Tanganyika, Lake

Lake 772 m/2,534 ft above sea level in the Great Rift Valley, East Africa, with the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west, Zambia to the south, and Tanzania and Burundi to the east. It is about 645 km/400 mi long, with an area of about 31,000 sq km/12,000 sq mi, and is the deepest lake (1,435 m/4,710 ft) in Africa, and the second-deepest freshwater lake in the world. The lake is drained by the Lukuga River, a tributary of the Congo. The mountains around its shores rise to about 2,700 m/8,860 ft. The chief ports on the lake are Bujumbura (Burundi), Kigoma (Tanzania), and Kalémié (Democratic Republic of Congo).

The British explorers Richard Burton and John Speke were the first Europeans to see the lake in 1858.