Everglades National Park
Information on a subtropical park in States National Park System. This was also the last part to be explored.
Related
Erosion
Beach, cliffs and coasts
Island
Most Viewed in Geography
Deserts
Protection of natural resources
Geography info: Continents, mountain belts and drift
The Nile Delta is composed of many feet of fertile, dark-brown mud, providing excellent farmland. The civilization of ancient Egypt grew up in this area and it is now one of the most heavily populated regions in the world.
Delta
As a river ages, it wears away its banks by erosion. Its valley becomes very wide and flat, forming what is called a flood plain. In the case of a very old river, the flood plain is extremely wide at the mouth of the river, and consists almost entirely of the river's own deposits.
The river may divide and subdivide into many branches, which fan out across the plain. The outermost branches of the river enclose a large triangular area around the river mouth called a delta, after the Greek letter A.
The delta consists of many small islets of mud, separated by the river's many channels. The courses of these minor streams are constantly changing, dividing or swamping some islands, and forming new ones elsewhere.
The best-known example is probably the delta of the Nile River on the north coast of Egypt. Other rivers having large deltas are the Amazon in Brazil, the Mississippi in the United States, the Volga in Russia, and the Ganges and Brahmaputra in India and Pakistan.
