The Ituri Rainforest is a

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

located in the

Ituri Province Ituri is one of the 21 new provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo created in the 2015 repartitioning. Ituri, Bas-Uele, Haut-Uele, and Tshopo provinces are the result of the dismemberment of the former Orientale province. Ituri was ...

of northeastern

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. The forest's name derives from the nearby

Ituri River The Ituri River is a river of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the main tributary of the Aruwimi River, which forms where the Ituri meets the Nepoko River. It gives its name to Ituri Province. Course The Ituri has its headwaters in pr ...

which flows through the rainforest, connecting firstly to the

Aruwimi River The Aruwimi River is a tributary of the Congo River, located to the north and east of the Congo.Stanley, H.M., 1899, Through the Dark Continent, London: G. Newnes, Vol. One , Vol. Two The Aruwimi begins as the Ituri River, which rises near Lake ...

and finally into the Congo.

Geography

The Ituri Rainforest is about in area, and is located between 0° and 3°N and 27° and 30° E. Elevation in the Ituri ranges from about . The climate is warm and humid, as exemplified by the nearby city of

Bunia Bunia is the capital city of Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was part of the Orientale Province until that province's dissolution. It lies at an elevation of on a plateau about west of Lake Albert in the Albe ...

, which however is at a slightly higher elevation. About one-fifth of the rainforest is made up of the

Okapi Wildlife Reserve The Okapi Wildlife Reserve is a wildlife reserve in the Ituri Forest in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, near the borders with South Sudan and Uganda. At approximately 14,000 km2, it covers approximately one-fifth of t ...

, a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

. It is also the home of the

Mbuti The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages. Subgroups Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the old ...

pygmies In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...

, one of the hunter-gatherer peoples living in equatorial rainforests characterised by their short height (below , on average). They have been the subject of research by a variety of outsiders, including Patrick and

Anne Eisner Putnam Anne Eisner Putnam (1911–1967) was an abstract and landscape painter, watercolorist, and collector of African art, originally from New York where she also died. She became a writer, best known for her book ''Madami: My Eight Years of Adventure wi ...

, who lived on the banks of the at the edge of the Ituri. They were also the subject of a well-known study by

Colin Turnbull Colin Macmillan Turnbull (November 23, 1924 – July 28, 1994) was a British-American anthropologist who came to public attention with the popular books '' The Forest People'' (on the Mbuti Pygmies of Zaire) and '' The Mountain People'' (on the ...

, ''

The Forest People ''The Forest People'' (1961) is Colin Turnbull's ethnographic study of the Mbuti pygmies of the Uturi Forest in then-Belgian Congo. In this book, the British-American anthropologist detailed his three years spent with the community in the late ...

'', which was published in 1962. The Ituri rainforest was first traversed by Europeans in 1887 by

Henry Morton Stanley Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of Central Africa Cen ...

on his

Emin Pasha Relief Expedition The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition of 1886 to 1889 was one of the last major European expeditions into the interior of Africa in the nineteenth century, ostensibly to the relief of Emin Pasha, General Charles Gordon's besieged governor of Equato ...

References

External links

Blog by Biologists working on conservation in the Ituri forest

Osfac
* {{Authority control Geography of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Northeastern Congolian lowland forests