Lake Kivu
A Rift lake perched on the Congo–Nile divide and draining south into Lake Tanganyika via the Ruzizi River. Roughly 2,370 km² in area and up to about 485 m deep (Schmid et al. 2008). It is sharply meromictic and chemically extraordinary: a thin freshwater surface layer floats over deep water that grows saline and holds one of the largest reservoirs of dissolved CO₂ and methane on Earth — the source of both an energy industry and a recognised limnic-eruption hazard. Its fish fauna is small but distinctive, with about 15 endemic haplochromine cichlids (Snoeks 1994).
- Maximum depth
- 1,591 ft
- Length
- 55 miles
- Mixing regime
- Meromictic
- Basin
- East African Rift (Congo–Nile divide; Ruzizi outflow to Lake Tanganyika)
- Countries
- Rwanda; DR Congo
Where every species has been recorded
19 cichlid species across 3 genera have been georeferenced in the lake, drawn from 2,369 field and museum records. Switch to satellite imagery, or pick a single species to see exactly where it lives.
Occurrence records: GBIF.org (Global Biodiversity Information Facility). Each point is a georeferenced observation or specimen; positions carry the source dataset's own coordinate precision.
Sources
Every number on this page is traceable to peer-reviewed research.
- GBIF.org (2026). GBIF Occurrence Download — Cichlidae, African rift lakes. Global Biodiversity Information Facility, www.gbif.org. link
A shoreline of separate worlds
Lake Kivu does not have one habitat but a mosaic of them, and the boundaries are sharp. A cichlid adapted to grazing algae off boulders may never cross the few metres of open sand to the next reef — which is exactly why so many species here live nowhere else on Earth.
Mapped habitats
Surveyed habitat data for this lake is not loaded yet.