Stream
Lukenie River
1,014 km from source to mouth · DR Congo.
DR CongoFlows into Fimi River8th longest in DR Congo
In numbers
Length
1,014km
Average flow
1,700m³/s
Basin
118,180km²
Drop
224m
from 512 m to 288 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
1,014 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 512 m
- 956 kmLake Mai-Ndombe2,316 km²
- 957 kmKutu56,061 people
- 1,014 kmFimi Riverat 288 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
At the mouth it carries 1,664 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 1.5 seconds. It drops from 512 m to 288 m, 0.2 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 118,180 km², about the size of MW. 803,000 people live in it. Highest water: from December to January; lowest: from July to August. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- KutuLargest city on its banks · 56,061 people
- Bandundu Airport (FDU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 107 km from the city
- On the water8 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Lukenie River, month by month
Highest water: from December to January
Lowest water: from July to August. Best months to visit: from June to August.
From about 1,000 m³/s in the lowest month to 2,600 m³/s in the highest. An estimate: the monthly flow is modelled from the lowest and highest months of WaterGAP (RiverATLAS, 1971–2000) and the rain and snow along the river (WorldClim). Dams change the real rhythm. The chip is the average air temperature; below it, the month's rain.
Plan the trip
Plan the trip: boat trips, a bed by the river, a car
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The basin
Lukenie River: the basin in numbers
118,180 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 803,000people live in the basin
- 7/km²people per km²
- 400maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,792mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 25.0°Caverage air temperature
- 7%protected areas
- 2.1%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 77% Forest
RiverATLAS (HydroATLAS v1.0, CC BY 4.0): land cover, people, protected areas, glaciers and dams over the whole basin upstream of the mouth.
Along the river
Lukenie River: what you find on the way
- 8Ferry piersBac Lokenie and 7 more
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Lukenie River in our other atlases
What our sister atlases know about the waterfalls on this river, the lakes it flows through, the beaches at its mouth, the mountains where it rises and the islands off its mouth.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Mai-Ndombekm 956 · 10 m deep2,316km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
From space
The source and the mouth, seen from orbit


Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. The glowing line is the river as drawn by RiverATLAS.
Photos
Lukenie River in pictures

Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
In the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q913801) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point given by Wikidata |
| Flow | WaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate along the river | WorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Towns, bridges, dams | Wikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0 |
| Along the river | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Our other atlases | Lakeyas — Wikidata · CC0; © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0; HydroLAKES · CC BY 4.0; NOAA OISST |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.