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The Congo River (also known as the Zaire River; (フランス語:(le) fleuve Congo/Zaïre); (ポルトガル語:rio Congo/Zaire)) is a river in Africa. It is the second largest river in the world by discharge (after the Amazon), and the world's deepest river with measured depths in excess of . The Congo-Chambeshi river has an overall length of , which makes it the ninth longest river (in terms of discharge, the Chambeshi is a tributary of the Lualaba River, Lualaba being the name of the Congo River upstream of the Boyoma Falls, extending for 1,800 km). Measured along the Lualaba, the Congo River has a total length of . It crosses the equator twice.〔Forbath, Peter. ''The River Congo'' (1979), p. 6. "Not until it crosses the equator will it at last turn away from this misleading course and, describing a remarkable counter-clockwise arc first to the west and then to the southwest, flow back across the equator and on down to the Atlantic. In this the Congo is exceptional. No other major river in the world crosses the equator even once, let alone twice."〕 The Congo Basin has a total area of about 4 million km2, or 13% of the entire African landmass. ==Name== The River Congo got its name from the Kingdom of Kongo which was situated on the left banks of the river estuary. The kingdom is in turn named for its Bantu population, in the 17th century reported as ''Esikongo''. South of the Kongo kingdom proper lay the similarly named Kakongo kingdom, mentioned in 1535. Abraham Ortelius in his world map of 1564 labels as ''Manicongo'' the city at the mouth of the river.〔Manikongo is properly the title of the kings of Kongo; their capital was at the site of modern M'banza-Kongo, capital of Orteilus had no knowledge of the orography of Africa and draws fictitious courses for its rivers; his Congo upstream of its estuary turns sharply south, flowing through what would correspond to Angola and Botswana.〕 The tribal names in ''kongo'' possibly derive from a word for a public gathering or tribal assembly.〔"It is probable that the word 'Kongo' itself implies a public gathering and that it is based on the root ''konga'', 'to gather' (trans()). The usual inerpretations, admittedly unsatisfactory (Laman, 1953, p. 10), make the mistake of being too concrete; for example, they may claim that "Kongo" comes from ''n'kongo'' ('hunter')". Wyatt MacGaffey, ''Custom and government in the Lower Congo'', University of California Press, 1970, p. 112. The modern name of the Kongo people or ''Bakongo'' was introduced in the early 20th century.〕 The name ''Zaire'' is from a Portuguese adaptation of a Kikongo word ''nzere'' ("river"), a truncation of ''nzadi o nzere'' ("river swallowing rivers"),〔Forbath, Peter. ''The River Congo'' (1977), p. 19.〕 The river was known as ''Zaire'' during the 16th and 17th centuries; ''Congo'' seems to have replaced ''Zaire'' gradually in English usage during the 18th century, and ''Congo'' is the preferred English name in 19th century literature, although references to ''Zahir'' or ''Zaire'' as the name used by the natives (i.e. derived from Portuguese usage) remained common.〔 James Barbot, ''An Abstract of a Voyage to Congo River, Or the Zair and to Cabinde in the Year 1700'' (1746). James Hingston Tuckey, ''Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire, Usually Called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816'' (1818). "Congo River, called ''Zahir'' or ''Zaire'' by the natives" John Purdy, ''Memoir, Descriptive and Explanatory, to Accompany the New Chart of the Ethiopic Or Southern Atlantic Ocean'', 1822, p. 112. 〕 The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo are named after it, as was the previous Republic of the Congo which had gained independence in 1960 from the Belgian Congo. The state of Zaire during 1971–1997 was also named after the river, after its name in French and Portuguese. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Congo River」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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