Little Scarcies River

{{Short description|River in West Africa}}

{{Infobox river

| name = Little Scarcies

| image = Kaba or Little Scarcies River Outamba Kilimi Park.JPG

| image_size = 300px

| image_caption = Little Scarcies River in Outamba-Kilimi National Park

| map =

| map_size =

| map_caption =

| source1_location = Fouta Djallon, Guinea

| subdivision_type1 = Countries

| subdivision_name1 = {{hlist|Guinea|Sierra Leone}}

| length_km = 280

| length_ref = {{cite web|url=https://www.riversnetwork.org/V1/index.php/component/content/?view=article&id=157&catid=209&Itemid=179|title=North Africa-West Coast}}

| discharge1_location=Near mouth

| discharge1_avg =(Period: 1979–2015) {{cvt|30.52|km3/year|m3/s|abbr=on}}{{cite web|url=http://twap-rivers.org/indicators|title=River Basins}}

| mouth_location = Atlantic Ocean

| mouth_coordinates ={{coord|8|54|00|N|13|11|00|W|display=inline}}

| river_system= Little Scarcies River

| tributaries_left=

| tributaries_right=

| basin_size_km2 = 18,552

| basin_size_ref = {{cite web|url=http://twap-rivers.org/indicators|title=River Basins}}

}}

The Little Scarcies River is a river in west Africa that begins in Guinea and flows into Sierra Leone, after which it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It is surrounded by extensive marshlands. The river is also known as the Kaba River.

The Great Scarcies River flows into the same bay of the Atlantic Ocean ({{coord|8|54|00|N|13|11|00|W|display=inline}}), just to the north of the mouth of the Little Scarcies River. This area was settled by the Temne people who migrated from Futa Jalon to the north.{{cite book|last=Fyfe|first=Christopher|title=A Short History of Sierra Leone|year=1962|publisher=Longmans|location=London}}

An earlier alternative form of the name was Scassos;Carl Bernhard Wadström, An Essay on Colonization, Particularly Applied to the Western Coast of Africa, with Some Free Thoughts on Cultivation and Commerce (Darton and Harvey, 1794), p. [https://archive.org/details/essayoncolonizat00wads/page/237 237]. the English name is derived from the Portuguese Rio dos Carceres.P. E. H. Hair (ed.), Hawkins in Guinea, 1567-1568 (Leipzig: Institut fur Afrikanistik, Universitat Leipzig, 2000; {{ISBN|3932632656}}), p. 57: "The 'Causserus' is River Scarcies, an important waterway NW of the Sierra Leone estuary, whose local name was probably Kase but which became known to the Portuguese as first Rio de Case/Caces and then as Rio dos Carceres; hence, by English corruption, 'Scarcies'."