The Pool Malebo (formerly Stanley Pool), also known historically as Mpumbu, Lake Nkunda, Lake Nkuna, Lake Ntamo, or Lake Ngobila,William Graham Lister Randles, L’ancien royaume du Congo des origines à la fin du XIXe siècle, Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2013, p. 44Sylvie Ayimpam, Vie matérielle, échanges et capitalisme sur la rive méridionale du Pool du fleuve Congo (1815-1930), Centre d’Étude des Mondes Africains (CEMAf), 2006, p. 4 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."Malebo Pool". Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed June 2011. 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.
Geography
Description and toponymy Pool Malebo is an area where the Congo River widens to form a lake. The English term pool denotes a body of water, such as a lake or pond. Kinshasa lies along the southern shoreline of this basin, while Brazzaville is situated on its northern shore. Before colonial naming, local populations knew this stretch of water by various names, including N'Tamo (or Ntamo), Nkouna (Nkuna or Nkunda), Pumbo, Pumbu, Mpumbu, or Ngobila.
Ntamo and Nkouna The names N'Tamo (or Ntamo) and Nkouna (Nkuna or Nkunda) are cited in several accounts by European explorers, notably Henry Morton Stanley, as well as in later historical analyses. According to the Congolese historian Jérôme Olland, in L'Histoire du Congo-Brazzaville, Stanley used the term Ntamo to describe Stanley Pool in his book In Darkest Africa. In Congo français du Gabon à Brazzaville, published in 1889, the French explorer Léon Guiral (born Léon Pierre Louis Guiral) notes that Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, an Italian-born explorer in French service, met the interpreter Ashimbo Taba at Nkouna. However, Father Albert Le Gallois, a Holy Spirit missionary, stated in his Contribution à la cartographie du Congo français (Stanley Pool Region) that although early explorers referred to the large island of Bamu as Nkouna, he never encountered this name among the Téké people of the right bank.
Pumbo, Pumbu, or Mpumbu The name Pumbo (Pombo, Pumbu, or Mpumbu) is also mentioned in explorers' accounts and historical literature to designate the Pool region. In Description of Africa, the Dutch scholar Olfert Dapper describes Pombo as a province under the authority of the Macoco (Makoko), ruler of the Téké. Belgian historian Jan Vansina interprets the term as referring to the northern shore of Stanley Pool, which constituted the political center of the Téké kingdom. Abraham Ndinga Mbo, a historian from the Republic of the Congo, uses the name Pumbo to describe the Pool during the precolonial era, while other scholars associate it with the territory of the Bahumbu. The term Pumbo is also commonly understood to mean "large market".
In Portrait of Kinshasa, Professor Pascal Kapagama of the University of Kinshasa notes that in the sixteenth century, a major marketplace known as Mpumbu existed at this location, encompassing several ancient villages, including Insasa. The name Insasa derives from insa, meaning market, or insa-insa, meaning small market, to which the locative prefix ki was added to form Kinshasa. The Congolese researchers Pamphile Mabiala Mantuba-Ngoma and Mathieu Zana Aziza Etambala also attributes the meaning of "market" to the term Mpumbu. In their article La société congolaise face à la modernité (1700-2010): Mélanges eurafricains offerts à Jean-Luc Vellut, he writes: "The zone where the river widened and passed through Mpumbu was the principal slave market of Central Africa. This market, located at the terminus of the navigable stretch of the Congo River, encompassed the former villages of what is now Pool Malebo (formerly Stanley Pool). These villages received all products coming from the upper reaches of the river, from the Kasai Basin and the Mai-Ndombe region. It was here that merchants from the south came to obtain goods for resale to Europeans along the Atlantic coast. This commercial zone was called the Congo River zone".
