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River Congo

The 7th longest river in the world

4,700 km

The Congo River, formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the third largest river in the world by discharge volume, following the Amazon and Ganges–Brahmaputra rivers. It is the world's deepest recorded river, with measured depths of around 220 m (720 ft). The Congo–Lualaba–Luvua–Luapula–Chambeshi River system has an overall length of 4,700 km (2, 900 mi), which makes it the world's ninth-longest river. The Chambeshi is a tributary of the Lualaba River, and Lualaba is the name of the Congo River upstream of Boyoma Falls, extending for 1,800 km (1, 100 mi). Measured along with the Lualaba, the main tributary, the Congo River has a total length of 4,370 km (2, 720 mi). It is the only major river to cross the equator twice. The Congo Basin has a total area of about 4,000,000 km2 (1, 500, 000 mi2), or 13% of the entire African landmass.

Flows through: Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo.

River data from Wikidata (CC0); lengths normalised to a common unit.

Other major rivers

  1. Amazon6,992 km
  2. Nile6,650 km
  3. Yangtze River6,300 km
  4. Bian River5,806 km
  5. Yellow River5,464 km
  6. Paraná River4,880 km
  7. Mekong River4,350 km
  8. Lena River4,294 km