Lake Tanganyika Facts & Worksheets

Tanganyika Lake is a Great Lake in Africa. After Lake Baikal in Siberia, it is the world’s second-oldest freshwater lake, second-biggest in volume, and the second-deepest. The lake is shared by Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, and Zambia. It finally enters the Congo River system and the Atlantic Ocean.

See the fact file below for more information on Lake Tanganyika, or you can download our 36-page Lake Tanganyika worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

ETYMOLOGY

• The lake named “Tanganika” was discovered by Henry Morton Stanley near Ujiji in 1876. The name derives from the Bembe language, spoken in South Kivu around the 7th century.
• Stanley also discovered numerous names for the lake among ethnic groups, including the Kimana, Yemba, and Msaga.
• An alternative etymological root for the name may be found in the Luvale language of Zambia and Angola, where the term “Tanganyika” literally means “star,” referring to the lake’s mystical or cosmic importance to the neighboring tribes.

HISTORY

• During the Stone Age, it is believed that early Homo sapiens affected the region. The Middle Stone Age through the Late Stone Age is characterized as a time of sophisticated hunter-gatherers. They are thought to have resulted in megafaunal extinctions.
• The Indigenous people of the region fished in a variety of ways. The majority of them included using a lantern as bait for light-sensitive fish. There were three fundamental types. 
• One is called Lusenga, and it is a large net that is operated by one person from a canoe.
• The second employs a lift net. This was accomplished by putting a net deep underneath the boat and simultaneously hauling it up with parallel canoes. 
• The third is named Chiromila, and it comprises three canoes. One ship remained fixed with a lamp, while another canoe carried one end of the net and circled the stationary one to meet the net.
• The British explorers Richard Burton and John Speke were the first known Westerners to discover the lake in 1858. They found it while looking for the Nile River’s source. Speke went on to discuss the actual birth of Lake Victoria. David Livingstone afterward passed near the lake. 
• He observed the name “Liemba” for its southern section, which was most likely derived from the Fipa language. In 1927 this was adopted as the new name for the seized German First World War ship Graf von Gotzen, which still serves the lake today.

WORLD WAR I

• The lake was the site of two famous fights during World War I, with the Germans having absolute control of the lake in the early stages of the conflict. This was due to the aid of the Graf Goetzen (named for Count Gustav Adolf von Gotzen, the previous administrator of German East Africa). The ship was used to transport supplies and soldiers across the lake, as well as to make surprise attacks on Allied forces.
• As a result, it became critical for the Allied troops to seize control of the lake. The British Royal Navy accomplished the monumental task of transporting two armed motor boats, HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou, from England to the lake by rail, road, and river to Albertville (since changed to Kalemie in 1971) on Lake Tanganyika’s western shore.
• As a result of their improved position on the lake, the Allies began to advance by land toward Kigoma. At the same time, the Belgians erected an airstrip on the lake’s western coast at Albertville. 
• By this point, the conflict on the lake had reached a standstill, with both sides unwilling to launch attacks. However, the ground battle was proceeding, primarily to the benefit of the Allies, who cut off the railway link in July 1916, threatening to entirely isolate Kigoma. 
• As a result, the German commander, Gustav Zimmer, decided to leave town and proceed south. On July 26, 1916, Zimmer destroyed his prize ship to keep it out of the hands of the Allies. In 1924, the vessel was raised and changed to MV Liemba.

GUERILLA TRAINING

• Che Guevara, an Argentine revolutionary, utilized the western banks of Lake Tanganyika as a training center for Congolese guerrilla fighters in 1965. 
• Che and his soldiers sought to topple the government from his camp but were forced to withdraw in less than a year because the National Security Agency (NSA) had been watching him the entire time and supported government forces in attacking his guerrillas.

RECENT HISTORY

• Lake Tanganyika made an appearance in the British television documentary series Pole to Pole in 1992. Michael Palin, a BBC documentary filmmaker, stayed on board the MV Liemba and journeyed across the lake.
• Since 2004, the lake has been the center of attention of the IUCN’s enormous Water and Nature Initiative. The project is expected to take five years and cost US $27 million. 
• The program seeks to monitor the lake’s resources and status, as well as to develop agreed criteria for acceptable amounts of silt, pollution, and water quality in general, as well as to design and form a lake basin management authority.

GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGICAL HISTORY

• Lake Tanganyika is located within the Albertine Rift, which is the western arm of the East African Rift, and is bounded by the valley’s steep cliffs.
• It is Africa’s biggest rift lake and the Earth’s second-largest lake by volume. It is Africa’s deepest lake and occupies the most fresh water on the African continent, making up 16% of the world’s accessible fresh water. 
• It stretches over 676 kilometers (420 miles) in a broad north-south direction and is 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide on average.
• In the northern basin, the lake has a surface area of 32,900 km2 (12,700 sq mi), a shoreline length of 1,828 km (1,136 mi), an average depth of 570 m (1,870 ft), and an absolute maximum depth of 1,470 m (4,829 ft).
• It has an estimated volume of 18,750 km3 (4,500 cu mi). Lake Tanganyika has the greatest crypto depression in the world at 773 meters (2,536 feet), while its lowest elevation is 697 meters below sea level.
• Because of its high altitude, considerable depth, slow rate of filling, and mountainous setting in a turbulently volcanic environment that has seen climatic change, the lake has a complicated history of altering flow patterns.
• The lake has seldom had an outflow to the sea in the past. It has been referred to as “practically endorheic” as a result of this. The lake’s link to the sea is reliant on elevated levels of water, which allow water to overflow into the Congo via the Lukuga River.
• When the lake is not overflowing, the lake’s outflow into the Lukuga River is generally obstructed by sand bars and weed masses, and the river relies on its tributaries, particularly the Niemba River, to keep flowing.
• The lake evaporates quickly due to its tropical setting. As a result, it is dependent on a large input from Lake Kivu through the Ruzizi to maintain the lake high enough to overflow. 
• This discharge is believed to be less than 12,000 years old, and it was caused by lava flows that blocked and diverted the Kivu basin’s prior outflow into Lake Edward, then the Nile system, and finally Lake Tanganyika. 
• Tanganyika was previously up to 300 m (980 ft) lower than its present surface level, with no discharge to the sea, according to evidence from historic shorelines. Even its present exit is intermittent and hence may not have been operational when Western explorers first visited in 1858.

WATER CHARACTERISTICS

• At depths of 0-100 m (0-330 ft), the lake’s water is alkaline with a pH of roughly 9. It is roughly 8.7 below 100m (330ft), progressively declining to 8.3 – 8.5 in the deepest portions of Tanganyika. 
• The electric conductivity follows a similar pattern, ranging from around 670 μS/cm in the top region to 690 μS/cm in the deeper part.
• Surface temperatures in the southern half of the lake in early August range from around 24 °C (75 °F) to 28-29 °C (82-84 °F) in the late rainy season in March—April. The temperature at depths more than 400 m (1,300 ft) is relatively steady around
• Since the nineteenth century, the water has progressively warmed, and this has intensified with global warming since the 1950s.
• The lake is stratified, and seasonal mixing seldom extends deeper than 150 m (490 ft). 
• Since the nineteenth century, the water has progressively warmed, and this has intensified with global warming since the 1950s.
• The lake is stratified, and seasonal mixing seldom extends deeper than 150 m (490 ft). 
• The mixing occurs mostly as wind-driven upwellings in the south, although up- and downwellings also exist elsewhere in the lake to a lesser extent.
• The deep parts contain “fossil water” as a result of stratification. This also implies that in the deeper regions, there is no oxygen (it is anoxic), restricting fish and other aerobic species to the top half.

BIOLOGY

Reptiles

• Nile crocodiles, Zambian-hinged terrapins, serrated-hinged terrapins, and pan-hinged terrapins may all be found in Lake Tanganyika and its surrounding wetlands. 
• Storm’s water cobra is an endangered subspecies of striped water cobra that eats mostly fish and can only be found in Lake Tanganyika on rocky coastlines.

