“The Congo” refers to several different areas of Africa, all in the same general area but in different settings. Congo can refer to the political regions of The Democratic Republic of Congo or the Republic of Congo, it’s also possible to refer to the Congo as a geographical location varying as a general location, a rainforest, a river, or a river basin. The Congo River is also known as the Zaire river and the world’s deepest river and due to its depth, it gives the wildlife plenty of places to live but the main use for the Congo River was for hydro power.
The Congo river, also known as the Zaire river, originates from an ancient society dubbed, “Kingdom of Kongo” where the river receives its name. The reasoning behind it’s second name comes from the 1970’s government of Zaire, who called it the Zaire river. Countries along this river’s banks are also named after it; for example, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of the Congo. The Congo river sets three major records for itself. First, it is the world’s deepest river. Its measures more than 220 meters deep. Next, it is the world’s second largest river, which is calculated by the amount of water discharged or released; and lastly, the Congo is planet Earth’s ninth longest river, measuring in at about 4,700 kilometers. On top of how large the Congo is, it also forms one of Africa’s largest navigable waterways. The Congo itself, from its sources to its mouth, are made up of 3 areas: they are The upper Congo, the middle Congo, and the lower Congo. Each area is characterized with different features. The upper has many confluences or meeting of streams, lakes, waterfalls, and rapids.
The middle begins the series of cataracts and the lower obstructs into several ar...
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...d to account for thirteen percent of the world’s hydroelectric power. Only about forty hydropower plants are currently in use, with the largest being the Inga Falls Dam. The problem with the use of Hydropower is the possibility of the extinction of many endemic species of fish that prioritize niches and the habitats of the general area.
The Congo river has many names but still the world’s deepest river and there will always be new life found in the depth and the people will find new ways to make the water more useful. Due to the depth there many species of fish like Cichlids, which are an attractive fish species due to their bright colors and because of that, it makes them a valuable fish. Some scientist have found new species of fish within the river because of overfishing in some places of the river but many fishermen use these fish as food sources or to sell.
Schilt, C. R. (2007). Developing fish passage and protection at hydropower dams. Applied Animal Behaviour Scence, 104, 295-325.
Mr. Kurtz is a character in Konrad Korzenioski’s, a river captain in the Congo, scathing novel Heart of Darkness. Writing under his pen name Joseph Conrad, the main character Marlow journeys to a Congo post where he meeting Mr. Kurtz, a man who bears many similarities to agents of King Leopold’s II crimes. In the novel, the narrator encounters a fence displayed with shrunken African heads in front of the house of Mr. Kurtz. Horchschild states that this “Inner Station” that Marlow sees is based on Korzenioski’s encounter at the Congo port Stanley Falls. This is corroborated by the fact that George Washington Williams, a journalist who experienced Stanley Falls around the same time Korzenioski was said to be there. Both writers detail the atrocities
The use of turbines from dams to provide power was a brilliant idea until water levels started running lower than normal. The water waste from humanity is directly contributing to portions of it, aside from drought conditions affected by pollution, widespread fires battled, and more adds to the depletion thereof. When humanity is relying on power provided from dams to handle the demand, they are essentially relying on the assumption that water levels will always be there to provide it. The Hoover Dam provides power to the southwestern portion of the USA that has a large number of people.
The Scramble for Africa was essentially driven by the idea of “New Imperialism.” “New Imperialism” started the era of colonialism amongst the European powers – specifically Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Portugal. It was driven by the idea of Social Darwinism, to aid the “dark people” on the “dark continent” of Africa because they were in need of “saving.” Imperialism became the primary focus through the late nineteenth century, and into the twentieth century; dividing the African continent into areas to be colonized under European rule. Although the countries primary focus was to spread Western religions and culture to the African continent, violence was used amongst the native peoples to further successful developments of the new European colonies. One of these colonies was the Belgian Congo, ruled by the Belgian King Leopold II. Under The King’s rule, acts of violence against the African people occurred regularly. Violence was believed to be a necessary component in the process of building a successful Belgian state.
