Pool Malebo

The Pool Malebo (formerly Stanley Pool), also known historically as Mpumbu, Lake Nkunda, Lake Nkuna, Lake Ntamo, or Lake Ngobila, is a broad, lake-like widening of the lower Congo River in Central Africa that forms a natural basin where the river expands before descending downstream into the Livingstone Falls. The pool serves as an international boundary between the Republic of the Congo to the north and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, with the national capitals Brazzaville and Kinshasa situated directly opposite one another on its northern and southern shores.

Spanning roughly 500 square kilometers and measuring about 35 kilometers long by 23 kilometers wide, Pool Malebo is characterized by shallow waters, typically ranging from 3 to 10 meters in depth, though seasonal floods can significantly alter water levels.

The toponym Malebo, the plural of lilebo in Lingala, refers to the Borassus palm that grows abundantly along the pool's shores, islands, and surrounding alluvial plains, while the term pool is borrowed from English, where it denotes a basin and, by extension, a lake. Renamed Stanley Pool in 1887 after the explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who charted the area during his expeditions, the pool officially adopted its current African-derived name in January 1972 following the post-independence policy of Africanization of geographical names. Long before European contact, Pool Malebo served as a key cultural, commercial, and political hub for indigenous Bantu ethnic groups of the central Congo Basin.