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26-756: The Mofwe Lagoon is the largest of several lagoons in the Luapula River swamps south of Lake Mweru , in the Luapula Province of Zambia . Its size and shape depends on the season and amount of water flowing into the swamps, especially from the Mbereshi River to the southeast, its main supplier. Generally its north–south axis is about 14 km and its east–west axis is about 6 km. Floating islands of sedge are usually found in an east–west line across its middle, which may effectively cut it in two, and at times vegetation has covered much of

52-526: A hazard for fishermen and travellers. However, the Shila people used to hunt hippopotamus using nothing more than harpoons thrown from canoes. On the western side of the delta in DR Congo is a broad grassy floodplain covering about 1600 km . At the end of the rainy season, the combined Luapula wetlands exceed 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi). The floodplain was home to herds of lechwe and

78-700: A military road to Mbala for the East African Campaign . Unfortunately, the floating papyrus and other vegetation frequently choked the channels through the Bangweulu swamps joining the lake, the Luapula and the Chambeshi, making it difficult to use larger motorboats. The first vehicle pontoon ferries were at Kasenga, Kapalala and Shiniama near Matanda. None remain, though a passenger ferry operates between Kasenga and Kashiba, Zambia. Around 1950

104-645: Is part of the longest tributary of the Congo, and hence, by convention, is part of its source, even though the upper Lualaba carries more water. Overlying the edge of the rift valley 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of the Luapula Swamps is the Luizi structure , a 12.6 kilometres (7.8 mi) wide series of concentric rings. It has been recently confirmed as a meteoritic impact crater (an astrobleme) formed less than 600 million years ago. The swamps stretch along

130-713: The Chembe Ferry on the Congo Pedicle road became on the main vehicle crossing. The river there is 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide but can flood to 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide in a heavy rainy season. In 1983 the first bridge over the river was built, the 2.5-kilometre (1.6 mi) long Luapula Bridge on the Samfya - Serenje Road. The bridge approaches include nearly 20 kilometres (12 mi) of elevated causeway over wetlands and another 40 kilometres (25 mi) of embankment over flood plain. The second bridge over

156-614: The London Missionary Society at Mbereshi in 1900. The first large town of the colonial era was the river port, Kasenga , in DR Congo, which grew prosperous in the 1930s from supplying fish to Elizabethville and other towns of the Katanga Copperbelt via the first motor road to reach the valley. Most of the fish was caught in Lake Mweru and brought by boat up the Luapula to Kasenga, where it

182-457: The Lunda invaders of Mwata Kazembe to settle there around 1750. Their present capital is at Mwansabombwe on the edge of the delta. Arab traders and slavers from Zanzibar and Portuguese traders from Mozambique were attracted to the area in the 18th and 19th Centuries. David Livingstone was the first Briton to visit in 1867. He did not explore the river but in his hunt for the origin of

208-908: The Nile , Mwata Kazembe was the first to tell him that the Luapula connects the Chambeshi/Bangweulu and Mweru/Luvua/Lualaba systems. Livingstone wrongly believed the Lualaba then flowed to the Nile rather than to the River Congo. Some of the first missionaries in Central Africa were also attracted to the valley. The first was the Garanganze Mission of the Plymouth Brethren at Mambilima around 1892, followed by

234-566: The Solar System . Impact structure is synonymous with the less commonly used term astrobleme meaning "star wound". In an impact structure, the typical visible and topographic expressions of an impact crater are no longer obvious. Any meteorite fragments that may once have been present would be long since eroded away. Possible impact structures may be initially recognized by their anomalous geological character or geophysical expression. These may still be confirmed as impact structures by

260-417: The branching channels typical of river deltas. Very tall reeds grow at the edge of the swamps in most places, making it difficult to see over the lagoons from land or to find the way to the maze of narrow channels used by dugout canoes. Guides are needed to navigate through them, and they are a haven for smuggling between the two countries sharing the swamps. Crocodile and hippopotamus are common and

286-482: The channels and lagoons of the swamps. Luapula River The Luapula drains Lake Bangweulu and its swamps into which flows the Chambeshi River , the source of the Congo. There is no single clear channel connecting the two rivers and the lake, but a mass of shifting channels, lagoons and swamps, as the explorer David Livingstone found to his cost. (He died exploring the area, and one of his last acts

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312-530: The delta including Chisenga Island. There are also many lagoons, the largest of which is Mofwe Lagoon on the Zambian side. As in the Bangweulu Swamps, floating beds of papyrus are a feature of the swamps, which often block channels and change the shape of lagoons. However, the main river channel does not get blocked and stays consistently about 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide. It has not developed

338-406: The last 100 kilometres (62 mi) of the river before it reaches the lake, and for much of that, they are 30 kilometres (19 mi) wide, covering an area of about 2,500 square kilometres (970 sq mi). There are four inhabited islands in the DR Congo part of the delta, including the largest in the system which is connected to dry land in the dry season. Zambia has three inhabited islands in

364-523: The late 1940s, the upper Luapula from Kapalala to Lake Bangweulu and the Chambeshi River was one of the most important stretches for river transport in the then Northern Rhodesia . Goods travelled by road from the railhead at Sakania 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of Ndola to Kapalala to be loaded onto dugout canoes and small boats. During World War I , a fleet of 1885 such craft were used to convey matériel to Chambeshi from where it went on

390-651: The lower Luapula and Mweru can be considered as one entity. They lie in a rift valley or graben once considered separate from the East African Rift but now seen as a branch of it. Mweru, however, drains not into Lake Tanganyika in the Albertine Rift but via the Luvua River , which has cut a deep, narrow zigzag valley to join the Lualaba River , as the upper Congo is named. The Luapula

416-463: The main road. A far less well-known site is Tangwa, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) south where the river has eroded a gap through rocky hills carving huge caves, arches, and potholes, and leaving giant boulders, including two balancing rocks called 'God's Corn Bin'. From the Chembe Bridge to Lake Mweru, the 300 kilometres (190 mi) long Luapula Valley has a higher rural population than

442-399: The plateau at Mansa , while fears of malaria in the Luapula Swamps made them establish the next on the plateau at Kawambwa . Consequently, the towns and villages in the valley, such as the largest, Mwansabombwe , do not have the same ex-colonial character as the administrative towns. However, following the lead of missionary builders and Mwata Kazembe, from the early 1900s, most housing in

468-508: The plateau through which it cuts to a depth of up to 500 metres (1,600 ft). The river is known for this valley and for its long thin delta entering Lake Mweru, usually referred to as the Luapula Swamps. The well-populated part of the valley starts north from Mambilima Falls, and along the rest of its length is nicknamed 'Mwapoleni Road', after the Chibemba greeting called out as people pass each other. For many practical study purposes,

494-546: The reeds to reach open water. The lagoon and surrounding swamps support populations of hippopotamus and crocodiles . The lagoon is separated from the main channel of the Luapula by 6 km of swamps. Although the Luapula swamps are generally 30 to 40 km wide for most of their 100 km length, at the nearest point to Mofwe, the Luapula's western bank is formed by an island in the DR Congo only 12 km from Kanyembo. This facilates trade and smuggling by canoe through

520-479: The river, the 320-metre (1,050 ft) long Chembe Bridge was completed in 2008 to replace the Chembe Ferry. 9°24′50″S 28°31′19″E  /  9.41384°S 28.52188°E  / -9.41384; 28.52188 Astrobleme An impact structure is a generally circular or craterlike geologic structure of deformed bedrock or sediment produced by impact on a planetary surface , whatever

546-400: The shy sitatunga , the famous semi-aquatic antelopes of the region, but both are believed extinct in the lower Luapula due to hunting and the lack of wildlife management. The upper and middle reaches of the Luapula are quite sparsely populated. The natural resources of the lower valley, which include fisheries in the river, lagoons and wetlands with fertile farmland at the margins, attracted

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572-508: The southern half. The importance of the Mofwe lies in its fishery, which attracted Mwata Kazembe to settle in the town of Kanyembo on its eastern edge in the 19th century. The Mofwe does not have a definite shore and is not easily accessed, being lined by a dense band of very tall reeds, and having floating rafts and islands of sedge which change its margins and shape frequently. Local fishermen paddle dugout canoes along narrow channels through

598-513: The stage of erosion of the structure. In contrast, an impact crater is the surface expression of an impact structure. In many cases, on Earth, the impact crater has been destroyed by erosion, leaving only the deformed rock or sediment of the impact structure behind. This is the fate of almost all old impact craters on Earth , unlike the ancient pristine craters preserved on the Moon and other geologically inactive rocky bodies with old surfaces in

624-416: The valley was of solid brick construction, sun-dried brick mainly, but with some burnt brick. Before the advent of road transport, people travelled by canoe along the river between lakes Bangweulu and Mweru. The lower river between Kasenga and Kilwa on Mweru is now the only stretch of the river carrying much boat transport and most of that is now for DR Congo, where roads are frequently impassable. Up to

650-464: Was packed in ice produced in several plants. Although the fish catch has declined and most now travels on the better roads of Zambia, Kasenga remains the only port on the river. For more on the fisheries of the area, see Lake Mweru . On the Zambian side of the Luapula, an outbreak of sleeping sickness made the British colonial authorities move their Fort Rosebery boma out of the valley onto

676-520: Was to question Chief Chitambo about the course of the Luapula.) The channel boldly marked as the 'Luapula' and confidently shown on many maps flowing south out of Lake Bangweulu at 11°25'S 29°49'E can be seen on satellite images such as Google Earth to actually peter out into green vegetation around 11°46'S 29°48'E. Below the Bangweulu swamps and floodplain, the Luapula flows steadily in an arc south-west turning north-west then north, with some rapids and well-known set of cataracts, Mambilima Falls near

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