Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Nile River begins in the Nyungwe Forest of Rwanda, where the Rukarara tributary rises at an elevation of 2,539 meters. This spring is located within Nyungwe National Park and was identified as the true source by satellite imagery in 2009.
The Nile is formed by the White Nile and the Blue Nile, which meet at Khartoum in Sudan. The White Nile flows from Lake Victoria and provides 32 percent of the total flow, while the Blue Nile originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and delivers 80 percent of the water and silt.
The Nile River stretches 7,088 kilometers from its source in Rwanda to the Mediterranean Sea. It is recognized as the longest river in the world, flowing through multiple countries including Uganda, South Sudan, and Egypt.
Researchers from Waseda University identified a specific tributary of the Kagera River in the Nyungwe Forest in 1969. Adventurers rediscovered this source in 2006, and satellite imagery allowed academics to pinpoint the exact spring in 2009.
The Aswan High Dam was completed in 1970 and turned the downstream stretch of the Nile into a large irrigation canal. This engineering project ended the annual floods that had fertilized the land for millennia and allowed Egyptian farmers to cultivate three harvests per year instead of one.
The Nile River supports a rich ecosystem that includes over 800 species of fish. These species include the Nile perch, which was introduced to Lake Victoria in the 1950s and caused the extinction of over 500 species of cichlids.