Luapula River - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Luapula River is a section of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

's second-longest river, the Congo

Congo River

The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...

. It is a transnational

International

----International mostly means something that involves more than one country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries...

river forming for nearly all its length part of the border between Zambia

Zambia

Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....

and the DR Congo. It joins Lake Bangweulu

Lake Bangweulu

Bangweulu — 'where the water sky meets the sky' — is one of the world's great wetland systems, comprising Lake Bangweulu, the Bangweulu Swamps and the Bangweulu Flats or floodplain...

(wholly in Zambia

Zambia

) to Lake Mweru

Lake Mweru

Lake Mweru is a freshwater lake on the longest arm of Africa's second-longest river, the Congo. Located on the border between Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, it makes up 110 km of the total length of the Congo, lying between its Luapula River and Luvua River segments.Mweru...

(shared between the two countries) and gives its name to the Luapula Province

Luapula Province

Luapula Province is one of Zambia's nine provinces, and is located in the north of the country. The provincial capital is Mansa. Luapula Province was named after the Luapula River....

of Zambia.

Source and upper Luapula

The Luapula drains Lake Bangweulu

Lake Bangweulu

Bangweulu — 'where the water sky meets the sky' — is one of the world's great wetland systems, comprising Lake Bangweulu, the Bangweulu Swamps and the Bangweulu Flats or floodplain...

and its swamps into which flows the Chambeshi River

Chambeshi River

The Chambeshi River of northeastern Zambia is the most remote headstream of the Congo River and therefore considered its source...

, the source of the Congo. There is no single clear channel connecting the two rivers and the lake, but a mass of shifting channels, lagoons and swamps, as the explorer David Livingstone

David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...

found to his cost. (He died exploring the area, and one of his last acts was to question Chief Chitambo about the course of the Luapula.) The channel boldly marked as the 'Luapula' and confidently shown on many maps flowing south out of Lake Bangweulu at 11°25'S 29°49'E can be seen on satellite images such as Google Earth to actually peter out into green vegetation around 11°46'S 29°48'E.

Below the Bangweulu swamps and floodplain the Luapula flows steadily in an arc south-west turning north-west then north, with some rapids and well-known set of cataracts, Mambilima Falls

Mambilima Falls

Mambilima Falls is a series of rapids on the Luapula River on the boundary between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.The falls used to be called the Johnstone Falls.They extend along a stretch of the river....

near the main road. A far less well-known site is Tangwa, about 40 km south where the river has eroded a gap through rocky hills carving huge caves, arches, and potholes, and leaving giant boulders, including two balancing rocks called 'God's Corn Bin'.

For aspects of wildlife and vegetation at the source of the Luapula, see Lake Bangweulu
Lake Bangweulu
Bangweulu — 'where the water sky meets the sky' — is one of the world's great wetland systems, comprising Lake Bangweulu, the Bangweulu Swamps and the Bangweulu Flats or floodplain...

and Bangweulu Wetlands ecosystem.

The Luapula Valley

From the Chembe Ferry to Lake Mweru, the 300 km long Luapula Valley has a higher rural population than the plateau through which it cuts to a depth of up to 500 m. The river is known for this valley and for its long thin delta

River delta

A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...

entering Lake Mweru, usually referred to as the Luapula Swamps. The well-populated part of the valley starts north from Mambilima Falls, and along the rest of its length is nicknamed 'Mwapoleni Road', after the Chibemba greeting called out as people pass each other.

