There is only one year-round river in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...

. It has no non-seasonal tributaries for its entire length in Egypt, though it has two further upstream, the

Blue Nile The Blue Nile (; ) is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the water to ...

and White Nile, which merge in central Sudan. In the Nile Delta, the river splits into a number of

distributaries A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Distributaries are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributar ...

and lesser channels. In ancient times there were seven distributaries, of which only two are extant today due to silting and flood relief schemes. From east to west, they were: * the Pelusiac, * the Tanitic, * the Mendesian, * the Phatnitic (extant; now the Damietta or Damyat), * the Sebennytic, * the Bolbitinic, * the Canopic (extant; now the Rosetta or Rashid). The Nile is intersected by a number of normally dry tributaries or

wadi Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water ...

s which traverse the

Eastern Desert The Eastern Desert (Archaically known as Arabia or the Arabian Desert) is the part of the Sahara desert that is located east of the Nile river. It spans of North-Eastern Africa and is bordered by the Nile river to the west and the Red Sea an ...

. The wadis drain run-off rainfall from the mountains along the Egyptian

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

coast, though it only rarely reaches the main trunk of the wadis to flow downstream to the Nile. The three principal wadis are: * Wadi Abbad (drainage area 7,000 km²) * Wadi Shait (length 200 km, drainage area 10,000 km²) * Wadi El-Kharit (length 260 km, drainage area 23,000 km²)

Sinai

Sinai has a number of wadis, including the

Wadi Mukattab The Wadi Mukattab (Arabic for "Valley of Writing"), also known as the Valley of Inscriptions, is a wadi on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula near St Catherine's Monastery. It links the main road in the Wadi Feiran with the Wadi Maghareh's ancient turquois ...

("The Valley of Writing") and the

Wadi Feiran Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water onl ...

(associated with the biblical

Rephidim Rephidim or Refidim ( he, רפידים) is one of the places visited by the Israelites in the biblical account of the Exodus from Egypt. Biblical account This episode is described in the Book of Exodus. The Israelites under Moses have come ...

Sources

* ''The Vegetation of Egypt'', pp. 192, 253. M. A. Zahran, A. J. Willis. Springer, 2008. {{Egypt topics

Rivers