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 and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. 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: 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 ri ...
.
Because of this,
European explorers linked the Ruwenzori with the legendary
Mountains of the Moon, claimed by the Greek scholar
Ptolemy as the source of the Nile.
Virunga National Park 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 epoch and are the result of an uplifted block of
crystalline rocks including
gneiss,
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 (flak ...
,
granite and
quartzite.
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 wo ...
:
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, w ...
,
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, it forms a triangle enclosing the upper Bujuku Valley. The nearest peak is Mount ...
(),
Mount Baker (),
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, ...
(),
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
Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to:
Historical objects or periods Artifacts
*Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures
Eras
Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...
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, KCB, FRS, FRGS (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman ...
reporting what he called the "Blue Mountains" looming in the distance in 1864, and
Henry M. 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 and his sear ...
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 Vi ...
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
glaciers 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 she ...
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 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 a ...
, both in Italy. The
Makerere University, 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 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 Rwenzururu movement reemerged and continued its struggle until signing a peace deal with Ugandan President
Milton Obote's government.
In the Bush War's later stages, the
National Resistance Army (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 Alli ...
(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 ...
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 o ...
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 artifici ...
s to snow. The range supports its own species and varieties of
giant groundsel
''Dendrosenecio'' is a genus of flowering plants in the sunflower family. It is a segregate of ''Senecio'', in which it formed the subgenus ''Dendrosenecio''. Its members, the giant groundsels, are native to the higher altitude zones of ten mo ...
and
giant lobelia and even has a tall
heather covered in
moss 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'') le ...
. In 2012 Klaus Thymann lead an expedition with the environmental charity Project Pressure 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.
See also
* 1966 Toro earthquake
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