The Congo carries more water than any river on Earth except the Amazon. Millions of people live along it. And yet we only measured how deep it is in 2008, and we still don't know what lives at the very bottom.

In this documentary we follow the Congo one obstacle at a time: the rapids that stopped Stanley's expedition, the Inga rapids that nearly drowned the best kayakers in the world, the deepest river ever measured, a blind fish that dies of the bends, and the reason the river doesn't stop when it reaches the Atlantic.

⏱ Chapters (approximate)

00:00 You shouldn't swim here

01:07 Where does the Congo actually end?

02:24 Obstacle 1: You can't sail it

04:52 Obstacle 2: You can't swim it

07:49 Obstacle 3: You can't see the bottom

10:09 The fish that got the bends

12:23 Obstacle 4: Not one river, but hundreds

14:35 The river that doesn't stop at the ocean

19:03 Why we can't explore the Congo

📚 Sources

1. Oberg, Shelton, Gardiner & Jackson (2009). Discharge and other hydraulic measurements for characterizing the hydraulics of Lower Congo River, July 2008. U.S. Geological Survey

2. Guinness World Records. Deepest river (Lower Congo, measured July 2008)

3. Live Science (2019). Dying fish revealed Congo is world's deepest river (research by Melanie Stiassny, American Museum of Natural History)

4. Cosmos Magazine. The Congo is deep, as well as long

5. American Museum of Natural History (press release). Congo River fish evolution shaped by intense rapids. Molecular Ecology

6. Talling et al. (2022). Longest sediment flows yet measured show how major rivers connect efficiently to deep sea. Nature Communications

7. Eos, American Geophysical Union. River floods can trigger powerful underwater landslides

8. National Oceanography Centre (2022). Scientists discover world's longest underwater avalanche after rescue of lost data

9. Engineering News (2021). SAT-3 and WACS cable breaks in 2020 likely caused by mudslide

10. Hage et al. (2024). How is particulate organic carbon transported through the river-fed submarine Congo Canyon to the deep sea? Biogeosciences

11. Azpiroz-Zabala et al. (2017). Newly recognised turbidity current structure can explain prolonged flushing of submarine canyons. Science Advances

12. Cardot et al. (2026). Congo River plume and ocean eddies. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (via Eos)

13. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Congo River

14. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Livingstone Falls

15. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Congo Canyon

16. National Geographic. Steve Fisher and the first descent of the Inga rapids (2011)

17. Red Bull. Steve Fisher in Congo: The Grand Inga Project

18. FishBase. Hydrocynus goliath, giant tigerfish

19. BBC Wildlife (Discover Wildlife). Goliath tigerfish

20. Henry Morton Stanley (1878). Through the Dark Continent, Volume 2

Archive images (Wikimedia Commons / Internet Archive):

- Aerial view of the Congo River near Kisangani — MONUSCO/Myriam Asmani — CC BY-SA 2.0 —

- Fleuve Congo Kinshasa 4 — Serein — CC BY-SA 3.0 - Fleuve Congo Kinshasa 1 — Serein — CC BY-SA 3.0- Fleuve Congo Kinshasa 7 — Serein — CC BY-SA 3.0 - Hydrocynus goliath Gifu — Totti — CC BY-SA 4.0

- Hydrocynus goliath - Poisson-chien - Aqua porte Dorée 08 — Cedricguppy - Loury Cédric — CC BY-SA 4.0 — - Hydrocynus goliath — Sablegsd — CC BY-SA 3.0 - Statue of Liberty, NY — William Warby — CC BY 2.0

- Rainforest - Ituri (20874628148) — MONUSCO Photos — CC BY-SA 2.0 —

- Field Photo 5512-p3-bottom from Europe/Cyprus/PKAP Survey Area/Vigla/EU-16/SU-5512

🎥 Archive footage (Wikimedia Commons / Internet Archive)

[File title] — by [author] — licensed under [license]

🎨 Some scenes are artistic reconstructions based on the sources above.

#congoriver #deepestriver #congocanyon