The Chambeshi (or Chambezi) River of northeastern
Zambia is the most remote
headstream of the
Congo River (in length) and therefore it is considered the source of the Congo River. (However, by volume of water, the
Lualaba River provides a greater
streamflow to the Congo.)
The Chambeshi rises as a
stream
A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...
in the
mountains of northeast Zambia near
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika () is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. ...
at an elevation of above sea level. It flows for 480 km into the
Bangweulu Wetlands, which are part of
Lake Bangweulu. By the end of the
rainy season in May, the river delivers a
flood which recharges the wetlands and
inundates the Zambesian grasslands to the southeast. The water then flows out of the wetlands as the
Luapula River.
For more than 100 km of its length as it flows to the east of
Kasama, the river consists of a maze of channels in wetlands about 2 km wide, in a
floodplain up to 25 km wide. Further downstream, where it is bridged by the Kasama–
Mpika road and the
Tazara Railway, the permanent main channel is about 100 m wide, and up to 400 m wide in flood.
[Google Earth accessed 4 February 2007]
References
External links
Chambeshi River Floodsat
NASA Earth Observatory
Rivers of Zambia
Lake Bangweulu
Tributaries of the Congo River
{{Zambia-river-stub