The shores of the lake, Lake Victoria, Uganda

Lake Victoria is the source of the longest branch of the Nile River, the White Nile, and has a catchment area of 184,000 square kilometres (71,040 mi²). The lake lies within an elevated plateau in the western part of Africa's Great Rift Valley and is subject to territorial administration by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. The lake was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when the British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore whilst on his journey with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate the great Lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this vast expanse of open water for the first time, Speke named the lake after the then Queen of the United Kingdom. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was on assignment for Life magazine and travelled to Africa from January 8, 1947 to end of June 1947.