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Zaire Rivers and Lakes
The Congo River and its tributaries drain this basin
and
provide the country with the most extensive network of
navigable
waterways in Africa. Ten kilometers wide at mid-point of
its
length, the river carries a volume of water that is second
only to
the Amazon's. Its flow is unusually regular because it is
fed by
rivers and streams from both sides of the equator; the
complementary alternation of rainy and dry seasons on each
side of
the equator guarantees a regular supply of water for the
main
channel. At points where navigation is blocked by rapids
and
waterfalls, the sudden descent of the river creates a
hydroelectric
potential greater than that found in any other river
system on
earth.
Most of Zaire is served by the Congo River system, a
fact that
has facilitated both trade and outside penetration. Its
network of
waterways is dense and evenly distributed through the
country, with
three exceptions: northeastern Mayombé in Bas-Zaïre Region
in the
west, which is drained by a small coastal river called the
Shilango; a strip of land on the eastern border adjoining
lakes
Edward and Albert, which is part of the Nile River basin;
and a
small part of extreme southeastern Zaire, which lies in
the Zambezi
River basin and drains into the Indian Ocean.
Most of Zaire's lakes are also part of the Congo River
basin.
In the west are Lac Mai-Ndombe and Lac Tumba, which are
remnants of
a huge interior lake that once occupied the entire basin
prior to
the breach of the basin's edge by the Congo River and the
subsequent drainage of the interior. In the southeast,
Lake Mweru
straddles the border with Zambia. On the eastern frontier,
Lac
Kivu, Central Africa's highest lake and a key tourist
center, and
Lake Tanganyika, just south of Lac Kivu, both feed into
the Lualaba
River, the name often given to the upper extension of the
Congo
River. Only the waters of the eastern frontier's
northernmost great
lakes, Edward and Albert, drain north, into the Nile
Basin.
Data as of December 1993
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