The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Nile(pictured) is the longest river in the world, but the volume of water it carries is only about 1% of the Amazon, 6% of the Congo, and 12% of the Yangtze?
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Currently a difficult task due to the lack of consensus in the greater community over an accurate chronology, but definitely something to keep coming back to
In the meanwhile: it’s a good policy to have a survey of dates from sources in articles about time periods; for smaller mentions (ex. at the start of “Atenism under Akhenaten” here: “Amenhotep IV, the son of Amenhotep III, was crowned king c. 1353 BC.”) circa is your best friend
Discussion
Creating a separate article for Predynastic Egypt from Prehistoric Egypt starting with the Badarian culture where many overviews begin
Data sorting
Looking through sources for quotes and data that can be added to relevant articles
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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.
ALT1: ... that although the Nile(pictured) is the longest river in the world, the amount of water it carries is only about 1% of the Amazon, 6% of the Congo, and 12% of the Yangtze?
Suggest ALT2: ... that several species of animals have become extinct in the Nile Basin due to human activity? or ALT3: ... that over 90 agricultural drains discharge industrial wastewater into the River Nile?--Launchballer18:20, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno ... ALT2 and ALT3 seem more boring than ALT0 or ALT1. But I'll defer to whatever the DYK community deems best for the encyclopedia. Noleander (talk) 19:54, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Noleander: and @AirshipJungleman29: Checking before promoting (I'll go for ALT1). I don't have access to Tvedt (2021) or Sutcliffe (2009). Can you please provide the citation or e-mail me the documents? I had access to Collins (2002) which you didn't mention as a source here but is used as a source in the article, and it only mentions the Amazon: 2%, not 1%, as stated in the hook and article. This needs to be clarified.
@Barbalalaika: Thanks for taking the time to validate the sources. The Tvedt quote is the primary source that ALT1 relies on; the other sources are supplementary, and give additional insights.
Tvedt: (p 4): "the [Nile] river carries very little water. Its annual average has largely been fixed at 84 billion cubic metres ... That is not much water – around 12 per cent of the Yangtze or the Changjiang, around 6 per cent of the Congo, and around 1 per cent of what the Amazon delivers annually on average to the sea."
Liu: (p 85) is used for the fact that Nile is the longest: "The calculated lengths of the top 10 rivers are the Nile 7088 km (4405 miles), Amazon 6575 km (4086 miles), Yangtze 6236 km (3876 miles), ..."
Sutcliffe (p 340) does not directly support the numerical data, but he is the world's foremost authority on the Nile's hydrology, and interested readers could go to him for additional information about the waters of the Nile. p 340: "Compared to the size of [its] basin, the total flow of the Nile is comparatively low; the average annual runoff from the whole basin is only about 30 mm"
Collins has values (p. 235, footnote 1): Nile 88 billion m^3/yr; Amazon 5,518 m^3/yr; and Mekong 470. These numbers show Nile as 1.6% of the Amazon. But Collins (2002) is an older source than Tvedt (2021).
: @Noleander: Thanks! For ALT1 both Tvedt and Liu are relevant. Indeed not Sutcliffe. Sources given in the context of DYK nominations only serve for us to verify the hooks. They aren't presented along with the DYK at the front page, so the readers won't actually see them in that context.
With your snippets, ALT1 is fine :) Just still thinking about Collins (2002): Is it worth including it as a source for the Amazon comparison in the article if it's "older" and you rather rely on Tvedt's estimation? And if it is, wouldn't it be better to reword the snippet to "The Nile's discharge is only about 1–2% of the Amazon"?
I suggest relying on the newer Tvedt source and ignoring Collins. I also suggest leaving the wording as is, where it states "about 1%". No reason to complicate things ... the word "about" tells readers that it's not a precise measurement. Noleander (talk) 21:04, 8 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The presentation of the statistics about the river's comparative length and volume were discussed at WP:ERRORS when the DYK was posted. The discussion was cleared when the hook was removed at the end of the day so here it is for the record. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:33, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The Nile near Aswan, Egypt
... that the Nile(pictured) is the longest river in the world, but the volume of water it carries is only about 1% of the Amazon, 6% of the Congo, and 12% of the Yangtze?
