Kasongo lies east of the Lualaba River, northwest of where it meets the Luama River, at an altitude of 666 metres (2,185 ft).

[citation needed] A few years later it became the capital of the newly founded and short-lived Sultanate of Utetera, established and initially ruled by the Swahili–Arab slave and ivory trader Tippu Tip.

The area was visited by Henry Morton Stanley in the early 1880s, on his third expedition.

[5] The territory was at the centre of the Congo Arab war and the Batetela rebellion in the 1890s.

A century later, Kasongo and its inhabitants were severely affected by the Second Congo War (1998–2003).