What direction does the Nile river flow?

This surprises people because we tend to think of "up" on a map as the direction water flows, when in fact water follows gravity, and the terrain of northeastern Africa slopes downward toward the north. The Nile's two main tributaries, the White Nile (sourced near Lake Victoria in Uganda and Tanzania) and the Blue Nile (sourced at Lake Tana in Ethiopia), both travel northward before meeting near Khartoum, Sudan. From there the river continues north through Egypt and empties into the Mediterranean.

At roughly 6,650 kilometers, the Nile is one of the two longest rivers on Earth, running through 11 countries: Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan and Egypt.