The second largest fresh water lake in the world, Lake Victoria geographically dominates the area with its 70,000 sq km surface. The lake occupies a wide depression near the equator, between the East and West Great Rift Valleys, but its drainage basin is relatively small, being slightly less than three times the lake's surface in area.
Three nations share the waters of the lake - Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Kenya's share is the smallest (3785 sq km) but there is a busy network of waterways between the trading towns and villages which lie along the shores of the lake.
The lake water is drained at a rate of about 600 m3 sec-1, at Jinja on the northern shore, into the Victoria Nile which flows northward via Lake Albert and the White Nile forming the uppermost reaches of the Nile River. It is the source of River Nile.
