Lungwebungu River

{{Short description|Stream in Angola, Africa}}

{{More citations needed|date=June 2025}}

File:Lungwebungu.svg

The Lungwebungu River (in Angola Lungué Bungo) of Central Africa is the largest tributary of the upper Zambezi River.{{Cite web |title=Lungwebungu River {{!}} Congo Basin, Central Africa, tributary {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Lungwebungu-River |access-date=2025-06-29 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}} The headwaters of the Lungwebungu are in central Angola at an elevation around {{convert|1400|m}}, and it flows south-east across the southern African plateau.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}} Within {{convert|50|km}} it has developed the character which it keeps for most of its course, of extremely intricate meanders, with multiple channels and oxbow lakes, in a swampy channel about {{cvt|800|m}} wide which in turn is in a shallow valley with a floodplain {{cvt|3|to|5|km}} wide, inundated in the wet season.

The edges of the floodplain are a white sandy soil covered in thin forest. The main river channel grows from {{cvt|50|m}} wide to {{cvt|200|m}} wide near the Zambezi, and its floodplain suddenly broadens as it merges with the Zambezi, at the beginning of the Barotse Floodplain, which is {{cvt|25|km}} wide at that point.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}

A 2021 study found the river is home to a subspecies of Hippopotamyrus that is distinct from other lineages of the fish.{{Cite journal |last=Mutizwa |first=Tadiwa I. |last2=Kadye |first2=Wilbert T. |last3=Chakona |first3=Albert |date=2021 |title=Deep genetic and morphological divergence in the Hippopotamyrus ansorgii species complex (Teleostei: Mormyridae) in southern Africa |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jfb.14743 |journal=Journal of Fish Biology |language=en |volume=99 |issue=2 |pages=543–556 |doi=10.1111/jfb.14743 |issn=1095-8649}}

While the river is a valuable resource to people living near it as a source of fish, its meanders make it unsuitable for water transport except in the wet season when canoes and small boats can navigate the floodwaters.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}