The longest river claim is stated absolutely while the volume claim is qualified with "about". The longest river claim should be toned down too because:
Measuring the length of a river is inherently arbitrary, complex and debatable – see here for details.
Rivers constantly change due to seasonal variation, meandering, water abstraction and so on.
The article's claim is based on a study in 2009 but it's now 2026 and there has been plenty of climate change since then
I don't recall any objections to the "longest" claim when you raised it at WT:DYK. It appears from the article that the weight of reliable sources supports the claim of "longest" for the Nile, and the lead of the article makes the claim. Do you have sources to counter Dclemens1971 (talk) 11:40, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
My objections started at the FAC. I pointed to them when the matter came up again at DYK.
I've now checked the details of the volume claims too. This appears in the article as "The Nile's discharge is only about 1% of the Amazon, 6% of the Congo, and 12% of the Yangtze." This is cited to three separate sources. One of them (Tvedt) gives the stated figures while the other two have a comparison with the Amazon giving the figures as "2 percent" or 84/5518 km³ = 1.5%. So, you see, such figures are quite approximate and vary depending on the source. With such variation, we should attribute claims and state the year to which they relate.
The three points in Andrew's first comment are original research; the claim that 1.5% is not covered by "about 1%" is quite absurd. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:48, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
At worst, we could change to "a small fraction", which easily covers all figures while accounting for variations. I agree that 1.5% is certainly covered by "about 1%". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:05, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
I don't see why we would say "about 1%" when we could say "1.5%", but "about 1%" is not wrong and certainly not an error.--Launchballer 13:10, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
Presumably because we don't want to do e.g. "1.5% of the Amazon, 6.2% of the Congo, and 11.9% of the Yangtze" in a hook -- that level of detail/precision/wonkery would detract from the point, flow and accessibility. I concur that, while another approach would have been legitimate, this is not an error. Nor is the "longest river" fact, since that is commonly presented by RS without qualification, unless good reason can be found to doubt it (beyond "measuring rivers is hard"). UndercoverClassicistT·C 13:12, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
Two percent is double the figure of one percent and such a factor of two is not an insignificant difference. The point is that different measurements at different times will produce different results and so we should not present these as absolute and timeless. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:12, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
Andrew, if you keep rounding you'll eventually make it to 100%. I prefer to deal with what the figure actually is. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:28, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
The only rounding I've done is for 84/5518 which is 1.5229% with more precision.
A further point to note is the rate of discharge for the Amazon River. That article lists numerous figures for that river, depending on the location, year, max/min/average, &c. The rate of discharge for the Nile also varies considerably, depending where you measure it.
Regarding "longest river" - Andrew Davidson raised that at the Nile FAC and I provided a detailed response on 25 March 2026, where I pointed out that every single reliable source says that the Nile is the longest. Regarding the "about 1%" that is directly from Tvedt, the world's foremost authority on the Nile. The word "about" was included since some older sources put the figure at about 1.5%. Noleander (talk) 13:16, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
Other sources are more circumspect. For example, Guinness World Records gives the title to the Nile (with a different length from the one we're using) but qualifies this by saying The two longest rivers in the world are the Nile, flowing into the Mediterranean, and the Amazon, flowing into the South Atlantic. Which is the longer is more a matter of definition than simple measurement. So, when making this claim, one should make it clear that it is not a plain fact. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:29, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
That guideline doesn't appear to say anything special about Guinness. My view is that they are a reasonable source for this purpose and their statements are consistent with other sources. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:49, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
The Guinness World Records is not a reliable source when it comes to geography or hydrology. I already replied to you in detail about the length issue on 25 March 2026, where I supplied five (5) reliable academic sources that stated that the Nile is longest. I found zero (0) that said the Amazon was longest. I did find two academics that said the Amazon was longest: both were Brazilian scientists, and both claims were in press releases. Those scientists never published their data or methodologies in a peer-reviewed journal. The press releases appeared to be issued for publicity/promotional purposes of some sort. Noleander (talk) 13:40, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
No issue with the longest river claim IMHO as I think using the 2009 source as a definitive indicator that the Nile is longer, as the article does, is reasonable. Other sources don't go into such detail or use older data, and there's general consensus the Nile is longer anyway. But the "about 1%" claim definitely needs modification. 1.5% is not "about 1%" by any stretch of the imagination. It's one and a half times larger than 1%. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 13:48, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
For most measurements a 3 to 2 ratio would be fairly significant. However, for river discharge measurements the 3 to 2 ratio is nothing special. First of all, the flows vary tremendously from year to year... in fact river discharge data is always presented as an annual mean, averaged over 20 to 40 years. In addition, measuring a river flow is a very crude operation: The figures are always extremely approximate, with huge error margins. That's because the velocity of a river varies widely across the river's cross section, yet it is only measured at a few points. Therefore a 3 to 2 ratio is not significant in the context of river discharge measurements. Noleander (talk) 23:00, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
To expand on Noleander's point, the discharge figures are quite variable. What I noticed at Amazon River is that the infobox contains discharge stats for several points in the river system and there's a section in the article which goes into even more detail. Likewise, looking at a river FA – Columbia River – that has several sets of discharge stats in its infobox. This article about the Nile doesn't have the same level of detail in its infobox – is that deliberate or just a work-in-progress? Andrew🐉(talk) 09:14, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That was deliberate.
