The Mountains of the Moon (Latin: Montes Lunae; Arabic: جبال القمر, Jibālu al-Qamar or Jibbel el Kumri) are a legendary mountain or mountain range in east Africa at the source of the Nile River. Various identifications have been made in modern times, the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo being the most celebrated.
___Rwenzori_Mountains_q.jpg)
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
👉 Mountains of the Moon (Africa) in the context of Rwenzori Mountains
The Rwenzori (also known as the Ruwenzori, Rwenzururu or Rwenjura) are a range of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches 5,109 metres (16,762 ft), and the range's upper regions are permanently snow-capped and glaciated. Rivers fed by mountain streams form one of the sources of the Nile. Because of this, European explorers linked the Ruwenzori with the legendary Mountains of the Moon, claimed by the Greek scholar Ptolemy as the source of the Nile. Virunga National Park in eastern DR Congo and Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda are located within the range.
In this Dossier
Mountains of the Moon (Africa) in the context of European exploration of Africa
The geography of North Africa has been reasonably well known among Europeans since classical antiquity in Greco-Roman geography. Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was known as either Libya or Africa, while Egypt was considered part of Asia.
European exploration of sub-Saharan Africa begins with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by the Kingdom of Portugal under Henry the Navigator. The Cape of Good Hope was first reached by Bartolomeu Dias on 12 March 1488, opening the important sea route to India and the Far East, but European exploration of Africa itself remained very limited during the 16th and 17th centuries. The European powers were content to establish trading posts along the coast while they were actively exploring and colonizing the New World. Exploration of the interior of Africa was thus mostly left to the Muslim slave traders, who in tandem with the Muslim conquest of Sudan established far-reaching networks and supported the economy of a number of Sahelian kingdoms during the 15th to 18th centuries.