paragraph_text: Angola is located on the western Atlantic Coast of Central Africa between Namibia and the Republic of the Congo. It also is bordered by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to the east. The country consists of a sparsely watered and somewhat sterile coastal plain extending inland for a distance varying from . Slightly inland and parallel to the coast is a belt of hills and mountains and behind those a large plateau. The total land size is . It has an Exclusive Economic Zone of .

paragraph_text: Global exploration started with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores, the coast of Africa, and the discovery of the sea route to India in 1498; and the Crown of Castile (Spain) the trans - Atlantic Voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas between 1492 and 1502 and the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1519 -- 1522. These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, and ended with the exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century.

paragraph_text: Henry Morton Stanley, who had in 1871 succeeded in finding and succouring Livingstone (originating the famous line ``Dr. Livingstone, I presume ''), started again for Zanzibar in 1874. In one of the most memorable of all exploring expeditions in Africa, Stanley circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria) and Lake Tanganyika. Striking farther inland to the Lualaba, he followed that river down to the Atlantic Ocean -- which he reached in August 1877 -- and proved it to be the Congo.

paragraph_text: The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa.

paragraph_text: Gibson Lake is a lake in geographic Biggar Township, Nipissing District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is in the Saint Lawrence River drainage basin and lies within Algonquin Provincial Park. The major outflow, at the southwest, is Gibson Creek which flows to the Nipissing River, and then via the Petawawa River and the Ottawa River to the Saint Lawrence River.

paragraph_text: The Komoé River, or Comoé River. is a river in West Africa. The river originates on the Sikasso Plateau of Burkina Faso, flow through the Cascades de Karfiguéla, forms a short section of the border between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast until it enters Ivory Coast, where it is the major drainage for northeastern portion of that country before emptying into the Atlantic. The banks of the Komoé are shaded by riparian forests along most of it length providing an important habitat for wildlife and a source of agricultural water. Where reliable floodplains form in Ivory Coast, rice may be grown. A portion of the river in northern Ivory Coast is the source of the vegetative richness that earned that area a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation, Comoé National Park.

paragraph_text: Mil plain is a plain in Azerbaijan. It is located on the bank of the Aras river and extends to Iran. Mil-plain is located in the southwest part of the Kur-Araz lowland, where the Kura and Araz rivers meet. The area is between the right bank of the Kura River and the left bank of the Araz River. The north-eastern part of the plain is lower than the ocean level. In the south-west, these areas are covered by sand, gravel. More than 40 percent of the altitude in the plain is 0-100 meters, 25 percent - 100-200 meters above sea level, and 35 percent - absolute altitude is less than 0 meters. The absolute altitude decreases about 8 m to north (to the Kura River) and varies from 200 to 250 to the west (harami plain). The plain includes mainly the areas of Imishli and Beylagan districts. Seismic activity is high as the plain is in the convergent border the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt.

paragraph_text: Wilkins Runway is a single runway aerodrome operated by Australia, located on upper glacier of the ice sheet Preston Heath, Budd Coast, Wilkes Land, on the continent of Antarctica, but southeast of the actual coast. It is named after Sir Hubert Wilkins, a pioneer of Antarctic aviation and exploration.

paragraph_text: Early reports of Europeans reaching this area include those of the Venetian Alvise Cadamosto's voyage of 1455, the 1479–1480 voyage by Flemish-French trader Eustache de la Fosse, and Diogo Cão. In the 1480s this Portuguese explorer reached the Congo River and the lands of Bakongo, setting up the foundations of modern Angola, some 4200 km down the African coast from Guinea-Bissau.

paragraph_text: The Mississippi River is the chief river of the second - largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. The stream is entirely within the United States (although its drainage basin reaches into Canada), its source is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota and it flows generally south for 2,320 miles (3,730 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth - longest and fifteenth - largest river in the world by discharge. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

paragraph_text: Mayombe (or Mayumbe) is a geographic area on the western coast of Africa occupied by low mountains extending from the mouth of the Congo River in the south to the Kouilou-Niari River to the north. The area includes parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola (Cabinda Province), the Republic of the Congo and Gabon.

paragraph_text: Pingtung Plain () is a plain area including parts of Pingtung County and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan. It includes the alluvial fan of Kaoping River, which forms the largest drainage area of rivers in Taiwan, and also passed by other shorter rivers such as Tungkang River, Linbian River and Shihwen River (士文溪). The plain faces the Taiwan Strait on the southwest, lies to the east of Kaohsiung City, and at the west of Central Mountain Range.

paragraph_text: The southwest of the country is a coastal plain for which the primary drainage is the Kouilou-Niari River; the interior of the country consists of a central plateau between two basins to the south and north. Forests are under increasing exploitation pressure.

paragraph_text: The Mississippi River is the chief river of the second - largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. Flowing entirely in the United States (although its drainage basin reaches into Canada), it rises in northern Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for 2,320 miles (3,730 km) to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 31 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth - longest and fifteenth - largest river in the world by discharge. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

paragraph_text: Sustut Peak, 2481 m (8140 ft), prominence: 1231 m, is the highest summit in the drainage of the Sustut River in British Columbia, Canada. Located in the Hogem Ranges west of Sustut Lake, which is at the Sustut River's headwaters, it is 8 km southwest of the road to the Kemess Mine

paragraph_text: During the 16th and 17th centuries slave traders began to raid the region as part of the expansion of the Saharan and Nile River slave routes. Their captives were slaved and shipped to the Mediterranean coast, Europe, Arabia, the Western Hemisphere, or to the slave ports and factories along the West and North Africa or South the Ubanqui and Congo rivers. In the mid 19th century, the Bobangi people became major slave traders and sold their captives to the Americas using the Ubangi river to reach the coast. During the 18th century Bandia-Nzakara peoples established the Bangassou Kingdom along the Ubangi River.

paragraph_text: The Bantu people originally came from West Africa, in the modern day Cameroon. The linguistic core of the Bantu family of languages, a branch of the Niger -- Congo language family, was located in the adjoining region of Cameroon and Nigeria. From this core, expansion began about 3,000 years ago, with one stream going into East Africa, and other streams going south along the African coast of Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, or inland along the many south - to - north flowing rivers of the Congo River system. The expansion eventually reached South Africa, probably as early as 300 AD.

paragraph_text: Congo is located in the central-western part of sub-Saharan Africa, along the Equator, lying between latitudes 4°N and 5°S, and longitudes 11° and 19°E. To the south and east of it is the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is also bounded by Gabon to the west, Cameroon and the Central African Republic to the north, and Cabinda (Angola) to the southwest. It has a short coast on the Atlantic Ocean.

paragraph_text: The Norse colonization of North America began in the late 10th century AD when Norsemen explored and settled areas of the North Atlantic including the northeastern fringes of North America. Viking houses were found at L'Anse aux Meadows near the northern tip of Newfoundland in 1960. This discovery aided the reignition of archaeological exploration for the Vikings in the North Atlantic.

paragraph_text: The Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the mouth of the Congo in 1484. Commercial relationships quickly grew between the inland Bantu kingdoms and European merchants who traded various commodities, manufactured goods, and people captured from the hinterlands. After centuries as a major hub for transatlantic trade, direct European colonization of the Congo river delta began in the late 19th century, subsequently eroding the power of the Bantu societies in the region.

Question: Who began exploring the Atlantic coast of the continent where the river that serves as drainage for the southwest plain of the Congo is located?
Answer: Henry Morton Stanley