was renamed after Queen Victoria by the explorer John Hanning Speke, the first Briton to document it in 1858, while on an expedition with Richard Francis Burton.[18][19] The lake is home to many species of fish which live nowhere else, especially cichlids. Invasive fish, such as the Nile perch, have driven many endemic species to extinction.
- ^ a b Hamilton, Stuart (Salisbury University) (2016). "Basin, Lake Victoria Watershed (inside), vector polygon, ~2015" (Data Set). Harvard Dataverse. doi:10.7910/DVN/Z5RMYD.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ a b Hamilton, Stuart (Salisbury University) (2016). "Shoreline, Lake Victoria, vector polygon, ~2015" (Data Set). Harvard Dataverse. doi:10.7910/DVN/PWFW26.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ a b c d e f Hamilton, Stuart (2018). "Lake Victoria Statistics from this Dataverse" (Data Set). Harvard Dataverse. doi:10.7910/DVN/FVJJ4A.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Database for Hydrological Time Series of Inland Waters (DAHITI) – Victoria, Lake, retrieved 20 April 2017.
- ^ For a comprehensiwe list of these islands, see: sw:Ziwa Viktoria
- ^ Stuart, Hamilton (5 October 2016). "Shoreline, Lake Victoria, vector polygon, ~2015" (Data Set). Harvard Dataverse. doi:10.7910/dvn/pwfw26.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ a b c Stuart, Hamilton (13 November 2018). "Lake Victoria Statistics from this Dataverse" (Data Set). Harvard Dataverse. doi:10.7910/dvn/fvjj4a.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Saundry, Peter. "Lake Victoria".
- ^ "Lake Victoria". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ a b Stuart, Hamilton; Taabu, Anthony Munyaho; Noah, Krach; Sarah, Glaser (17 May 2018). "Bathymetry TIFF, Lake Victoria Bathymetry, raster, 2017, V7" (Data Set). Harvard Dataverse. doi:10.7910/dvn/soeknr.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ United Nations, Development and Harmonisation of Environmental Laws Volume 1: Report on the Legal and Institutional Issues in the Lake Victoria Basin, United Nations, 1999, page 17
- ^ Stuart, Hamilton (12 November 2017). "Basin, Lake Victoria Watershed (inside), vector polygon, ~2015". Harvard Dataverse (Data Set). doi:10.7910/dvn/z5rmyd.
- ^ Hamilton, Stuart (11 October 2016). "Shoreline, Lake Victoria, vector line – 2015 – LakeVicFish Dataverse" (Data Set). Harvard Dataverse. doi:10.7910/dvn/5y5ivf.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ C.F. Hickling (1961). Tropical Inland Fisheries. London: Longmans.
- ^ J. Prado, R.J. Beare, J. Siwo Mbuga & L.E. Oluka, 1991. A catalogue of fishing methods and gear used in Lake Victoria. UNDP/FAO Regional Project for Inland Fisheries Development (IFIP), FAO RAF/87/099-TD/19/91 (En). Rome, Food and Agricultural Organization.
- ^ "The Victoria. The Land, the Races and their Customs, with Specimens of Some of the Dialects". World Digital Library. 1899. Archived from the original on 29 May 2016. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
- ^ "Lake Ukerewe". nTZ: An Information Resource for Northern Tanzania. David Marsh. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
- ^ Alberge, Dalya (11 September 2011). "How feud wrecked the reputation of explorer who discovered Nile's source". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
- ^ Moorehead, Alan (1960). "Part One: Chapters 1–7". The White Nile. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-095639-4.