Kasai River

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The 2153 km long Kasai (also Kassabi, ibari, Nkutu, Kassai, Cassai ( Portuguese) and called in the lower reaches Kwa ) is a left tributary of the Congo in Central Africa. With a water flow of 9,873 m³ / s it is by far the largest tributary of the Congo.

The river rises in the eastern part of the Angolan highlands of Bie and flows from there to the east to the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it bends at a 90 ° angle to the north and is about 400 km long border river. Here, the island-studded river bed is sometimes up to 10 km wide. Further north -flowing reaches of the Kasai, the Congo Basin and bends in it from the northwest. Continue in this direction opens a fluent north of Bandundu the Kwilu. After flowing through the river last piece, which is called Kwa, it flows 170 km (airline ) northeast of Kinshasa in the Congo.

In its course, there are two major waterfalls, Pogge case ( at 6 ° 40 ' south latitude ) and the Wissmann- case (at 5 ° 50' south latitude ). From left are the main tributaries of the Kasai: Luembe, Luatschim, Tshikapa and Lowoa. From left open the Lulua and Lukenje ( Msini, Ikatta ).

After the start of the rainy season in October, the river rises by about 4 m. At high water it performs at its mouth about 12,000 cubic meters of water per second from. The length of the navigability is about 3500 km including tributaries. The main river itself is up to the Wissmann Case navigable.