Stanley Pool and Pool Malebo In 1887, it was renamed Stanley Pool in tribute to Stanley, the first European explorer to "discover" it and record its surface area at 400 km2. It was Frank Pocock, a companion of Stanley, who, while in the service of Leopold II of Belgium, proposed the name as they entered this immense basin on 12 March 1877, as Stanley recounts in Through the Dark Continent. Following national independence of Congo-Léopoldville, the name was changed in January 1972 to Pool Malebo. The toponym Malebo, the plural of lilebo in Lingala, refers to the palm trees (Borassus aethiopum Mart., syn. Borassus flabellifer), which are widespread along the pool's banks, islands, and the surrounding alluvial plains of Kinshasa. Thus, the name Pool Malebo is a botanical designation and literally translates to "Lake of Borassus".
Terrain and navigation Pool Malebo is roughly in length and in width, covering an area of about , and is dotted with islands, the largest of which is M'Bamou Island, which lies at its center and spans approximately ( and is part of the Republic of the Congo. The pool is relatively shallow, with depths ranging from 3 to 10 meters, though seasonal flooding can cause water levels to fluctuate by up to 3 meters annually. The average elevation of the area is around above sea level.
Along the southern portion of the pool, Brazzaville and Kinshasa face each other on opposite shores, making them the closest pair of national capitals in the world (other than the contiguous Rome and Vatican City). Maluku is located at the upstream entrance to the basin, from which Pool Malebo marks the start of the navigable Congo River toward Mbandaka, Makanza, Bangui, and as far as Kisangani, while downstream of Ngaliema Bay, the river plunges through a succession of rapids known as the Livingstone Falls, descending approximately 300 meters on its way to the port of Matadi.Stanley, H.M., 1899, Through the Dark Continent, London: G. Newnes, Vol. One , Vol. Two
History Early history
European contact with the Congo River region began in 1483, when the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão reached the river's mouth and established relations between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Kongo. This encounter ended Central Africa's relative isolation from intercontinental networks and marked the beginning of written documentation on the region. Archaeological and linguistic research, particularly on Bantu languages, indicates, however, that human settlement in the Congo Basin long predates European contact, with evidence for agriculture and iron and copper metallurgy extending back "roughly two thousand years". From the sixteenth century onward, the region became integrated into Atlantic commercial systems, particularly through the transatlantic slave trade. A major trade axis developed along the Congo River, which extends from the Atlantic coast to the middle river basin. Pool Malebo functioned as a pivotal transshipment point within this network, dividing it into two distinct zones. The western zone, stretching from the coast to the pool, relied heavily on overland routes and acted primarily as a corridor for the movement of goods, with important centers such as Tungwa, Tshela, São Salvador, Kimongo, and Ludima connected by road networks. The eastern zone, extending from Pool Malebo toward the Ubangi–Uélé confluence, was chiefly a production region, supplying items such as pottery, salt, sugarcane alcohol, ivory, rubber, and copal.
The area around Pool Malebo belonged to the Tio Kingdom, whose people are more commonly under the ethnonym Batéké. Jan Vansina, who wrote an entire study on this kingdom, explains that Batéké is likely a Kongo term used for groups belonging to the Tio Kingdom or describing their defining traits. Across the Kongo region, the Batéké plateau, and the central Congo valley, the ethnonym Téké is associated with the idea of selling. In Kikongo, téké means "to sell", a reference to the Tio's primary economic pursuit, commerce, and to how neighboring peoples viewed them: essentially as merchants. Vansina notes that the Tio were among the most familiar Central African groups to Europeans and Americans because of their presence around Pool Malebo. Many enslaved people exported to the Americas, as well as ivory from the Congo Basin, passed through markets in this area. The Tio Kingdom itself likely emerged when several small political and territorial communities united under one of them and a prominent leader, the Makoko (king). According to Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, one of these communities included the ruins of a very ancient kingdom called N'guunu, located at Pool Malebo. This process of unification took place around the sixteenth century. Over time, the Tio built strong commercial connections with neighboring states such as the Kingdom of Kongo and Loango, which enabled the circulation of goods between the Atlantic coast and the interior. Pool Malebo served as the principal storage center and the key junction of this commercial corridor, functioning as its primary hub for goods transfer.