Mountain · DR Congo
Mount Nyiragongo
Mount Nyiragongo in the Congo holds one of the few lasting lava lakes on Earth, a glowing pool of molten rock inside its steep crater. At night its light colours the sky.
Picture credit: Cai Tjeenk Willink (Caitjeenk) (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Nina R (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Mount Nyiragongo?
Mount Nyiragongo is part of the Virunga Mountains.
You will find it in: DR Congo.
Summit: 1.519° S, 29.254° E
The story behind it
Nyiragongo stands in the Virunga Mountains, inside Virunga National Park, about twelve kilometres north of the city of Goma. Its summit crater is more than a kilometre across, with almost vertical walls and stepped benches that mark where the lava lake once stood. The lava here is unusual: it is very low in silica, which makes it runny like hot syrup rather than thick like porridge, and in 1977 a flow was clocked at around sixty kilometres per hour, the fastest lava ever measured. That runniness is why the volcano is closely watched, because Goma and its neighbourhoods lie downhill from it; the Goma Volcano Observatory tracks tremors and gas day and night. The lava lake drained in 1977 and again in later eruptions, and each time it slowly filled back up, so scientists can watch a whole lake being rebuilt. Sources describe the crater differently, some giving about two kilometres across and the Smithsonian catalogue 1.2 kilometres, and no first ascent is recorded in the references consulted.
Find it on the globe
Mount Nyiragongo is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How high is Mount Nyiragongo?
3 470 metres, a little lower than its neighbour Karisimbi but far more restless.
Where is Mount Nyiragongo?
In the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about twelve kilometres north of Goma.
Why does its lava flow so fast?
It contains very little silica, so it stays thin and runny instead of stiffening as it moves.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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