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The Niger River ( ; (フランス語:(le) fleuve Niger), ) is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area.〔; online at (Google Books )〕 Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea. It runs in a crescent through Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria, discharging through a massive delta, known as the Niger Delta or the Oil Rivers, into the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded only by the Nile and the Congo River (also known as the Zaïre River). Its main tributary is the Benue River. The Scottish explorer Mungo Park was the first Westerner known to have travelled to the central portion of the Niger River. ==Etymology== The Niger is called ''Jeliba'' or ''Joliba'' "great river" in Manding; ''Orimiri'' or ''Orimili'' "great water" in Igbo; ''Egerew n-Igerewen'' "river of rivers" in Tuareg; ''Isa Ber'' "big river" in Songhay; Kwara in Hausa; and ''Oya'' in Yoruba. The earliest use of the name "Niger" for the river is by Leo Africanus in his ''Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che iui sono'' published in Italian in 1550. The name may come from Berber phrase ''ger-n-ger'' meaning "river of rivers". As Timbuktu was the southern end of the principal Trans-Saharan trade route to the western Mediterranean, it was the source of most European knowledge of the region. Medieval European maps applied the name ''Niger'' to the middle reaches of the river, in modern Mali, but ''Quorra (Kworra)'' to the lower reaches in modern Nigeria, as these were not recognized at the time as being the same river. When European colonial powers began to send ships along the West coast of Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Senegal River was often postulated to be seaward end of the Niger. The Niger Delta, pouring into the Atlantic through mangrove swamps and thousands of distributaries along more than a hundred miles, was thought to be no more than coastal wetlands. It was only with the 18th-century visits of Mungo Park, who travelled down the Niger River and visited the great Sahelian empires of his day, that Europeans correctly identified the course of the Niger and extended the name to its entire course. The modern nations of Nigeria and Niger take their names from the river, marking contesting national claims by colonial powers of the "Upper", "Lower" and "Middle" Niger river basin during the Scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Niger River」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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