# Mega-Chad's last high-water phase ends (c. 300 BCE)

URL: https://allhistories.com/nigeria/timeline/-300-mega-chad-s-last-high-water-phase-ends
Location: Lake Chad basin (Borno State)
Themes: main-event

Wikipedia's Lake Chad article says the lake went through four high-water periods, collectively Mega-Chad, between about 39,000 BCE and 300 BCE. At its largest it reached roughly 400,000 square kilometres and over 180 metres deep, and at times drained towards the Atlantic by the Mayo Kebbi, Benue and Niger rivers. By around 300 BCE the lake had fallen to a size closer to its modern form. The shrinking lake left fertile exposed lake bed and shifting shorelines that attracted farmers and herders. This pattern recurred later: Lake Chad was about 28,000 km2 in 1870 and has shrunk dramatically since the 1970s, with Nigeria sharing the basin with Chad, Cameroon and Niger. No single named ruler governed the lands of present-day Nigeria at this date. The period is represented in the rulers file by Nok culture (leadership unrecorded) (Nok culture of the Jos Plateau), so the event belongs to the history of societies, polities and communities and not of a documented head of state. Lake Chad is the ecological heart of north-eastern Nigeria, and its long cycle of expansion and retreat shaped the rise of Sao towns, Kanem and Bornu.

## Why it matters
Lake Chad's long retreat shaped where Nigeria's north-eastern peoples settled.

Ruler at the Time: [Nok culture (leadership unrecorded)](https://allhistories.com/nigeria/rulers/nok-culture-leadership-unrecorded)

## Sources
- [Lake Chad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chad)
- [Lake-Chad](https://www.britannica.com/place/Lake-Chad)
- [countrystudies.us](https://countrystudies.us/nigeria/)