Lake Chew Bahir
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| Lake Chew Bahir | |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | |
| Basin countries | Ethiopia |
| Max length | 40 mi |
| Max width | 15 mi |
| Surface elevation | 1880 ft |
Lake Chew Bahir (Amharic: ጨው ባሕር č̣ew bāhir, "salty lake") or Lake Istifanos, also called Stefanie, Basso Naebor and Chuwaha, is a lake in Southern Ethiopia on the boundary between the Oromia and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Regions, and bordering northern Kenya, located at , and measuring some 40 miles by 15 miles.
This lake is the southernmost and lowest (1,880 ft.) of a series of lakes which lie in the north-easterly continuation of the Great Rift Valley, although the Rift Valley loses its clearly marked character in about 3° N. It is fed from the north by the Weito River, and its tributary the Galana Sagan. Although the 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica states that the Galana Sagan receives the overflow of Lake Chamo in times of flood and brings it to Chew Bahir, more recent exploration has shown that the watershed of the Galana Sagan does not include Lake Chamo, but instead has its source to the east of that lake.
Count Samuel Teleki was the first European to visit the lake in 1888 and named it for Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, the wife of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. Following Teleki's discovery, Lake Chew Bahir and the neighboring lakes were explored by Donaldson Smith, V. Bottego, M.S. Welby, Oscar Neumann and others. J.J. Harrison in 1899 found the lake quite dried up, and two years later Count Wickenburg found water only in the northern part. In 1960 the lake covered about 2000 km2, but shrank to a swamp over the rest of the 20th century.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