Cichlid Fish

• The lake is home to at least 250 different kinds of cichlid fish, with many more still to be discovered. 
• Tanganyika cichlids are almost entirely indigenous to the lake (98%), making it a tremendous biological resource for researching speciation in evolution.
• The upper Lukuga River is home to a plethora of endemics. The outflow from Lake Tanganyika and its extension into the Congo River basin is limited by physics (the Lukuga includes fast-flowing sections with many swifts and waterfalls) and chemistry (Tanganyika’s water is alkaline in nature, whereas the Congo’s water is acidic).
• The African Great Lakes cichlids, especially Tanganyika, have the most diversified range of radiation adaptations in vertebrates.
• Despite having significantly fewer cichlid species than Lakes Malawi and Victoria, both of which have seen relatively recent rapid species radiations (which end up in many closely related species), Tanganyika cichlids are the most morphologically and biologically varied.
• Others have advocated subdividing Tanganyika cichlids into 12-16 tribes (in addition to the previously listed Benthochromis, Bathybatini, Boulengerochromis, Eretmodini, Cyphotilapiini, Greenwoodochromini, Perissodini, and Trematocarin).
• The majority of Tanganyika cichlids live along the coastline to a depth of 100 m (330 ft), but several deep-water species dive to a depth of 220 m (660 ft) regularly. Trematocara species have been identified in depths of over 300 meters (980 feet), which is deeper than any other cichlid on the planet.
• Their reproductive activity is divided into two categories: substrate spawners (typically found in caves or rock crevices) and mouthbrooders.
• Many Lake Tanganyika cichlids, including species from the genus Cyprichromis, Eretmodus, Julidochromis, Neolamprologus, Tropheus, and Xenotilapia, are renowned aquarium fish owing to their vibrant colors and patterns, as well as their intriguing activities.
• The aquarium enthusiast also enjoys constructing a Lake Tanganyika biotope to house those cichlids in a setting comparable to their native environment.

Other Fish

• More than 80 non-cichlid fish species live in Lake Tanganyika, with around 60% of them being indigenous. The pelagic zone is dominated by four non-cichlid species: two species of “Tanganyika sardine” form the biggest biomass of fish in this zone and are important prey for forktail lates and sleek lates.
• Tanganyika lates and bigeye lates are also present in the lake, although both are largely benthic hunters, though they may travel into open waters. The four most recent, all of which are unique to Tanganyika, have been overfished, and bigger individuals are now extinct.
• The lake’s peculiar fish include the endemic, facultatively colony parasitic “cuckoo catfish” Synodontis grandiops and S. multipunctatus. Several others are similar (for example, S. lucipinnis and S. petricola) and have frequently been misidentified; it is uncertain whether they exhibit comparable habits.
• The facultative brooding parasites frequently deposit their eggs alongside mouthbrooding cichlids. The cichlid takes the eggs and places them in their mouth. When the catfish eggs hatch, the young consume the cichlid eggs.
• Bathybagrus, Dinotopterus, Lophiobagrus, Phyllonemus, Pseudotanganikallabes, and Tanganikallabes are the only catfish genera in the lake basin.
• Six different kinds of Chrysichthys catfish are exclusively found in the Tanganyika basin, where they exist in both shallow and somewhat deep waters, despite the fact that they are not endemic on a genus level.
• They are the major predators and scavengers in the later environment. The lake’s 15 species of Mastacembelus spiny eels, all but one of which are native to its basin, represent a unique evolutionary radiation.
• The Congo bichir, goliath tigerfish, Citharinus citharus, six-banded distichodus, and mbu puffer are some of the non-endemic fish.

Mollusks and Crustaceans

• The lake is home to 83 freshwater snail species (65 endemics) and 11 bivalve species (8 endemics). Three monotypic genera of endemic bivalves include Grandidieri burtoni, Pseudospatha tanganyicensis, and Brazzaea anceyi. 
• Many freshwater snails have notably thicker shells and/or unique sculptures, characteristics more often seen in marine snails.
• The lake has roughly 30 non-thalassoid snail species, but only five are indigenous, namely Ferrissia tanganyicensis and Neothauma tanganyicense. The latter is the biggest Tanganyika snail, and tiny shell-dwelling cichlids frequently use its shell. Tanganyika’s crustaceans are extremely varied, with over 200 species, more than half of which are indigenous.
• They consist of ten freshwater crab species, nine of which are endemic (Platythelphusa and Potamonautes platynotus), at least 11 species of tiny atyid shrimp, a rare palaemonid shrimp, around 100 ostracods, many of which are endemic, and many copepods.
• Limnocaridina iridinae is one of only two identified commensal freshwater shrimp species residing inside the mantle chamber of the unionid mussel Pleiodon spekei (the other being the sponge-dwelling Caridina spongicola from Lake Towuti, Indonesia).
• Lake Tanganyika outnumbers all other Rift Valley lakes with regard to crustaceans and freshwater snail abundance (both in the overall number of species and many endemics). For example, Lake Kivu and Lake Victoria are the only Rift Valley lakes with endemic freshwater crabs, each with two species.

