Congo Rainforest
The Congo Rainforest is the second biggest in the world, after the Amazon. It covers an area roughly the size of Western Europe and runs across six countries in central Africa. Hidden inside it are mountain gorillas, forest elephants, bonobos (the rarest of all the great apes) and the okapi (a striped relative of the giraffe found nowhere else on Earth).
- Areaapprox. 2 million km²About the size of Western Europe
- Countries6DR Congo, Cameroon, CAR, Congo, Gabon, Eq. Guinea
- Main riverThe Congo River4,700 km long, second-deepest in the world
- Famous animalsGorillas, bonobosPlus forest elephants and okapis
- Indigenous peoplePygmy peoplesLive by hunting and gathering in the forest
- Carbon storedapprox. 30 billion tonnesA vital store, fighting climate change
How big is the Congo compared to other rainforests?
The Congo is the second biggest rainforest on Earth. About 60% of it lies inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
What is the Congo Rainforest?
The Congo Rainforest is the huge wet tropical forest that fills the Congo River basin in central Africa. It is sometimes called the Congo Basin Forest. The biggest share lies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but parts also reach into the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic.
Wildlife of the Congo
The Congo Rainforest is home to some of the most famous and endangered animals in the world.
Mountain gorillas live in the cool highland forests on the eastern edge, on the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC. There are only around 1,000 of them left in the wild, but their numbers have been slowly growing thanks to protection. Western lowland gorillas live in the main lowland forest and are far more numerous, though they are still endangered. Bonobos, the closest cousins of chimpanzees and humans, live only on the south side of the Congo River.
Forest elephants are smaller and shyer than their cousins on the African savanna. Okapis are striped relatives of the giraffe with the looks of a zebra. Bongos are huge red antelopes that live deep in the forest. There are also leopards, pythons, hippos, and over 1,000 species of bird.
People of the Congo Rainforest
The Congo Rainforest is home to several indigenous peoples often grouped together as Pygmies, including the Mbuti, the Aka, the Baka, the Twa and others. These are some of the oldest human groups on Earth, with a way of life that goes back tens of thousands of years.
Pygmy peoples traditionally live by hunting, fishing and gathering food from the forest. They have a deep knowledge of the plants and animals around them, knowing which plants can heal, which can poison, where the bees nest, when the fruit is ripe. They have often been treated badly by the modern world around them, and many are now under threat as the forest disappears.
The Congo River
The Congo River is the heart of the rainforest. It is the second deepest river in the world (after a small section of the Amazon) with parts going down to over 220 metres. It is also the world's most powerful river by water volume after the Amazon. The Congo flows for around 4,700 km from the highlands of Zambia, across the rainforest, and out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Threats and protection
The Congo is being cut down too, though more slowly than the Amazon. The main threats are commercial logging (especially for valuable tropical hardwoods), clearing of land for farming, hunting of animals for "bushmeat", mining (especially for gold, coltan and cobalt used in mobile phones), and the impact of armed conflict in the eastern DRC.
Several national parks try to protect the most important areas: Virunga (the oldest national park in Africa, famous for its mountain gorillas), Salonga (the biggest tropical rainforest national park in Africa), Odzala-Kokoua, and Nouabalé-Ndoki.
Deeper dive: the Congo Basin, peatlands and the second lungs of the planet
The Congo Basin is the second largest river drainage area in the world, covering approx. 4 million square km. The rainforest is sometimes called the "second lungs of the planet" after the Amazon for its role in absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Like the Amazon, the Congo regenerates much of its own rainfall through evapotranspiration, releasing water vapour from its trees that forms clouds and falls again as rain.
In 2017, scientists confirmed that the Congo Basin contains the largest tropical peatland in the world: a vast deposit of partially decomposed plant material lying just below the surface across an area roughly the size of England. The peat stores an estimated 30 billion tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of three years of total global fossil fuel emissions. If it dried out and decomposed (or burned in fires), the released carbon would be a climate disaster. Protecting these peatlands has now become a priority for international climate finance.
The 2014 to 2016 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa drew attention to the connection between rainforest ecosystems and human health. Ebola, like several other dangerous viruses, lives naturally in forest animals (probably fruit bats) and jumps to humans when forests are disturbed. Deforestation and bushmeat hunting are not only environmental issues; they also increase the risk of new pandemic diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic, which probably originated in another bat-borne coronavirus, has made this connection painfully clear.
The biggest rainforest is the Amazon. The oldest is the Daintree. The country with the largest share of the Congo is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.