Mweru is shallow in the south and deeper in the north, with two depressions in the north-eastern section with maximum depths of 20 and 27 metres (66 and 89 ft).

However, they were more interested in trade routes than discovery, they had approached from the south and their movements were restricted by Mwata Kazembe, and they did not provide an account of it.

[8] Livingstone witnessed the devastation and suffering caused by the slave trade in the area to the north and east of Mweru, and his accounts did help rally opposition to it.

Few Europeans had visited Mweru since Livingstone, until Alfred Sharpe in 1890–1 and the Stairs Expedition in 1892 both passed by on their way to seek treaties with Msiri.

Sharpe left one of his officers to set up the first colonial outpost in the Luapula-Mweru valley, the British boma at Chiengi in 1891.

[9] Although Kilwa Island is closer to the western shore, it was allocated to Northern Rhodesia, and consequently Zambia has 58% of the lake waters, and DR Congo 42%.

The move of the boma from Chiengi to Kalungwishi had the effect of leaving the Belgian boma at Pweto a free rein at the northern end of the lake, leading a hundred years later to about 33 square kilometres (13 sq mi) of Zambian territory next to Pweto being ceded to the DR Congo (then Zaire).

After 1900, the Belgian Congo province of Katanga on the western shores of the lake developed faster than the Northern Rhodesian side, the Luapula Province and the town of Kasenga a few hours by boat up the Luapula River became the most developed in the Luapula-Mweru valley, and until the 1960s was the main commercial centre with better services and infrastructure than elsewhere.

The Belgians operated a regular service by a paddle steamer, the Charles Lemaire, between Kasenga on the Luapula and Pweto at the outlet of the Luvua River, a distance of nearly 300 kilometres (190 mi) if a stop at Kilwa was included.

Mweru has always been noted for its longfin tilapia, (Oreochromis macrochir), called pale ('pa-lay') in Chibemba, which traditionally were dried on racks or mats in the sun and packed in baskets for market.

Catfish (one species of which grows up to 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) in length), a kind of carp, tigerfish, elephantfish and sardine-like fish are also caught.

They supplied the workforce of the copper mines in Lubumbashi (later the whole Copperbelt) with fish which was packed in ice at Kasenga and transported from there in trucks.

It would take a week for a boat to do the round trip to the lake and fill its hold, lined with ice carried on board.

[7][10] In recent decades the catch has declined due to over-fishing and is estimated at 13,000 long tons (13,000 t) tonnes caught from 4,500 small craft, mainly plank boats.

60 years ago the western and northern shores of the lake were home to large herds of elephant, the Luapula floodplain supported herds of lechwe, and the Lusenga Plain National Park and Mweru Wantipa National Park were noted for Cape buffalo, a great variety of antelope and lion.

On the Congolese side the Parc National de Kundelungu in the mountains 75 kilometres (47 mi) south-west of the lake may be in better condition.