The Great Lake Region
The Great Lake Region
The African Great Lakes are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area; and Lake Tanganyika, the world’s second largest in volume as well as the second deepest. The following, in order of size from largest to smallest, are included on most lists of the African Great Lakes: Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, Lake Turkana, Lake Albert, Lake Kivu, and Lake Edward.
The Countries of The Great Lake Region
The five countries that make up the Great Lakes region are: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.), Burundi, Rwanda, Republic of the Congo (R.O.C.), and Uganda.
The African Great Lake region is likewise somewhat loose. It is used in a narrow sense for the area lying between northern Lake Tanganyika, western Lake Victoria, and lakes Kivu, Edward, and Albert. This comprises Burundi, Rwanda, northeastern D.R. Congo, Uganda and northwestern Kenya and Tanzania. It is used in a wider sense to extend to all of Kenya and Tanzania, but not usually as far south as Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique nor as far north as Ethiopia, though these four countries border one of the Great Lakes.
Because of the density of population and the agricultural surplus in the region the area became highly organized into a number of small states. The most powerful of these monarchies were Rwanda, Burundi, Buganda, and Bunyoro.