page_title: Lake Mweru
section_title: Historical development
hierarchical_section_title: Lake Mweru / Human geography / Historical development
caption_attribution_description: The lower Luapula River, its delta where it enters Lake Mweru, and Mweru's outlet, the Luvua River going on north to the Lualaba and Congo rivers. Water shows up as black in this false-colour NASA satellite image. The extent of the Luapula Swamps is shown by the solid blue line, and the extent of the floodplain is shown as a dotted line. The towns are, in Zambia: 1 Chiengi, 2 Kashikishi, 3 Nchelenge, 4 Mwansabombwe, 5 Mwense; in DR Congo: 6 Pweto, 7 Kilwa, 8 Kasenga. Other features: 9 Chisenga Island, 10 the largest swamp island (in DR Congo), 11 the main floodplain.
context_page_description: Lake Mweru is a freshwater lake on the longest arm of Africa's second-longest river, the Congo. Located on the border between Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, it makes up 110 km of the total length of the Congo, lying between its Luapula River and Luvua River segments.
  Mweru means 'lake' in a number of Bantu languages, so it is often referred to as just 'Mweru'.
context_section_description: The western shore of Luapula-Mweru became part of the Belgian Congo and the eastern shore part of Northern Rhodesia, a British protectorate.  Lake Mweru to Tanganyika is an area which was exposed to European influence at a very early date, when the lakes were the chief entrance to Northern Rhodesia. Although Kilwa Island is closer to the western shore, it was allocated to Northern Rhodesia, and consequently Zambia has 58% of the lake waters, and DR Congo 42%.
  The first Belgian outposts on the lake were set up at Lukonzolwa and Pweto which were at various times the headquarters of their administration of Katanga. They stamped out the slave trade going north-east around the lake. The first mission station on the lake was established in 1892 by Scottish missionary Dan Crawford of the Plymouth Brethren at Luanza on the Belgian side of the lake.
  The British moved their boma from Chiengi to the Kalungwishi, with one or two British officers (such as Blair Watson), and a force of African police. In conjunction with operations around Abercorn further down the trade route, this was enough to end the slave trade going east from Mweru, but not enough to bring Mwata Kazembe under British rule, and a military expedition had to be sent in 1899 from British Central Africa (Nyasaland) to do that job (see the article on Alfred Sharpe for more details).
  The move of the boma from Chiengi to Kalungwishi had the effect of leaving the Belgian boma at Pweto a free rein at the northern end of the lake, leading a hundred years later to about 33 km² of Zambian territory next to Pweto being ceded to the DR Congo (then Zaire). See the Luapula Province border dispute for further details and references.
  After 1900, the Belgian Congo province of Katanga on the western shores of the lake developed faster than the Northern Rhodesian side, the Luapula Province and the town of Kasenga a few hours by boat up the Luapula River became the most developed in the Luapula-Mweru valley, and until the 1960s was the main commercial centre with better services and infrastructure than elsewhere. The Elizabethville mines started up more quickly than those of the Copperbelt, and Kasenga supplied its workforce with fish. Since 1960, political crises, government neglect and wars on the Congolese side have produced a deterioration in infrastructure, while peace on the Zambian side has produced an increase in population and services, causing the balance to change .
caption: Lake Mweru and its main inlets, the lower Luapula River and its swamps, and the Kalungwishi. Also shown is Mweru's outlet, the Luvua River going on north to the Lualaba and Congo rivers. Water shows up as black in this false-colour NASA satellite image. The extent of the swamps is shown by the solid blue line, and the extent of floodplain is shown as a dotted line. The towns are, in Zambia: 1 Chiengi, 2 Kashikishi, 3 Nchelenge, 4 Mwansabombwe, 5 Mwense; in DR Congo: 6 Pweto, 7 Kilwa, 8 Kasenga. Other features: 9: Chisenga Island, 10 the largest swamp island (in DR Congo), 11 the main floodplain.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x0301": "20000/9091", "Image Tag 0x0303": "0"}