The Ruwenzori, also spelled Rwenzori and Rwenjura, are a

range Range may refer to: Geography * Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra) ** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands * Range, a term used to i ...

of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

and the

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 highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches , and the range's upper regions are permanently snow-capped and

glaciated A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

. Rivers fed by mountain streams form one of the sources of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...

. Because of this, European explorers linked the Ruwenzori with the legendary Mountains of the Moon, claimed by the Greek scholar

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

as the source of the Nile.

Virunga National Park , iucn_category = II , iucn_ref = , location = Democratic Republic of the Congo , map = Democratic Republic of the Congo , relief = 1 , coordinates = , area = , established = , nearest_city = Goma , photo =Virunga National Park-107997 ...

in eastern DR Congo and

Rwenzori Mountains National Park Rwenzori Mountains National Park is a Ugandan national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Rwenzori Mountains. Almost in size, the park has Africa's third highest mountain peak and many waterfalls, lakes, and glaciers. The park i ...

in southwestern Uganda are located within the range.

Geology

The mountains formed about three million years ago in the late

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58crystalline rocks including

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

amphibolite Amphibolite () is a metamorphic rock that contains amphibole, especially hornblende and actinolite, as well as plagioclase feldspar, but with little or no quartz. It is typically dark-colored and dense, with a weakly foliated or schistose (flaky ...

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...

. The Rwenzori mountains are the highest non-volcanic, non-orogenic mountains in the world. This uplift divided the paleolake Obweruka and created three of the present-day

African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes ( sw, Maziwa Makuu; rw, Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second-largest fresh water lake in the ...

: Lake Albert,

Lake Edward Lake Edward (locally Rwitanzigye or Rweru) is one of the smaller African Great Lakes. It is located in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift, on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, ...

, and Lake George. The range is about long and wide. It consists of six massifs separated by deep gorges:

Mount Stanley Mount Stanley or Mount Ngaliema (, also , ) is a mountain located in the Rwenzori range. With an elevation of 5,109 m (16,763 ft), it is the highest mountain of both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the third highest in ...

(),

Mount Speke Mount Speke lies in the Ruwenzori Mountains National Park in Uganda and is the second highest mountain in this range. Together with Mount Stanley and Mount Baker (Ruwenzoris), Mount Baker, it forms a triangle enclosing the upper Bujuku Valley. Th ...

(),

Mount Baker Mount Baker (Lummi: '; nok, Kw’eq Smaenit or '), also known as Koma Kulshan or simply Kulshan, is a active glacier-covered andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington in the United States. Mount ...

(),

Mount Emin Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

(),

Mount Gessi Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

() and

Mount Luigi di Savoia Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

(). Mount Stanley has several subsidiary summits, with Margherita Peak being the highest point.

Human history

The mountains are occasionally identified with the legendary " Mountains of the Moon", described in antiquity as the source of the

Nile River The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...

. Modern European explorers observed the range beginning in the late nineteenth century, with

Samuel Baker Sir Samuel White Baker, Order of the Bath, KCB, Royal Society, FRS, Royal Geographical Society, FRGS (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English List of explorers, explorer, Officer (armed forces), officer, naturalist, big game hunter, ...

reporting what he called the "Blue Mountains" looming in the distance in 1864, and Henry M. Stanley visiting the range in 1875 and 1888, when he recorded the name as "Ruwenzori". In 1906, the

Duke of Abruzzi Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi, (29 January 1873 – 18 March 1933) was an Italian mountaineer and explorer, briefly Infante of Spain as son of Amadeo I of Spain, member of the royal House of Savoy and cousin of the Italian King ...

mounted an expedition to the Ruwenzori, the account of which was subsequently published by Filippo De Filippi. The expedition scaled the highest peaks of the range, several of which were named by the duke, while Mount Luigi di Savoia was named in his honour. Accompanying the duke was photographer

Vittorio Sella Vittorio Sella (28 August 1859 – 12 August 1943) was an Italian photographer and mountaineer, whose photographs of mountains are regarded as some of the finest ever made. Life and career Sella was born in Biella in the foothills of the Alps an ...

, who had previously visited the mountains. His photographs of the

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s and

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...

s of the Ruwenzori demonstrated that the glaciers were already in retreat. Sella's photographic work is conserved at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

and at the Istituto di Fotografia Alpina Vittorio Sella in

Biella Biella (; pms, Biela; la, Bugella) is a city and ''comune'' in the northern Italian region of Piedmont, the capital of the province of the same name, with a population of 44,324 as of 31 December 2017. It is located about northeast of Turin an ...

, both in Italy. The

Makerere University Makerere University, Kampala (; Mak) is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of ni ...

, Uganda, also has a selection of his images.
Flowers of the Moon, Afroalpine vegetation of the Rwenzori Mountains
'', Schutyser S., 2007, 5 Continents Editions, . The first traverse of the six massifs of the Ruwenzori was done in 1975, starting on 27 January and ending on 13 February. The traverse was done by Polish climbers Janusz Chalecki, Stanisław Cholewa and Leszek Czarnecki, with Mirosław Kuraś accompanying them on the last half of the traverse.
Wielka Grań Ruwenzori 1975
', Wojtera T., Taternik iss 3. 1976. Since Uganda's independence from the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

, the Rwenzori Mountains have repeatedly become sanctuaries to rebel groups. The

secessionist Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics lea ...

Rwenzururu movement The Rwenzururu movement was an armed secessionist movement active in southwest Uganda, in the subnational kingdom of Tooro. The group was made up of Konjo and Amba fighters and was led by Isaya Mukirania. It disbanded in 1982 following succes ...

fought an insurgency in the mountains in the 1960s. In course of the

Ugandan Bush War The Ugandan Bush War, also known as the Luwero War, the Ugandan Civil War or the Resistance War, was a civil war fought in Uganda by the official Ugandan government and its armed wing, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), against a number o ...

