Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift Valley (Swahili: Bonde la ufa) is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6,000 or 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Mozambique in Southeast Africa.

[1][2] While the name remains in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it is considered an imprecise merging of rift and fault systems.

Originally, the Great Rift Valley was thought to be a single feature that extended from Lebanon[dubious – discuss] in the north to Mozambique in the south, where it constitutes one of two distinct physiographic provinces of the East African mountains.

[4][failed verification][clarification needed] The Jordan River begins here and flows southward through Lake Hula into the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

[4] The East African Rift follows the Red Sea to the end before turning inland into the Ethiopian highlands, dividing the country into two large and adjacent but separate mountainous regions.

As the lakes in the Eastern Rift have no output to the sea and tend to be shallow, they have a high mineral content as the evaporation of water leaves the salts behind.