The Benue River (French: la Bénoué), previously known as the Chadda River or Tchadda, is the major tributary of the Niger River. The river is approximately 1,400 km long and is almost entirely navigable during the summer months. As a result, it is an important transportation route in the regions through which it flows.
It rises in the Adamawa Plateau of northern Cameroon, from where it flows west, and through the town of Garoua and Lagdo Reservoir, into Nigeria south of the Mandara mountains, and through Jimeta, Ibi and Makurdi before meeting the Niger at Lokoja.
Large tributaries are the Gongola River and the Mayo Kébbi, which connects it with the Logone River (part of the Lake Chad system) during floods. Other tributaries are Taraba River and River Katsina Ala.
At the point of confluence the Benue exceeds the Niger by volume (mean discharge before 1960: 3400 m³/s vs. 2500 m³/s). During the following decades the runoff of both rivers decreased markedly due to irrigation.
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—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)