Lake Nasser

Where is Lake Nasser?

Countries on its shores: Egypt, Sudan.

Middle of the lake: 22.50° N, 31.87° E

The story behind it

Lake Nasser did not exist until people built the Aswan High Dam across the Nile. Work began in 1960 and was finished in 1970. Behind the dam, the river backed up and filled a long valley in the desert. The lake is named after Gamal Abdel Nasser, a former president of Egypt. Most of it, about 83 per cent, lies in Egypt. The southern part lies in Sudan, near the town of Wadi Halfa, and there people call it Lake Nubia. The lake is up to 35 kilometres wide and up to 130 metres deep. As the water rose, many villages of the Nubian people had to move to new places. Famous old temples such as Abu Simbel were taken apart stone by stone and rebuilt higher up, so that the water would not cover them. Today 52 kinds of fish live in the lake, and Nile crocodiles live along its shores.

Find it on the globe

Lake Nasser is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.