Congo River

Congo
Image of Kinshasa and Brazzaville, taken by NASA; the Congo River is visible in the center of the photograph. Image of Kinshasa and Brazzaville, taken by NASA; the Congo River is visible in the center of the photograph.
Mouth	Atlantic Ocean
Basin countries	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo
Length	4,667 km (2,900 mi)
Avg. discharge	41,800 m³/s (1,476,376 ft³/s)
Basin area	3,680,000 km² (1,420,848 mi²)

The Congo River (for a time known as the Zaire River) is the largest river in western Central Africa. Its overall length of 2,900 mi.(4,667 km) makes it the second-longest in Africa (after the Nile). The river and its tributaries flow through the second largest rain forest area in the world, second only to the Amazon Rainforest in South America. The river also has the second-largest flow in the world, behind the Amazon, and the second-largest watershed of any river, again trailing the Amazon; its watershed is slightly larger than that of the Mississippi River.

The dense rain forest, heavy rainfall, and poor soil of the basin that is traversed by the Congo results in sparse population, except for small settlements of hunters, farmers, and fishermen along or near the river. Since it is close to the equator, the climate is hot and humid.

Because large sections of the river basin lie both above and below the equator, its flow is stable, as there is always at least one river experiencing a rainy season.[1]

The Congo gets its name from the ancient Kingdom of Kongo, which inhabited the lands at the mouth of the river at the time of European discovery. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo, both countries lying along the river's banks, are named after it. Between 1971 and 1997 the government of then-Zaire called it the Zaire River.

The Source

The sources of the Congo River are in the highlands and mountains of the Great Rift Valley, as well as Lake Tanganyika and Lake Mweru, which feed the Lualaba River, which then becomes the Congo below Boyoma Falls. The Chambeshi River in Zambia is generally taken as the source of the Congo, in line with the accepted practice worldwide of using the longest tributary, as with the Nile River.

The Congo flows generally west from Kisangani just below the falls, then gradually bends southwest, passing by Mbandaka, joining with the Ubangi River, and running into the Malebo Pool (Stanley Pool), a fifty-mile lake. Kinshasa (formerly Léopoldville) and Brazzaville are on opposite sides of the river at the Pool, then the river narrows and falls through a number of cataracts in deep canyons (collectively known as the Livingstone Falls), running by Matadi and Boma, and into the sea at the small town of Muanda.

Geological history

In the Mesozoic before continental drift opened the South Atlantic Ocean, the Congo was the upper part of a river roughly 7,500 miles (12,000 km) long that flowed west across the parts of Gondwanaland that are now Africa and South America.

History of exploration

The mouth of the Congo was visited in 1482 by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão, who claimed the area for his king. But trade and the sale of slaves that followed were confined to the coast. Those who tried to sail upriver encountered a narrow gorge that compressed the water into a powerful opposing current. In the river's final 220 miles from the edge of the central plateau to the coast, the Congo River drops more than a thousand feet and has thirty-two rapids. Difficult terrain made exploration on foot also treacherous. In 1816 a British expedition went up as far as Isangila. Henry Morton Stanley was the first European to navigate along the river's length (in the mid-1870s) and report that the Lualaba was not a source of the Nile, as had been suggested. He returned on behalf of King Leopold II of Belgium and claimed huge swaths of land in the Conger River basin for the king.

Several other European explorers traveled up the Congo's tributaries in the 1880s, mapping out ten thousand miles of navigable waterways that were linked together.

Though trade in goods was the initial impetus for the Europeans, they quickly discovered that the slave trade was much more lucrative, and the river was the means to deliver them to the coast from inland areas once the supply of slaves dwindled on the coast. As the wealth from the slave trade filtered inland, the demand for slaves grew, leading to raids by some groups and migrations by others to escape the slavers. But the increased trade and multiplication of towns along the river had the unforeseen benefit of lifestyles becoming more similar and new crops and technologies being shared.

Ecology

The Congo river basin encompasses the world's second largest contiguous rain forest, surpassed only by that of the Amazon. The region is biologically diverse, and a huge watershed. The forest is threatened by illegal logging and the poaching of large mammals (especially for the bushmeat trade), but two summits (1999, 2005) that brought together the nations of the basin have committed its participants to forest conservation and have led to the establishment of wildlife preserves.

Economic importance

With railways now bypassing the three major falls (Matadi-Kinshasa; Kisangani-Ubundu; Kindu-Kongolo), the Congo River and its tributaries form a system of navigable waterways approximately 9,000 miles (14,480 km) long, with much of the trade of central Africa passing along it, including copper, palm oil (as kernels), sugar, coffee, and cotton.

The chief ocean port is Matadi, with its associated oil port, Ango Ango; the chief river ports are Kinshasa and Kisangani. River steamers operate throughout the year between Kinshasa and Kisangani.

The Congo River is Africa's largest potential source of hydroelectric power; the most valuable site is along Livingstone Falls, where the first phase of the Inga Power Project has been completed. In spite of government initiatives, hydroelectric power is underdeveloped.

In February 2005, South Africa's state-owned power company, Eskom, announced a proposal to increase the capacity of the Inga dramatically through improvements and the construction of a new hydroelectric dam. The project would bring the maximum output of the facility to 40 GW, twice that of China's Three Gorges Dam.

Tributaries

Course and Watershed of the Congo River with countries marked

Course and watershed of the Congo River with topography shading.

Sorted in order from the mouth heading upstream.

• Inkisi
  • Nzadi
• Nsele (south side of Pool Malebo)
• Bombo
• Kasai (between Fimi and Congo, known as Kwa)
  • Fimi
  • Kwango
  • Sankuru
• Likouala
• Sangha
• Ubangi
  • Giri
  • Uele
    • Mbomou

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Helen Winternitz, East Along the Equator: A Journey up the Congo and into Zaire, 1987. Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, NY.
• James L. Newman, The Peopling of Africa: A Geographical Interpretation, 1995. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. ISBN 0300060033
• Congo, 2004. Lucent Books, Farmington Hills, MI. ISBN 1590181115
• Ch. Didier Gondola, The History of Congo, 2002. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. ISBN 0313316961
• Philip Curtin et al., African History: From Earliest Times to Independence, 2nd ed., 1995. Addison Wesley Longman, New York, NY. ISBN 0582050707

External links

• Bibliography on Water Resources and International Law See Congo (or Zaïre) River. Peace Palace Library
• Information and a map of the Congo's watershed
• Map of the Congo River basin at Water Resources eAtlas
• Butler, Rhett A. Diversities of Image - Rainforest Biodiversity. Mongabay - A Place Out of Time: Tropical Rainforests and the Perils They Face. Retrieved March 21, 2007.

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