Congo (river)

Congo River
Zaire River
The ninth-longest river in the world
Aerial view of the Congo River near Kisangani
Countries	Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo-Kinshasa, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia
Mouth	Atlantic Ocean
Length	4,700 km (2,920 mi)
Basin	4,014,500 km2 (1,550,007 sq mi)
Discharge
- average	41,000 m3/s (1,447,901 cu ft/s)
- max	75,000 m3/s (2,648,600 cu ft/s)
- min	23,000 m3/s (812,237 cu ft/s)

The Congo River (also known as the Zaire River; French: (le) fleuve Congo/Zaïre; Portuguese: rio Congo/Zaire; Kongo: Nzâdi Kôngo) is a river in Africa. It is the second largest river in the world by discharge (after the Amazon), and the world's deepest river with measured depths in excess of 220 m (720 ft). The Congo-Chambeshi river has an overall length of 4,700 km (2,920 mi), which makes it the ninth-longest river (in terms of discharge, the Chambeshi is a tributary of the Lualaba River, Lualaba being the name of the Congo River upstream of the Boyoma Falls, extending for 1,800 km). Measured along the Lualaba, the Congo River has a total length of 4,370 km (2,715 mi). It crosses the equator twice. The Congo Basin has a total area of about 4 million km², or 13% of the entire African landmass.

The name River Congo originated from the Kingdom of Kongo which was located on the southern bank of the river. The kingdom in turn is named for the Bantu population, in the 17th century reported as Esikongo. South of the Kongo kingdom proper lay the similarly named Kakongo kingdom, mentioned in 1535. Abraham Ortelius in his world map of 1564 labels as Manicongo the city at the mouth of the river. The tribal names in kongo possibly derive from a word for a public gathering or tribal assembly. Little is known about the peoples of the inner Congo, but "It is probable that the word 'Kongo' itself implies a public gathering and that it is based on the root konga, 'to gather' (trans[itive])." "The usual interpretations, admittedly unsatisfactory (Laman, 1953, p. 10), make the mistake of being too concrete; for example, they may claim that "Kongo" comes from n'kongo ('hunter')". The modern name of the Kongo people or Bakongo was introduced in the early 20th century.