African Great Lakes

The African Great Lakes (Swahili: Maziwa Makuu; Kinyarwanda: Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tanganyika, the world's second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth; Lake Malawi, the world's eighth-largest freshwater lake by area; and Lake Turkana, the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake. Collectively, they contain 31,000 km³ (7,400 cu mi) of water, which is more than either Lake Baikal or the North American Great Lakes. This total constitutes about 25% of the planet's unfrozen surface fresh water. The large rift lakes of Africa are the ancient home of great biodiversity, and 10% of the world's fish species live in this region.

Countries in the area which are bounded by the lakes of the Great Lakes region include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The following are included on most lists of the African Great Lakes, grouped by drainage basin. The exact number of lakes considered part of the African Great Lakes varies by list, and may include smaller lakes in the rift valleys, especially if they are part of the same drainage basin as the larger lakes, such as Lake Kyoga.

The Great Lakes region (rarely: Greater Lakes region) consists of ten riparian countries: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The adjective interlacustrine ("between lakes") can refer to the region, or more specifically, the nations or area bounded by the lakes.

The Swahili language is the most commonly spoken language in the African Great Lakes region. It also serves as a national or official language of five nations in the region: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Because of its high population—estimated to be 107 million people^[when?]—and the agricultural surplus in the region, the area became organized into a number of small states. The most powerful of these monarchies were Buganda, Bunyoro, Karagwe, Rwanda, and Burundi.

Being the long-sought source of the Nile and the watershed triple point between the rivers Nile, Congo and Zambezi, the region had long been of interest to Europeans. The first Europeans to arrive in the region in any numbers were Christian missionaries who had limited success in converting the locals, but did open the region to later colonization. Increased contact with the rest of the world led to a series of devastating epidemics affecting both humans and livestock.

While seen as a region with great potential after independence, the Great Lakes region has suffered from civil war and conflict in the four decades around the turn of the 21st century (c. 1980–2020). In 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees commended Tanzania for consistently welcoming and aiding refugees from other countries in the region.