FISHING

• Lake Tanganyika supports a significant fishery, which contributes 25-40% or 60% of the animal protein in the region’s diet, relying on the source.
• Currently, around 100,000 people are actively involved in the fisheries, which operate from almost 800 locations.
• The lake is also important to the approximately 10 million people that live in the basin.
• Fish from Lake Tanganyika are exported across East Africa. Commercial fishing began in the mid-1950s and, together with global warming (which limits the habitat of temperature-sensitive species), has had a huge influence on fish populations, causing considerable decreases.
• In 2016, the total catch was predicted to be up to 200,000 tonnes. Former industrial fisheries that thrived in the 1980s have now failed.

TRANSPORT

• Passengers and freight are transported along the lake’s eastern bank by two ferries: the MV Liemba connecting Kigoma and Mpulungu and the MV Mwongozo via Kigoma and Bujumbura. Kigoma is the railhead for the Tanzanian railway from Dar es Salaam.
• The port of Kalemie (formerly Albertville) serves as the D.R. Rail network in Congo. Zambia’s intended railhead is Mpulungu, a port town. On December 12, 2014, the ferry MV Mutambala collapsed in Lake Tanganyika, killing over 120 passengers.

EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING

• There is a direct association between rising world temperatures and decreased production in Lake Tanganyika. On the lake’s southern edge, southern breezes cause upwellings of deep, nutrient-rich water. 
• This occurs throughout the colder months of May through September. Deep water minerals are critical to the aquatic food web’s survival.
• The southerly breezes are slowing, limiting the capacity of nutrients to combine. This correlates with lower lake production.

Lake Tanganyika Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Lake Tanganyika across 36 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Lake Tanganyika. The lake is shared by Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, and Zambia. It finally enters the Congo River system and the Atlantic Ocean.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

1. Lake Tanganyika Facts
2. Naming Tanganyika
3. Biggest, Largest, Deepest
4. Tanganyika’s Water
5. Back in Time
6. War on Lake
7. Seeking Cichlids 1
8. Seeking Cichlids 2
9. Mollusk Escape
10. A Tale of Fish & Men
11. Analyze & Picture It!

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Lake Tanganyika located?

Lake Tanganyika is located in East Africa and is bordered by four countries: Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Zambia.

What is the size of Lake Tanganyika?

Lake Tanganyika is the second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth in the world. It covers an area of approximately 32,900 square kilometers (12,700 square miles) and reaches a maximum depth of about 1,470 meters (4,820 feet).

What is the significance of Lake Tanganyika’s biodiversity?

Lake Tanganyika is renowned for its incredible biodiversity. It is home to more than 350 species of fish, including many unique and endemic species. The lake’s diverse fish population has attracted scientists and researchers from around the world.

How is Lake Tanganyika connected to the Nile River?

Lake Tanganyika is not directly connected to the Nile River. Instead, it is part of the Great Rift Valley system and its waters flow into the Congo River, which eventually merges with the Atlantic Ocean.

What are some economic activities associated with Lake Tanganyika?

The lake plays a crucial role in supporting the economies of the surrounding countries. Fishing is a major economic activity, providing livelihoods for local communities and supplying fish for domestic consumption and export. Additionally, the lake serves as a transportation route, facilitating trade and commerce among the neighboring countries.

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

<a href="https://kidskonnect.com/geography/lake-tanganyika/">Lake Tanganyika Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com</a> - KidsKonnect, July 5, 2023

Link will appear as Lake Tanganyika Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, July 5, 2023