Livingstone Falls, Rapids and cataracts on Congo River, Republic of Congo.
Livingstone Falls is a series of rapids and cataracts on the Congo River in Pool Department, Republic of Congo. The water drops through narrow channels, flows around rocky islands, and pushes through tight passages that are sometimes less than 300 meters wide.
Henry Morton Stanley named the falls after David Livingstone in 1877 while mapping the Congo River. The falls marked the end of navigable stretches upstream and later forced the construction of a railway along the shore.
The falls are named after David Livingstone, who explored the upper Congo but never reached this stretch; Henry Morton Stanley named them in his honour. The lowest rapids, Inga Falls, are the site of the Inga-1 and Inga-2 hydroelectric plants, and the proposed Grand Inga project would be the world's largest. One of the falls appears in Jules Verne's novel Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen.
The falls lie in a remote area with little infrastructure for visitors. Anyone exploring the region should expect long journeys and basic conditions.
The falls may be the largest waterfall system on Earth by flow, with over 42,000 cubic meters per second. In some places this enormous volume squeezes through rock gorges barely wider than a highway.
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