The river InfoBox provides about 100 fields for a typical river. All but one of the fields are optional. Most river articles only supply a handful of fields.
MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE says: "The less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose,..."
The InfoBox in the Amazon river article is ugly, large, and distracting.
The Nile InfoBox already contains the single most important discharge datum: the flow at Aswan. Other, less important, discharge data for the Nile is described in the Nile#Hydrology section, which is a better location.
The discharge measurements for the Nile, unlike most rivers, are organized into two distinct groups: (a) National boundaries; and (b) Geographical sites. The InfoBox template is not capable of grouping discharge data. Both groups are currently presented in the Nile#Hydrology section, where they can be explained and contrasted.
Putting all discharge measurements into the InfoBox would cause the box to grow to an extreme height, and would encroach on the following "Names and etymology" section, causing that section to be ugly (on some devices).
There are scores of numbers in the discharge data: duplicating them in two locations (InfoBox & body text) increases the likelihood of errors or inconsistencies.
The discharge data of the Nile's secondary locations is complex, and requires lots of context & explanation, best done in Nile#Hydrology section. Example: The official names of the discharge stations are often cryptic, so additional text is required to translate those names into geographic locations that readers can understand.
The discharge measurements of the Nile will be changing significantly in future decades (following completion of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in 2025). Future editors will benefit from only having to edit a single place in the article (vs two places: InfoBox & body text).
Hello Noleander. I have a nice little flow chart with GRDC data. I thought I would send it to you in case you are interested. The data is the same, except that in addition to the monthly averages, it also displays the minimum and maximum flow rates. The Nile at Dongola html code:
@River.discharge - Thanks for that new chart ... it looks useful and high quality. I tried to put the new chart in the article to replace the existing image File:Monthly variations of the flow of the Nile River.svg, but it caused problems: I want the chart on the right side of the page, with body text on the left side of the chart ... that would be the same as the article is now with the File:Monthly variations of the flow of the Nile River.svg. But when I put in the new chart, the body text would not go to the left side of the chart, and that made the article very ugly. I guess the page rendering logic thinks the chart is wide and requires the full page? If you can figure out a way to have body text on the left side of the chart, let me know and I can try it again. Noleander (talk) 16:44, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure that the formulation with "closed" and "reopened" is correct - my geological understanding is that there was no such thing as a Gibraltar Strait before the Zanclean flood, rather there were straits where the Rif and Betic Cordillera lie and when they closed the Messinian salinity crisis began. The strait as such is a product of the Zanclean deluge, not a tectonic thing, either, so "reopened" wouldn't be the correct term - "formed" would be better. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:39, 7 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Abductive - Thanks for explaining that edit you made a few weeks ago here. Yes, WP:OPCOORD does instruct editors to avoid excessive (and misleading) precision. However, it says:
"To specify a particular point in the city, such as a building, generally requires precision down to degrees-minutes-seconds or d.dddd° if decimal degrees are used. In the case of objects such as fountains or statues, it may be necessary to use d°m's.s" or d.ddddd°." [boldface emphasis added]
You changed all the lat/long coordinates down to four digits of precision. However, some of the lat/long coordinates in the article were taken from sources that specified values requiring five digits. Other coords were obtained from small monuments (as OPCOORD says) "such as fountains or statues". Not all the lat/long coordinates in this article are huge objects like the mouth of a river. Here is a lat/long that had 6 digits (5 valid digits) that you reduced to 4 digits:
The monument erected by Waldecker for the southernmost source is at {{t:Coord|3.915146 |S|29.837867 |E |format=dms}}.
