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Angola Drainage
Most of the country's many rivers originate in central
Angola,
but their patterns of flow are diverse and their ultimate
outlets
varied. A number of rivers flow in a more or less westerly
course
to the Atlantic Ocean, providing water for irrigation in
the dry
coastal strip and the potential for hydroelectric power,
only some
of which had been realized by 1988. Two of Angola's most
important
rivers, the Cuanza and the Cunene, take a more indirect
route to
the Atlantic, the Cuanza flowing north and the Cunene
flowing south
before turning west. The Cuanza is the only river wholly
within
Angola that is navigable--for nearly 200 kilometers from
its mouth-
-by boats of commercially or militarily significant size.
The Congo
River, whose mouth and western end form a small portion of
Angola's
northern border with Zaire, is also navigable.
North of the Lunda Divide a number of important
tributaries of
the Congo River flow north to join it, draining Angola's
northeast
quadrant. South of the divide some rivers flow into the
Zambezi
River and thence to the Indian Ocean, others to the
Okavango River
(as the Cubango River is called along the border with
Namibia and
in Botswana) and thence to the Okavango Swamp in Botswana.
The
tributaries of the Cubango River and several of the
southern rivers
flowing to the Atlantic are seasonal, completely dry much
of the
year.
Data as of February 1989
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