For many practical study purposes the lower Luapula and Mweru can be considered as one entity. They lie in a rift valley

Rift valley

A rift valley is a linear-shaped lowland between highlands or mountain ranges created by the action of a geologic rift or fault. This action is manifest as crustal extension, a spreading apart of the surface which is subsequently further deepened by the forces of erosion...

or graben

Graben

In geology, a graben is a depressed block of land bordered by parallel faults. Graben is German for ditch. Graben is used for both the singular and plural....

once considered separate from the Great Rift Valley

Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift Valley is a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trench, approximately in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in South East Africa...

but are now see as a branch of it. Mweru however drains not into Lake Tanganyika

Lake Tanganyika

Lake Tanganyika is an African Great Lake. It is estimated to be the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and the second deepest, after Lake Baikal in Siberia; it is also the world's longest freshwater lake...

in the Great Rift Valley but via the Luvua River

Luvua River

The Luvua River is a river in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo . It flows from the northern end of Lake Mweru on the Zambia-Congo border in a northwesterly direction for to its confluence with the Lualaba River opposite the town of Ankoro...

, which has cut a deep narrow zigzag valley to join the Lualaba River

Lualaba River

The Lualaba River is the greatest headstream of the Congo River by volume of water. However, by length the Chambeshi River is the farthest headstream. The Lualaba is 1800 km long, running from near Musofi in the vicinity of Lubumbashi in Katanga Province. The whole of its length lies within the...

, as the upper Congo is named. The Luapula is part of the longest tributary of the Congo, and hence, by convention, is part of its source, even if the upper Lualaba carries more water.

Overlaying the edge of the rift valley 60 km west of the Luapula Swamps is the Luizi structure, a 12.6 km wide series of concentric rings. It is believed to be a meteoritic impact crater (an astrobleme) formed 620 million years ago.

The Luapula Swamps

The swamps stretch along the last 100 km of the river before it reaches the lake, and for much of that they are 30 km wide, covering and area of about 2500 km². There are four inhabited islands in the DR Congo part of the delta, including the largest in the system which is connected to dry land in the dry season. Zambia has three inhabited islands in the delta including Chisenga Island. There are also many lagoons, the largest of which is Mofwe Lagoon

Mofwe Lagoon

The Mofwe Lagoon is the largest of several lagoons in the Luapula River swamps south of Lake Mweru, in the Luapula Province of Zambia.-Geography:...

on the Zambian side.

As in the Bangweulu Swamps, floating beds of papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

are a feature of the swamps, which often block channels and change the shape of lagoons. However, the main river channel does not get blocked and stays consistently about 400 m wide. It has not developed the branching channels typical of river deltas.

Very tall reeds

Phragmites

Phragmites, the Common reed, is a large perennial grass found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world. Phragmites australis is sometimes regarded as the sole species of the genus Phragmites, though some botanists divide Phragmites australis into three or four species...

grow at the edge of the swamps in most places, making it difficult to see over the lagoons from land or to find the way to the maze of narrow channels used by dugout

Dugout (boat)

A dugout or dugout canoe is a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon is Greek -- mono- + ξύλον xylon -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In Germany they are called einbaum )...

canoes. Guides are needed to navigate through them, and they are a haven for smuggling between the two countries sharing the swamps.

Crocodile

Crocodile

A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...

and hippopotamus

Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...

are common and a hazard for fishermen and travellers. However, the Shila people used to hunt hippopotamus using nothing more than harpoons thrown from canoes.

On the western side of the delta in DR Congo is a broad grassy floodplain covering about 1600 km². At the end of the rainy season the combined Luapula wetlands exceed 4000 km². The floodplain was home to herds of lechwe

Lechwe

The Lechwe, or Southern Lechwe, is an antelope found in Botswana, Zambia, south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, north-eastern Namibia, and eastern Angola, especially in the Okavango Delta, Kafue Flats and Bangweulu Swamps....

and the shy sitatunga

Sitatunga

The situtunga or marshbuck is a swamp-dwelling antelope found throughout Central Africa, centering on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and parts of Southern Sudan as well as in Ghana, Botswana, Zambia, Gabon, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.-Description:Situtunga stand about one and a...

, the famous semi-aquatic antelopes of the region, but both are believed extinct in the lower Luapula due to hunting and the lack of wildlife management.

Human settlement

The upper and middle reaches of the Luapula are quite sparsely populated.

