Class Notes
Chapter 3 Section 1 Outline
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE NILE
Name: ___________________________ Period: _______ Date: ________
I.
The Course of the Nile River
A. The Nile is the world’s longest river (4,000 miles long)
B. Made up of the Blue Nile (rapids) and the White Nile (calm)
C. The Nile Through Ancient Nubia
1. Nubia: An ancient region in the Nile River Valley
2. Contains 6 cataracts
a. Cataracts: Rock-filled rapids
3. Lower Nubia: There was no rainfall
a. People needed to live close to the Nile River in order to
have a water supply
4. Upper Nubia: Did get rain
a. People could plant and harvest
D. The Nile Through Ancient Egypt
1. The Nile started in Upper Egypt and ran north to Lower Egypt
2. In Lower Egypt, the Nile flowed into the Mediterranean Sea
at a delta
a. Delta: A plain at the mouth of a river
b. The delta was triangle shaped and had many smaller
streams
c. The delta was very fertile because of the sediment that was
deposited here
E. The Gifts of the Nile
1. Floods every spring brought rich, fertile sediment called silt
a. Silt: A fine soil found on river bottoms
2. The silt made it ideal for farming
3. The grateful Egyptians thanked the god of the Nile, Hapi
F. Black Land and Red Land
1. Because of the dark soil left behind after a flood, the ancient
Egyptians called the land at the river banks Kemet (the “black
land”)
2. They called the land beyond the banks of the river “red land,”
which were useless for farming
Class Notes
G. Desert Protection
1. Hot sands shielded Egypt and Nubia from foreign attack
II.
The Growth of Communities and Trade Along the Nile
A. Hunting and fishing communities started here, and then they began
to farm
1. As these grew, so did trade
B. Living Along the Nile
1. Egyptians
a. Lower Egypt (delta area): They built around the fertile river
beds
b. Upper Egypt: They built farming villages along the banks
2. Nubians
a. Less farming than Egypt
b. They fished and hunted along the banks of the Nile
C. A Highway for Trade
1. They would trade between Upper and Lower Egypt by
floating downriver or sailing upriver
2. They had overland trade routes for caravans to trade with
places like Mesopotamia
3. Egyptian bazaars sold goods from all over the Mediterranean
and Nubia
D. Routes Through Nubia
1. Nubians could not trade via the Nile because of the cataracts
2. Nubians were famous traders of the ancient world
a. They carried goods from Africa & Nubia
Egypt
and Southwest Asia
3. Some goods included:
a. Ebony wood
b. Ivory tusks
c. Ostrich feathers and eggs
d. Panther skins
e. Throwstick: A type of boomerang that Africans used for
hunting