changed to:
The monument erected by Waldecker for the southernmost source is at {{t:Coord|3.9151|S|29.8379|E |format=dms}}.
Your edit probably would be okay if you truncated at 5 or 6 digits: that would avoiding the false precision of 10 or 11, yet would keep the 5-digit precision that some sources did specify. Unfortunately, I cannot undo your edit, because of intervening edits. So now I have to go thru all lat/long coordinates the article, look at the sources (again) and determine which of them justify 5 digits. Noleander (talk) 14:26, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Review WP:OPCOORD and you will see that only D.dddd° or D°M'S" are acceptable for an object such as the source of a river. For example, the source of the Nile currently shown in the article points to a heavily forested area. Abductive (reasoning)18:36, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The monument erected by Waldecker for the southernmost source is at {{t:Coord|3.915146 |S|29.837867 |E |format=dms}}.
Did the source actually give those particular hyperprecise coordinates? Just because a previous user entered some digits because they don't know how to convert from D°M'S" to D.dddd°, or how to round, doesn't mean that those coordinates are correct in any way. Keep in mind that even GPS isn't accurate to anything than less than 2 meters. Abductive (reasoning)01:47, 13 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That is a monument, a small obelisk. Five decimal points is appropriate for monuments/fountains per WP:OPCOORD. The monument was erected by Waldecker near the source of the river. It does not claim to be "the source" of the river. (But I do agree that for vague river-source locations, 4 digits is sufficient). Please stop wasting my time with your erroneous statements and damaging edits. Noleander (talk) 19:02, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I checked the sourcing, Google Maps shows it at 3°54′54.0″S 29°50′16.5″E. I have adjusted the article accordingly. But if you check those coordinates on Bing Maps, Apple Maps, Yandex and OSM, you will see that none of them agree. Bing puts the monument about one monument width to the east, Apple lower, Yandex to the east, and OSM to the southeast. None are the "truth", which is why rounding is appropriate. In any case, if a tourist were to use 3°54′54″S 29°50′16″E, 3°54′54.0″S 29°50′16.5″E, or 3°54′54″S 29°50′17″E to actually go to the monument, they would be standing next to it in all cases. Abductive (reasoning)02:07, 13 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted the addition of new material related to historical irrigation. Some of that may be appropriate, but issues include:
Article size: article is already over sized per WP:SIZERULE, so additional detailed material should generally be placed into sub-articles (existing or new)
If there are good sources on this irrigation material: best to create a new WP article first: something like Nile irrigation or History of Nile irrigation similar. After that article is created ... then distill it to a small summary and put the summary into Nile article
WP:PROPORTION says that the article must present material in proportions represented in the best sources on the Nile. I don't recall the best Nile sources discussing irrigation systems in this much detail. Best to put this into a new article e.g. Nile irrigation first, and see how that goes.
The new material had some sentences without a citation, that is not allowed per WP:V etc
level-3 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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Approving all hooks, with a personal preference for ALT1 or ALT4; I agree with Noleander that ALTs 2 and 3 are fairly on the non-exceptional side. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:07, 6 March 2026 (UTC) ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:07, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
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@Noleander: and @AirshipJungleman29: Checking before promoting (I'll go for ALT1). I don't have access to Tvedt (2021) or Sutcliffe (2009). Can you please provide the citation or e-mail me the documents? I had access to Collins (2002) which you didn't mention as a source here but is used as a source in the article, and it only mentions the Amazon: 2%, not 1%, as stated in the hook and article. This needs to be clarified.