Cuvette Centrale

A lake covered the region during the Pliocene epoch, which was gradually filled with sediments, and the surface of the basin is very flat.

Slow-moving tributaries of the Congo, including the Lopori, Maringa, Ikelemba, Tshuapa, Lomela and Lokoro, drain westward.

The Eastern Congolian swamp forests extend along the Congo River and its chief tributaries, and cover wide areas in the western portion of the Cuvette Centrale.

[1] In 2017, it was discovered that 40% of the Cuvette Centrale wetlands are underlain with a dense layer of peat, which contains around 30 petagrams (billions of tons) of carbon.

[5] However, 2022 research by the same team which had originally discovered this peatland not only revised its area (from the original estimate of 145,500 square kilometres (56,200 sq mi) to 167,600 square kilometres (64,700 sq mi)) and depth (from 2 m (6.6 ft) to (1.7 m (5.6 ft)) but also noted that only 8% of this peat carbon is currently covered by the existing protected areas.