Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria or Victoria Nyanza is Africa's largest lake, and the second largest freshwater lake in the world. It lies between branches of the Great Rift Valley, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. The longer tributary of the Nile River (the branch known as the 'White Nile') begins in Lake Victoria, although water also flows into Lake Victoria and thence into the White Nile from countries further south.

In the 19th Century, British explorer John Hanning Speke was the first European to see Lake Victoria and, believing he had found the source of the Nile, he named it after his sovereign, Queen Victoria.