Nasser, Lake

or Lake Nubia

Lake, southern Egypt and northern Sudan.

About 300 mi (480 km) long, it was formed in the 1960s by the construction of the Aswan High Dam in order to control the annual floods of the Nile River, whose waters now feed the lake. Its waters, when discharged downstream, have brought some 1,250 sq mi (3,240 sq km) of additional land under irrigation. Its formation flooded a number of archaeological sites, including those found at Abu Simbel. In The Sudan it is known as Lake Nubia.

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▪ lake, Africa

      reservoir on the Nile River, in Upper Egypt and northern Sudan. It was created by the impounding of the Nile's waters by the Aswān High Dam, which was built in the 1960s and dedicated in 1971. With a gross capacity of 136,927,000 acre-feet (168,900,000,000 cubic m), Lake Nasser's waters, when discharged downstream, have brought 800,000 acres (324,000 hectares) of additional land under irrigation and have converted 700,000 acres (283,000 hectares) from flood to perennial irrigation. The lake has been stocked with food fish. In the early 1980s land reclamation projects began in the desert around the lake. The northern two-thirds of the lake, lying in Egypt, is named for Gamal Abdel Nasser, president (1956–70), and the southern third, in The Sudan, is called Lake Nubia.

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