What is the largest river in Africa by volume?

The Congo River is Africa's largest river by volume, meaning average discharge. It carries about 41,000 cubic metres of water per second into the Atlantic Ocean, making it the continent's most powerful river by flow.

The Congo is only Africa's second-longest major river, after the Nile, but length and discharge measure different things. Its enormous flow comes from a drainage basin of roughly 3.7 million square kilometres, much of it covered by the Congo rainforest. Because the basin extends across both sides of the Equator, rainy seasons in different regions help keep the river flowing throughout the year.

The river was formerly known in parts of its course as the Zaire. Its main channel and tributaries pass through or drain ten countries, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo containing most of the basin. The river is also among the deepest ever measured, with depths exceeding 200 metres in places.

The Nile is longer, while the Niger and Zambezi are important African rivers with smaller discharges. Worldwide, the Congo ranks behind the Amazon and the Ganges–Brahmaputra system by average discharge.