Where They Are: A Range Guide to Africa

Use this section the way you would a map. It lays out, as plainly and honestly as we can, where the crocodiles of Africa actually live, and which one you are likely to be dealing with in a given corner of the continent. Africa is not the Americas: there are no state lines to lean on, and the ranges are vast and often poorly surveyed, so much of what follows is drawn at the level of the river, the lake and the country. Before you get in, near, or on any water on this continent, you want to be able to answer one question: is this Nile crocodile country, or one of the gentler species, or nothing dangerous at all? Here is how to tell.

Nile crocodile country: East Africa and the Rift

The dangerous animal lives here, and the eastern side of the continent is its stronghold. Assume large, lethal Nile crocodiles in the fresh and brackish waters of all of these:

• Kenya — widespread in the big rivers and lakes below the highlands: the Tana and Galana-Sabaki systems, the Ewaso Ng'iro, the Mara, and the great crocodile stronghold of Lake Turkana in the north, one of the largest populations on the continent. The cool, high country around Nairobi and the central highlands is not croc habitat; the low, warm rivers and lakes are.
• Tanzania — very heavily. The Rufiji and its delta, draining the vast Nyerere (Selous) wilderness, is classic Nile crocodile country, along with Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria's southern shore, the Ruvu, Wami and Ruvuma, and Lake Rukwa. Tanzania has one of the fullest attack records on the continent.
• Uganda — the Nile itself below Murchison Falls, Lake Victoria, Lake Kyoga, Lake Albert and the connecting channels. