- Lungwebungu River
The Lungwebungu River of south-west-central
Africa is the largesttributary of the upper Zambezi River. The headwaters of the Lungwebungu are in centralAngola at an elevation around 1400 m, and it flows south-east across the southern Africanplateau . Within 50 km it has developed the character which it keeps for most of its course, of extremely intricatemeanders , with multiple channels andoxbow lakes , in a swampy channel about 800 m wide which in turn is in a shallow valley with afloodplain 3 to 5 km wide, inundated in therainy season . The edges of the floodplain are a white sandy soil covered in thin forest. The main river channel grows from 50 m wide to 200 m wide near the Zambezi, and its floodplain suddenly broadens as it merges with that of the Zambezi, at the beginning of theBarotse Floodplain , which is 25 km wide at that point.The length of the river is about 645 km but so extreme and tight is its meandering that if stretched out like a piece of string its length would be a multiple of three or four times that figure.
While the river is a valuable resource to people living near it as a source of fish, its meanders make it unsuitable for water transport except in the rainy season when canoes and small boats can ride on the flood.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.