Lake Tanganyika, second largest of the lakes of eastern
Africa. It is the longest freshwater lake in the world (410 miles [660 km]) and
the second deepest (4,710 feet [1,436 metres]) after Lake Baikal in Russia.
Comparatively narrow, varying in width from 10 to 45 miles (16 to 72 km), it
covers about 12,700 square miles (32,900 square km) and forms the boundary
between Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and part of the
boundary between Burundi and the DRC as well as part of the boundary between
Tanzania and Zambia.
It occupies the southern end of the Western Rift Valley,
and for most of its length the land rises steeply from its shores. Its waters
tend to be brackish. Though fed by a number of rivers, the lake is not the
centre of an extensive drainage area.
The largest rivers discharging into the
lake are the Malagarasi, the Ruzizi, and the Kalambo, which has one of the
highest waterfalls in the world (704 feet [215 metres]; see Kalambo Falls). Its
outlet is the Lukuga River, which flows into the Lualaba River.
Lake Tanganyika is situated
on the line dividing the floral regions of eastern and western Africa, and oil
palms, which are characteristic of the flora of western Africa, grow along the
lake’s shores. Rice and subsistence crops are grown along the shores, and
fishing is of some significance. Hippopotamuses and crocodiles abound, and the
bird life is varied.
Many of the numerous
peoples (predominantly Bantu-speaking) living on the lake’s eastern shores
trace their origins to areas in the Congo River basin. The lake was first visited
by Europeans in 1858, when the British explorers Sir Richard Burton and John
Hanning Speke reached Ujiji, on the lake’s eastern shore, in their quest for
the source of the Nile River. In 1871 Henry (later Sir Henry) Morton Stanley
“found” David Livingstone at Ujiji. Important ports situated along Lake
Tanganyika are Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, Kalemi in the DRC, Mpulungu
in Zambia, and Ujiji and Kigoma in Tanzania.
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