The natural resources of the lower valley, which include fisheries in the river, lagoons and wetlands with fertile farmland at the margins, attracted the Lunda

Eastern Lunda

The Lunda people of the Luapula River valley in Zambia and DR Congo are called by others the Eastern Lunda to distinguish them from the 'western' Lunda people who remained in the heartland of the former Lunda Kingdom, but they themselves would use Kazembe-Lunda or Luunda with an elongated 'u' to...

invaders of Mwata Kazembe to settle there around 1750. Their present capital is at Mwansabombwe on the edge of the delta. Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

traders and slavers from Zanzibar

Zanzibar

Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

and Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

traders from Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

were attracted to the area in the 18th and 19th Centuries. David Livingstone

David Livingstone

was the first Briton

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

to visit in 1867. He did not explore the river but in his hunt for the origin of the Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

, Mwata Kazembe was the first to tell him that the Luapula connects the Chambeshi/Bangweulu and Mweru/Luvua/Lualaba systems. Livingstone wrongly believed the Lualaba then flowed to the Nile rather than to the River Congo.

Some of the first missionaries in Central Africa were also attracted to the valley. The first was the Garanganze Mission of the Plymouth Brethren

Plymouth Brethren

The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...

at Mambilima around 1892, followed by the London Missionary Society

London Missionary Society

The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...

at Mbereshi

Mbereshi

Mbereshi is a village in the Luapula Province of Zambia, named after the Mbereshi River on its north side. It was the site of a large mission founded in 1900 by the London Missionary Society. In 1915 the mission established the first girls' school in the territory, as well as a boy's school and a...

in 1900.

The first large town of the colonial era was the river port, Kasenga, in DR Congo, which grew prosperous in the 1930s from supplying fish to Elizabethville

Lubumbashi

Lubumbashi is the second largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, second only to the nation's capital Kinshasa, and the hub of the southeastern part of the country. The copper-mining city serves as the capital of the relatively prosperous Katanga Province, lying near the Zambian border...

and other towns of the Katanga

Katanga Province

Katanga Province is one of the provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 1971 and 1997, its official name was Shaba Province. Under the new constitution, the province was to be replaced by four smaller provinces by February 2009; this did not actually take place.Katanga's regional...

Copperbelt via the first motor road to reach the valley. Most of the fish was caught in Lake Mweru and brought by boat up the Luapula to Kasenga, where it was packed in ice produced in several plants. Although the fish catch has declined and most now travels on the better roads of Zambia, Kasenga remains the only port on the river. For more on the fisheries

Fishery

Generally, a fishery is an entity engaged in raising or harvesting fish which is determined by some authority to be a fishery. According to the FAO, a fishery is typically defined in terms of the "people involved, species or type of fish, area of water or seabed, method of fishing, class of boats,...

of the area, see Lake Mweru
Lake Mweru
Lake Mweru is a freshwater lake on the longest arm of Africa's second-longest river, the Congo. Located on the border between Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, it makes up 110 km of the total length of the Congo, lying between its Luapula River and Luvua River segments.Mweru...

.

On the Zambian side of the Luapula, an outbreak of sleeping sickness made the British

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

colonial

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

authorities move their Fort Rosebery boma

Boma (enclosure)

A boma is a livestock enclosure, a stockade or kind of fort, or a district government office. The term is used in many parts of eastern, central and southern Africa and is incorporated into many African languages as well as colonial varieties of English, French and German.As a livestock enclosure,...

out of the valley onto the plateau at Mansa

Mansa, Zambia

Mansa is the capital of the Luapula Province of Zambia, and headquarters of Mansa District. It takes its name from the local Chief Mansa and the small Mansa River which flows west to the Luapula River...

, while fears of malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

in the Luapula Swamps made them establish the next on the plateau at Kawambwa

Kawambwa

Kawambwa is a town in the Zambian province of Luapula located on the edge of the northern Zambian plateau above the Luapula valley at an altitude of 1300 m...

