Talk:African Great Lakes

Old talk

There seems to be some contention over exactly what is a "Great Lake"

I have found a few other sources, mostly related to the aquarium hobby, that say only Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria, and Lake Malawi are "African Great Lakes" however the Great Lakes region of east africa is dotted with smaller rift lakes.

Is there any consensus here?

Not really. I thought they were just called the "great lakes," not the "Great Lakes." I don't think it's a proper noun for the name of the East African Rift Lakes. I could be wrong.

Anyway, I removed this section:

"The term Great Lakes is in the African context a rather loose one. Unlike their North American counterparts, the three largest lakes have a host of nearby middle-sized and small lakes, though the small ones would be considered very substantial in many countries of the world. There is no accepted size criterion for Great Lake."

It's just strange. What does it mean that there are nearby middle-sized and small lakes? In the United States and Canada there are many small lakes all around the Great Lakes. What does it mean "in the African context a rather loose one?" What is tight in the African context? I think this paragraph should stay out of the article until it is referenced and cleared up. --Blechnic (talk) 08:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Lakes in local names

For example, showing where is "Muta Nzige", next to it "Mkiyo".Connection (talk) 21:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Articles need expansion

Here's a source. http://albertinerift.org/portals/49/media/file/Biodiversity-8.pdf Albert, Edward-George and Kivu also have endemic fish species, inc. cichlids, and it seems Albert has a fish depletion problem due to oil. Tanganyika also has an important population of invertebrates, which is being overlooked in wikipedia. --User:PedroPVZ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.126.180.175 (talk) 14:27, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Economic significance

This article needs some content about the fishing and transport industries based on these lakes. Fish is a significant part of the diet of much of the population of the region. Oil and gas is also emerging as a significant development in and around the lakes. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:36, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Lake Kariba

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=African_Great_Lakes&diff=728022410&oldid=728022210

An IP editor has added that Lake Kariba was in the African Great Lakes system. I was inclined to edit this article but I am going to take this to the talk page because I don't want to risk ending up in an edit war with the IP if I change or undo his edit. Hx7 16:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Fossils

Old fossils associated with the Swahili culture, which were excavated at Mtwapa (900-1732 BCE), Manda (800-1400 BCE), and Shanga (800-1400 BCE) in the Great Lakes region, have been analysed for ancient DNA [1] [2]. Soupforone (talk) 06:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Lake Victoria

On the Wiki page of African Great Lakes, it mentioned Lake Victoria, the third-largest fresh water lake in the world by area. While on the wiki page of Lake Victoria it mentioned : "Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North America" I am pretty confused, does this article need to be updated?Aspiration403 (talk) 15:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Lake Tana

Some say Lake Tana in Ethiopia is second only to Lake Victoria in Africa. Apparently it doesn't rank that high in surface area, but it certainly ranks higher than some of the lakes listed as "great." Is there a reason it is entirely omitted? I see there's mention of lakes that flow into the White Nile, but Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile. Shouldn't it be in the list or am I missing something? ChicagoLarry (talk) 00:22, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Insertion of a one-sided political statement in paragraph 3 in what is primarily a Wiki article about the geography of the region

The 3rd paragraph opens a massive debate about the fact that the area is a huge 'crucible of conflict' and mentions that there are overseas agencies located there and then proceeds to give an opinion based on a couple of Al Jazeera articles that these agencies are regarded by the locals as basically self-interested and also corrupt. This is a rather brief and unfair summary of these agencies. The UN have been in the area for decades and have tens of thousands of staff and have spent billions of dollars on their peacekeeping efforts to the extent that MONUSCO now has a billion dollars per annum budget. Any organisation of this size based in Africa is going to have some bad apples and corruption but to dismiss these peacekeeping forces with this text "Local populations recently have denounced the presence of these 'agency' groups like the UN, saying they often do not actually prevent attacks or protect local villages, but are posted for whitewashing purposes or to safeguard western envoys, citizens and their business interests. They have also been accused by both local and other African nations of participating in human rights abuses and rampant sex-based exploitation and trafficking" is to grossly misrepresent the international peacekeeping efforts, in this region of terrible violence and atrocities, where the UN spend around one sixth of their entire worldwide peacekeeping budget here. Andrew ranfurly (talk) 19:58, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I've deleted that section. - SimonP (talk) 18:40, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Wish to correct a run-on sentence in "African Great Lakes region" section

Sentence reads: Unusual for sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional borders were largely maintained by the colonial powers, however the national borders were often drawn to divide monarchies that the colonials did not favor or to keep preferred groups in relative dominance over groups perceived as less euro-centric.

I wish to change it to read: Unusual for sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional borders were largely maintained by the colonial powers. However, the national borders were often drawn to divide monarchies that the colonials did not favor or to keep preferred groups in relative dominance over groups perceived as less euro-centric.

This maintains the intended meaning and corrects the run-on sentence.

Thank you. Lytzf (talk) 04:48, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Great Lakes (disambiguation) that might interest readers of this article. Vpab15 (talk) 21:23, 26 July 2024 (UTC)