The
Blue Nile (; transliterated:
ʿAbbay but pronounced
Abbai, ) is a
river originating at
Lake Tana in
Ethiopia. With the
White Nile, the river becomes one of the two major tributaries of the
Nile. The upper course of the river is called the Abbay in Ethiopia, where many regard it as holy. Some Ethiopians have long identified the Blue Nile as the
River Gihon mentioned as flowing out of the
Garden of Eden in
Genesis 2 and "encircling the entire land of
Cush".