. Consequently the towns and villages in the valley, such as the largest, Mwansabombwe, do not have the same ex-colonial character as the administrative towns. However, following the lead of missionary builders and Mwata Kazembe, from the early 1900s most housing in the valley was of solid brick construction, sun-dried brick mainly, but with some burnt brick.

Water Transport on the Luapula

Before the advent of road transport, people travelled by canoe along the river between lakes Bangweulu and Mweru.

The lower river between Kasenga and Kilwa on Mweru is now the only stretch of the river carrying much boat transport and most of that is now for DR Congo, where roads are frequently impassable. Up to the late 1940s, the upper Luapula from Kapalala to Lake Bangweulu and the Chambeshi River was one of the most important stretches for river transport in the then Northern Rhodesia

Northern Rhodesia

Northern Rhodesia was a territory in south central Africa, formed in 1911. It became independent in 1964 as Zambia.It was initially administered under charter by the British South Africa Company and formed by it in 1911 by amalgamating North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia...

. Goods travelled by road from the railhead

Railhead

The word railhead is a railway term with two distinct meanings, depending upon its context.Sometimes, particularly in the context of modern freight terminals, the word is used to denote a terminus of a railway line, especially if the line is not yet finished, or if the terminus interfaces with...

at Sakania 10 km north of Ndola

Ndola

Ndola is the third largest city in Zambia, with a population of 495,000 . It is the industrial, commercial, on the Copperbelt, Zambia's copper-mining region, and capital of Copperbelt Province. It is also the commercial capital city of Zambia and has one of the three international airports, others...

to Kapalala to be loaded onto dugout canoes and small boats. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, a fleet of 1885 such craft were used to convey matériel

Materiel

Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....

to Chambeshi from where it went on a military road to Mbala

Mbala

Mbala is Zambia’s most northerly large town and seat of Mbala District, occupying a strategic location close to the border with Tanzania and controlling the southern approaches to Lake Tanganyika, 40 km by road to the north-east, where the port of Mpulungu is located. It had a population of about...

for the East African Campaign

East African Campaign (World War I)

The East African Campaign was a series of battles and guerrilla actions which started in German East Africa and ultimately affected portions of Mozambique, Northern Rhodesia, British East Africa, Uganda, and the Belgian Congo. The campaign was effectively ended in November 1917...

. Unfortunately the floating papyrus and other vegetation frequently choked the channels through the Bangweulu swamps joining the lake, the Luapula and the Chambeshi, making it difficult to use larger motorboats.

River crossings

The first vehicle pontoon

Pontoon (boat)

A pontoon is a flotation device with buoyancy sufficient to float itself as well as a heavy load. A pontoon boat is a flattish boat that relies on pontoons to float. Pontoons may be used on boats, rafts, barges, docks, floatplanes or seaplanes. Pontoons may support a platform, creating a raft. A...

ferries were at Kasenga, Kapalala and Shiniama near Matanda. None remain, though a passenger ferry operates between Kasenga and Kashiba, Zambia. Around 1950 the Chembe Ferry on the Congo Pedicle road

Congo Pedicle road

The Congo Pedicle road crosses the Congolese territory of the Congo Pedicle and was constructed by and is maintained by Zambia to connect its Copperbelt and Luapula Provinces...

became on the main vehicle crossing. The river there is 400 m wide but can flood to 1 km wide in a heavy rainy season. In 1983 the first bridge over the river was built, the 2.5-kilometre long Luapula Bridge on the Samfya

Samfya

Samfya is a town located in the Zambian province of Luapula. It is the center of Samfya District. The town is located on the south-western shore of Lake Bangweulu, on the longest stretch of well-defined shore of that lake...

-Serenje

Serenje

Serenje is a district in Zambia. There is also the town of Serenje lying just off the Great North Road and TAZARA Railway. The British, during the time that Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate, designated Serenje as a BOMA . To this day, the locals refer to Serenje Town as the BOMA....