The Ramu River is a major

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the ...

in northern

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the

Bismarck Sea The Bismarck Sea (, ) lies in the southwestern Pacific Ocean within the nation of Papua New Guinea. It is located northeast of the island of New Guinea and south of the Bismarck Archipelago. It has coastlines in districts of the Islands Region, ...

. Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries from the Bismarck Range to the south and the Finisterre and Adelbert.

History

For many millennia, people have lived along the river, and the river has formed the basis for food, transport, and culture.

German exploration

The area encompassed by the Ramu was part of

Kaiser-Wilhelmsland Kaiser-Wilhelmsland ("Emperor William's Land") formed part of German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neuguinea), the South Pacific protectorate of the German Empire. Named in honour of Wilhelm I, who reigned as German Emperor () from 1871 to 1888, ...

when

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

established

German New Guinea German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...

in 1884. The Germans were quick to explore their territory, and the mouth of the Ramu was discovered in 1886 by Vice-Admiral

Freiherr von Schleinitz (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , literally "free lord" or "free lady") and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire ...

after returning to

Finschhafen Finschhafen is a town east of Lae on the Huon Peninsula in Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. The town is commonly misspelt as Finschafen or Finschaven. During World War II, the town was also referred to as Fitch Haven in the logs of some U ...

from an expedition to the nearby

Sepik The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...

.Souter (1963) p. 73 Schleinitz called the Ramu, ''Ottilien'' after his ship the ''Ottilie''. The course of the river was first discovered 10 years later in 1896 after Dr Carl Lauterbach, a botanist, led an expedition organised by the

German New Guinea Company The German New Guinea Company (german: Deutsche Neuguinea-Kompagnie) was a German Chartered Company which exploited insular territory in and near present Papua New Guinea. History In the 1870s and 1880s German commercial firms began to site ...

(''Neu Guinea Kompagnie'') to find the headwaters of the Markham River.Souter (1963) p. 77 After crossing the Ortzen Mountains from Astrolabe Bay south of

Madang Madang (old German name: ''Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen'') is the capital of Madang Province and is a town with a population of 27,420 (in 2005) on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. It was first settled by the Germans in the 19th century. Hist ...

, Lauterbach's party, instead of finding the Markham, found an unknown river flowing northwest. The party canoed along a section before their supplies dwindled; they returned to the coast retracing their route. Another German explorer, Ernst Tappenbeck, who had accompanied Lauterbach previously, led the first expedition to ascend the Ramu in 1898. Tappenbeck was charged with discovering whether the ''Ottilien'' found in 1886 was the same river Lauterbech had found. He was accompanied by former Prussian Army officers, a ''Kompagnie'' official and an Australian gold prospector Robert Phillip, and travelled in the ''Neu Guinea Kompagnie'' steamer ''Herzog Johann Albrecht''.Souter (1963) p. 78 After five days of journey up the Ramu, Tappenbeck left his companions at a well-stocked camp when river water levels fell. He returned four and half months later in another steamer, ''Herzogin Elisabeth'', and the party managed to navigate upstream and go farther still by canoe. By the end of 1898, the expedition had established a station on the river, mapped it and tributaries, and made a large botanical collection. Further explorations for gold and botanical specimens were conducted by the Germans. In 1902, Hans Klink and J. Schlenzig established a new Ramu station that was later connected by a bridle track to the coast.Souter (1963) pp. 111-112 Dr R. Schlecter led another expedition in 1902 in search of

gutta-percha Gutta-percha is a tree of the genus '' Palaquium'' in the family Sapotaceae. The name also refers to the rigid, naturally biologically inert, resilient, electrically nonconductive, thermoplastic latex derived from the tree, particularly fro ...

trees. Then in 1907, Austrian explorer Wilhelm Dammköhler led an expedition up the Markham Valley and linked the headwaters of the Markham River with the Ramu for the first time.

Australian administration and Second World War

After the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

, German New Guinea passed over to Australian control and became the

Territory of New Guinea The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the nam ...

. The Ramu reverted to its local name during this time. In 1936, Briton, Lord Moyne, ventured up the Ramu during an expedition to

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

and New Guinea. Moyne discovered a race of

pygmy In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...

-like people inhabiting the middle Ramu region from the mouth of the river in the Aiome foothills. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, in 1942 the Japanese annexed the entire Territory of New Guinea from the Australians. Intense fighting occurred between the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor ...

and the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal ...

and US Armies to recapture New Guinea. During the

Finisterre Range campaign The Markham Valley, Ramu Valley and Finisterre Range campaigns were a series of battles within the broader New Guinea campaign of World War II. The campaigns began with an Allied offensive in the Ramu Valley, from 19 September 1943, and conc ...

in 1943 and 1944, the Ramu valley became the scene of a major battle.

Hydroelectric plant

The Ramu flows into Yonki Dam, where it feeds the Ramu 1 power station. A hydroelectric plant was under construction on the toe of the Yonki Dam, however construction is currently (May 2011) suspended.

Image gallery

File:Papua New Guinea river Ramu.png, The last 300 or so kilometres of the Ramu as it winds towards the Bismarck File:Sepik-sediment-new.png, Ramu and

sediment plumes

References

* {{Authority control Rivers of Papua New Guinea