, the Rwenzururu movement reemerged and continued its struggle until signing a peace deal with Ugandan President

Milton Obote Apollo Milton Obote (28 December 1925 – 10 October 2005) was a Ugandan political leader who led Uganda to independence from British colonial rule in 1962. Following the nation's independence, he served as prime minister of Uganda from 1962 to ...

's government. In the Bush War's later stages, the

National Resistance Army The National Resistance Army (NRA), the military wing of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), was a rebel army that waged a guerrilla war, commonly referred to as the Ugandan Bush War or Luwero War, against the government of Milton Obote, and l ...

(NRA) rebel force operated in the mountains. After the NRA seized power in Uganda in 1986, another civil war broke out. This time, the Rwenzori Mountains hosted the bases of the

National Army for the Liberation of Uganda The National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (abbreviated NALU) was a rebel group opposed to the Ugandan government. It was formed in 1988 in western Uganda and moved into eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it merged with the Allie ...

(NALU) and the "Partie de Liberation Congolaise" (PLC), an anti-

Mobutu Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic o ...

rebel group. In the early 1990s, a Congolese rebel group known as the National Council of Resistance for Democracy (''Conseil National de Résistance pour la Démocratie'', CNRD) led by

André Kisase Ngandu André Kisase Ngandu (died January 1997) was a Congolese rebel leader. An insurgent in the Simba rebellion of the 1960s, he immigrated to East and later West Germany where he lived for many years. He resumed his rebel activity with Ugandan suppor ...

began to wage an insurgency against Mobutu from the Rwenzori Mountains. Militias aligned with the old Rwenzururu movement's ideology occupied the Rwenzori Mountains from 1997 to June 2001. In 2020, after being defeated across the border by the

Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo ARDC is the state organisation responsible for defending the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The FARDC was rebuilt pa ...

, some elements of the

Allied Democratic Forces The Allied Democratic Forces (french: Forces démocratiques alliées; abbreviated ADF) is an Islamist rebel group in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), considered a terrorist organisation by the Ugandan government. It was or ...

moved into the Rwenzori Mountains.

Natural history

Flora

The Ruwenzori are known for their vegetation, ranging from

tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equatori ...

through alpine

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifi ...

s to snow. The range supports its own species and varieties of giant groundsel and giant lobelia and even has a tall heather covered in

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...

that lives on one of its peaks. Most of the range is now a World Heritage Site and is covered jointly by Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda and the Virunga National Park in the eastern Congo. There is no water shortage in the Ruwenzori; yet, several members of the afro-alpine family resemble species that normally thrive in desert climates. The reason lies in their similar water economy. Water is not always readily available to the

afroalpine The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions of ...

plants when they need it. In addition, nightly frosts affect the sap transport in the plants and the intake of water by its roots. As the day begins, the air temperature and radiation level rise rapidly, putting strenuous demands on the exposed parts of the plants as they try to meet the transpiration demands of the leaves and maintain a proper water balance. To counter the effects of freezing, the afro-alpine plants have developed the insulation systems that give them such a striking appearance. These adaptations become more prominent as the elevation increases. There are five overlapping vegetation zones in the Ruwenzori: the evergreen forest zone (up to ); the bamboo zone (); the heather zone (); the alpine zone (); and, the nival zone (). At higher elevations, some plants reach an unusually large size, such as lobelia and groundsels. The vegetation in the Ruwenzori is unique to equatorial alpine Africa. Sources:

Glacial recession

An ongoing concern is the impact of climate change on the Ruwenzori's glaciers. In 1906, forty-three named glaciers were distributed over six mountains with a total area of , about half the total glacier area in Africa. By 2005, less than half of these were still present, on only three mountains, with an area of about . Recent scientific studies, such as those by Richard Taylor of

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, have attributed this retreat to global climate change and have investigated the impact of this change on the mountain's vegetation and

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

. In 2012 Klaus Thymann lead an expedition with the environmental charity

Project Pressure Project Pressure is a charity with an ecological and climate focus. Their expressed mission is to create impactful projects that triangulating art, science and activism resulting in impactful actions on environmental issues. The global environmenta ...

creating comparative photographs to visually document the glacier recession, the findings were published in global media including The Guardian. The alteration can be seen in comparative images. As the temperature rises and the glaciers recede, vegetation slowly creeps up the mountain.

Notes

References

* * ''Glaciers of the Middle East and Africa'', Williams, Richard S., Jr. (editor) In: U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper, 1991, pp.G1-G70 * ''Guide to the Ruwenzori'', Osmaston,H.A., Pasteur,D. 1972, Mountain Club of Uganda. 200 p.
''Recession of Equatorial Glaciers. A Photo Documentation''
Hastenrath, S., 2008, Sundog Publishing, Madison, WI, , 144 pp. * ''Tropical Glaciers'', Kaser, G., Osmaston, H.A. 2002, Cambridge University Press, UK. 207 p. * ''Ruwenzori'', De Filippi, F. 1909. Constable, London. 408 p.
Greenpeace article "The Death of the Ice Giants"

BBC Article "Fabled ice field set to vanish"

* Kaser et al. 2006, in ''International Book of Climatology'' 24: 329–339 (2004) * *

External links

*
UWM.edu: 1937 aerial photographs of Rwenzori Mountains
– ''University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries Digital Collections''. * {{Authority control Albertine Rift montane forests Mountain ranges of Uganda Mountain ranges of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Great Rift Valley Kasese District North Kivu