The Congo River has the record of being the deepest river in the world with measured depths of approximately 750 meters. The overall length of the river is 2,920 miles or 4,700 kilometers which makes it the ninth longest river in the world. The Congo River is also the second largest river in the world that releases water with a maximum discharge of approximately 75,000 cubic meters per second. The countries where the Congo River flows are (arranged alphabetically):
- Angola
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Gabon
- Republic of the Congo
- Rwanda
- Tanzania
- Zambia
The river flows through the rainforest of Congo which is the second largest rainforest in world while the Amazon Rainforest is the largest. The river also has the record of being the second largest flow in the world next to Amazon River being the largest. In additional to that, the Congo River is the most powerful river in Africa that has two large dams namely Inga I and Inga II which consists of fourteen turbines.
The Congo Rainforest has endemic animals like Bonobo (small chimpanzee), Allen’s swamp monkey, okapi (related to giraffe with stripes like zebras at its back), Congo Peafowl and others.
The Congo River Basin has a very rich aquatic life. In fact, there are 700 fish species and others are not yet studied. Because of the wide range of species, the basin has been divided into multiple ecological regions which is the Lower Congo rapids that has 300 species that includes 80 unique ones and Kasai Basin that has 200 species that includes its unique species measuring about a quarter. Animals that are natives to the river are namely Nile and dwarf crocodiles, turtles, slender snouted crocodile and others. The basin also has numerous unique snails and frogs.