Lake Nasser

Our Artificial Features Series takes us to Lake Nasser, one of the largest artificial reservoirs. The construction of the dam on the Nile River near the Egyptian city of Aswan was started in 1960, and the Lake reached its full capacity in 1976. The Lake was named after the late Egyptian president who undertook its construction.

The completion of the reservoir profoundly improved the irrigation system of the lower Nile valley, a region that has almost 100m residents. However, upstream from the dam, populations had to be displaced by the flooding of large areas, including in nearby Sudan.