How deep is the deepest river in the world?

The Congo River is a long, arcing river with a basin that spans nine countries in West-Central Africa. This extensive body of water provides food, water, medicine and transport to about 75 million people in the surrounding basin.

The Congo River zigzags across the equator twice as it flows from eastern Africa, through the Congo rainforest, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, according to Mongabay, a nonprofit environmental science and conservation news site. From its tributaries to where it meets the Atlantic Ocean, the massive river includes rapids, wetlands, floodplains, lakes and swamps.

In addition, the Congo River is the world's deepest recorded river at 720 feet (220 meters) deep in parts — too deep for light to penetrate, The New York Times reported. It's also the second-longest river in Africa, spanning a length of approximately 2,920 miles (4,700 kilometers) Africa's Nile River is the longest river in the world at 4,135 miles, or 6,650 km long. That makes the Congo River the ninth-longest in the world.

The region surrounding the Congo River holds an abundance of valuable resources, from ivory to rubber to timber. Governments have long fought for control of the Congo; the brutal colonial regime of the infamous King Leopold II of Belgium from 1885 to 1908, memorialized in the 1899 novella, "Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad, was one of the bloodiest.