The First Name Of Lake Victoria Before It Was Changed By Europeans

Posted on the 02 April 2024 by Info4blog

An enclosed body of water is referred to as a lake. The world is home to millions of lakes.Today, we will examine the history of Lake Victoria before Europeans made changes to it.

Lake Victoria is the world’s largest tropical lake and the largest lake in the African Great Lakes region. The lake supports the largest freshwater fishery in the world, producing 1 million tons of fish per year and employing 200,000 people in supporting the livelihoods of 4 million people. The major threats to the lake are deforestation, land use change, wetland degradation and discharge from urban areas, industries and farmlands.

Lake Victoria used to be called Ukerewe by the African people who lived in the area. When the first British explorers came to Africa and found the lake, they named it after Queen Victoria, who was the queen of England at the time.

Today, several million people live around Lake Victoria, and people rely on the lake for food, fresh water, and even electricity.

Lake Victoria covers a gigantic area of 26,600 square miles and has a coastline that runs for over 2,000 miles around three countries. It contains approximately 1,000 islands, ranging from tiny spits of land to larger inhabited islets. Each inhabited island has its own character, customs, and history – visitors to Mfangano Island, for example, will be able to see ancient rock paintings made by the Twa (Batwa) people. The search by Europeans for the source of the Nile led to the sighting of the lake by the British explorer John Hanning Speke in 1858. Formerly known to the Arabs as Ukerewe, the lake was named by Speke in honor of Queen Victoria of England. A detailed survey of the lake was made by Sir William Garstin in 1901. Speke, the first European to see the lake, gasped in amazement and declared it to be “much more like a sea than a lake, a tropical sea”. Shared by Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, the lake was known to locals long before Speke’s discovery. Natives had referred to it by several different names, including Nyanza, Nam Lolwe, and Nnalubaale.

But Speke named it after England’s erstwhile queen, and eventually declared it the source of the River Nile, which was greatly disputed at the time.

Since then, extensive research has revealed that it is in fact a major source of the Nile and home to a rich variety of species dwelling in and around the waters..……See More