The Ruhuhu River is a river in

Ruvuma Region Ruvuma Region (''Mkoa wa Ruvuma'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The regional capital is the municipality of Songea. According to the 2012 national census, the region had a population of 1,376,891, which was lower t ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

Geography

The source of the Ruhuhu is on the eastern slope of the

Kipengere Range The Kipengere Range, also known as the Livingstone Mountains, lies entirely in Njombe Region in southwest Tanzania at the northern end of Lake Nyasa. Near Lake Nyasa they are known as the Kinga Mountains. It is a plateau-like ridge of mountains ...

(Livingstone Mountains) in Tanzania, where it first flows southeast and then turns west to

Lake Nyasa Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the fifth largest fres ...

(Lake Malawi). It is over long, of which the last is a single deep gorge. The river's mouth is just south of Manda.

Catchment area

At over (between depending on the data source), the Ruhuhu River Basin is the largest of the Malawiese River Basins and the largest in Tanzania. As the longest river flowing into Lake Malawi, by convention it is the headwaters of the Shire, which drains the lake. The Ruhuhu carries water all year round.

Hydrometry

The discharge of the Ruhuhu was measured in m³/s for 43 years (1971-2015) at the Kikonge gauge, about upstream of the mouth. However the values in other sources are higher by a factor of about four. The Tanzanian government decided in 2016 to install a hydroelectric power station with an expected capacity of ( Kikonge Hydroelectric Power Station) at this location.

References

{{coord, 10, 31, S, 34, 34, E, display=title, region:TZ_type:river_source:GNS-enwiki Rivers of Tanzania Geography of Ruvuma Region