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20-629: Livingstone Falls consist of a series of rapids dropping 900 feet (270 m) in 220 miles (350 km). They start downstream of Malebo Pool and end in Matadi in Bas-Congo . The Congo River has the second largest flow rate in the world after the Amazon , which has no falls or rapids (except near its sources). The lowest rapids of Livingstone Falls, therefore, are the world's largest waterfall in terms of flow rate — provided one accepts these rapids as being

40-792: A generating capacity of about 38.9 GW. This hydro-electric generator would be almost double the current world record holder, which is the Three Gorges facility at 22.5GW on the Yangtze River in China . Matadi Matadi is the chief sea port of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the capital of the Kongo Central province, adjacent to the border with Angola . It had a population of 245,862 (2004). Matadi

60-571: A letter written by Afonso I ,the king of Kongo in 1535, in which he lists "JBungu" among other places over which he ruled as king. Traditions collected in the Kongo court and written up by the Jesuit priest Mateus Cardoso in 1624 cite "Bungu" as the place where the first king of Kongo ruled before crossing the Congo River to conquer Kongo. That same year, King Pedro II of Kongo mentioned that

80-541: A nearby hill. A power station on the M'pozo River supplies power to Matadi. The maximum draft of the port is 8.2m. The Navy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo maintains one operational command at the port. Currently, larger ships are required to transfer cargo to smaller vessels in the Republic of Congo's Pointe-Noire port. For this reason, the development of a deep-sea port at Port Banana

100-417: A ridge, it suddenly hurled itself 20 or 30 feet straight upward, before rolling down into another trough. If I looked up or down along this angry scene, every interval of 50 or 100 yards of it was marked by wave-towers - their collapse into foam and spray, the mad clash of watery hills, bounding mounds and heaving billows, while the base of either bank, consisting of a long line of piled boulders of massive size,

120-436: A strip of sea blown over by a hurricane, four miles in length and half a mile in breadth, and a pretty accurate conception of its leaping waves may be obtained. Some of the troughs were 100 yards in length, and from one to the other the mad river plunged. There was first a rush down into the bottom of an immense trough, and then, by its sheer force, the enormous volume would lift itself upward steeply until, gathering itself into

140-496: A waterfall. An interesting aspect of the 220-mile-long (350 km) Livingstone Falls is the width of the channel. The channel is very narrow: in several stretches the channel width is less than 300 metres and for the majority of the length the channel is less than 800 metres wide. This is an extraordinarily narrow channel since the river flow rate typically exceeds 42,000 cubic metres per second (1,500,000 cu ft/s). Investigations in 2008 and 2009 showed that sections between

160-481: Is situated on the left bank of the Congo River , 148 km (92 mi) from the mouth and 8 km (5.0 mi) below the last navigable point before the rapids that make the river impassable for a long stretch upriver. Matadi was near the site of the state of Vungu , which was first mentioned in 1535 and was said to be destroyed in 1624. Matadi itself was founded by Sir Henry Morton Stanley in 1879. It

180-460: Is the famous Matadi Bridge , the only one along the entire lower and middle reaches of the huge Congo River . Therefore, the main transcontinental flow of cars from the vast northwestern part of Africa to the south of the African continent passes through Matadi. Matadi Bridge, a suspension bridge 722 m- long with a main span of 520 m, built in 1983, crosses the river just south of Matadi, carrying

200-533: Is the furthest upriver, three ports are located within it, the others being Boma and Banana in DR Congo and Soyo in Angola . Matadi serves as a major import and export point for the whole nation. Chief exports are coffee and timber. The state fishing company " Pemarza " uses the port to supply fish to Kinshasa. Tshimpi Airport is nearby but is reportedly inactive because of continued warfare. In Matadi there

220-469: The Portuguese explorer in 1485 marking the limit of his travels up the Congo River. Yelala Rapids lies near the city. Matadi has a relatively dry tropical savanna climate ( Köppen Aw ) with a lengthy dry season from June to September due to the northerly extension of the cold, foggy Benguela Current . The mouth of the Congo forms one of Africa's largest harbours. In addition to Matadi, which

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240-550: The city's architecture and urban design, which borrowed from the neighboring colonies in Angola and the Congo-Brazzaville . The word Matadi means stone in the local Kikongo language. The town is built on steep hills. A local saying is that to live in Matadi, you must know the verbs "to go up", "to go down", and "to sweat". Upstream is a series of caves known as the "rock of Diogo Cão ", after graffiti carved by

260-593: The latter portion of the Livingstone Falls, 177 miles (285 km) after the Malebo Pool. The Congo falls about 96 metres within this set of cataracts . The mean annual flow rate at Inga Falls is about 42,000 cubic metres per second. Given this flow rate and the 96 metre fall, it is possible to calculate that the Inga Falls alone has a power potential of approximately 40 GW . In 2014, Inga Falls

280-420: The main road linking Kinshasa to the coast. After passing through Matadi and over the bridge, it continues to Boma, Muanda and Banana. Although built as a mixed rail and road bridge, no rail line is now operating over the bridge. Matadi is the port railhead for the 366 km long Matadi-Kinshasa Railway , constructed to bypass the rapids on the river upstream. A monument to the builders of the railway stands on

300-486: The present-day Republic of Congo and the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo ). In the 13th century it led a confederation of itself, Ngoyo , and Kakongo . It neighboured the confederations of Mpemba and Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza . It is thought to be the origin of the Kingdom of Kongo . It is not known for sure how old Vungu was or when it was founded. The first documentary mention of it comes in

320-441: The rapids may be as deep as 200 m (660 ft). The powerful rapids separate fish populations from one another, causing new species to evolve in close proximity to one another. Although he explored the upper Congo , Livingstone never travelled to this part of the river and the falls were named in his honour by Henry Morton Stanley . Stanley described the falls as "...the wildest stretch of river that I have ever seen. Take

340-599: Was begun in 2022. La Cité africaine de Matadi is a newspaper published in French in Matadi. In Belgium, a small garden city in the Heverlee suburb of Leuven was named after Matadi in the 1920s. 05°49′00″S 13°29′00″E  /  5.81667°S 13.48333°E  / -5.81667; 13.48333 Vungu The kingdom or polity of Vungu or Bungu was a historic state located in Mayombe (between

360-549: Was buried in the tempestuous surf. The roar was tremendous and deafening. I can only compare it to the thunder of an express train through a rock tunnel." Since the falls, which start with the Yellala Falls just above Matadi , are a barrier to navigation on the lower part of the river, the Matadi-Kinshasa Railway was constructed to by-pass them. Inga Falls on Congo River is a group of rapids in

380-598: Was strategically important because it was the last navigable port going upstream on the Congo River ; it became the furthest inland port in the Congo Free State . The construction of the Matadi–Kinshasa Railway (built between 1890 and 1898) made it possible to transport goods from deeper within Congo's interior to the port of Matadi, stimulating the city to become an important trading center. Portuguese and French West-African commercial interests influenced

400-409: Was the site of two large hydro-electric power plants and is being considered for a much larger hydro-electric power generating station known as Grand Inga. The Grand Inga project, if completed, would be the largest hydro-electric power generating facility on Earth . The current project scope calls for the use of a flow rate 26,400 cubic metres per second at a net head of 150 metres; this is equivalent to

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