Imperialism is the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies. In 1870, the European powers took over the African Congo and enslaved the natives. Moreover, they were forced to work the land, so the Europeans could obtain the products they needed by using a cheap labor force to turn around and sell them at a profit. These products included such commodities as rubber, diamonds and coffee (A New World Order: Imperialism and World War I). Unfortunately, the people of the Congo were beaten, over worked, raped, and even killed by the European powers if they did not do their job correctly or if they refused to do their task entirely. Eventually, the enslaved
The history of the Belgian Congo is one of terrible sadness and seldom-noted human devastation. From 1885 to 1908 the Congo was ruled by one man as his sole, personal colony; a ruler ironically noted at the time for his philanthropy, King Leopold II of Belgium. Seeking his own colony, he founded the Congo Free State, a massive territory in the African interior that was larger than seventy-six times the size of his own country (Hochschild, 87). A “sober, respectable businessman” by the name of Edmund Dene Morel made a note of something about this colony that blew the cover of one of the largest collection of atrocities in human memory (Hochschild, 1). Working in Antwerp on business at the docks, he noticed that only soldiers were going towards the Congo while goods were being imported, a clear sign that no true legitimate trading was going on; he rightly deduced this to mean slavery (Hochschild, 2). This story is a culmination of unlikely heroes and villains from all walks of life, melding together in an unforeseen way that forever changed the world.
Rwanda stands as a beautiful country with huge mountains and deep valleys. Most of the countryside rests with full of grasslands and plenty of farmland. The divide between the Congo and Nile drainage systems extends from north to south through western Rwanda at an average elevation of almost 9,000 feet. On the western slopes of this ridgeline, the land slopes abruptly toward Lake Kivu and the Ruzizi River valley, which form the western boundary line with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) and constitutes part of the Great Rift Valley (Bureau of African Affairs).
This river flows through dry desert for over four thousand miles and it never receives rain. This nile also does not join with any other bodies of water either but it never dries up. This river is filled with an immeasurable amount of water that fertilizes the land it runs through. The fact that the Nile Valley is already the longest river in the world is amazing, but that is not the only unique fact about it. The Nile Valley does something that normally a river would not do which is flow from south to north. There are 2 sources that the Nile Valley has that make up the entire river. The 2 sources are the Blue Nile and the White Nile. The White Nile is the longest of the 2 niles making it over 2,000 just by itself and it begins near the border of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zaire. The shorter nile which is the Blue Nile starts in the highland part of Ethiopia, which is over 5,000 feet above sea level. At certain points in the Blue Nile it sometimes can get to be a mile deep and fifteen miles wide. Also during the
...n Congo, specifically. It is extremely detailed in content, yet covers a variety of issues including imperialism, disease, climate, and indigenous tribes of the African Congo.
...line were ruined. Transportation costs are very high which seriously hampers small producers’ access to markets. At the height of the conflict, about one third of the country's people were displaced. The chronic financial crisis became severe and the economy was close to collapsing. Poverty became deeper in the rural areas of the Congo where poor people are now powerless, vulnerable and isolated. This is a big contributor to the poverty Congo is experiencing today because little has improved and won’t improve until these problems are fixed.
1 “Quick Guide: DR Congo,” BBC News. Updated Mar. 07 2005. BBC News, Accessed 06 March 2005,
It is also has some extremely large cities, it is hard to believe that all this started with a albeit very advanced but secluded civilization in a little patch of life stemmed from the Nile and ( as this has most likely been nailed permanently into your mind) the Nile river, the longest river in Africa and the second longest river in the world only 87 miles behind the Amazon which is 4,345 Miles long ( can not belive I forgot to mention that until now) but yes the Nile is 4,258 miles long which is 1,338 miles longer than the second longest river in Africa the Congo which is 2,920 miles
The Amazon River Amazon River is the world's second longest river and the chief river
First, across Africa the landscape is changing, the snowy caps of Mount Kilimanjaro are melting and the shorelines of Lake Chad are receding. The once enormous Lake Chad has nearly vanished, it is now half the size it was thirty five years ago (Offor, 2008). The town of Burundi is on Lake Tanganyika, which is still a vast expanse of water, but the shoreline has retreated 50 feet in the last 4 years, and ships can no longer reach the port. Lake Victoria, the biggest of Africa's great lakes, dripped by a vertical inch a day for much of last year. The receding of these lakes along with a change in temperature of the water will now deplete the fish stock. As the fish sources decrease, this limits the amount of fish caught and sold by fisherman. When the regular food source is strained, Africans may turn to hunting wil...
The Nile is the longest river in the world which is located in Africa. It spans itself from Lake Victoria in east central Africa to Egypt. It flows generally north through Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea, for an approximate distance of 5,584 km From its remotest headstream, the Luvironza River in Burundi, the river is 6,695 km long. The river basin has an area of about 3,350,000 sq km. Its average discharge is 3.1 million litres per second. The lower course of the river in Egypt has become centrally important to tourism, linking as it does to all the major sites of Ancient Egypt.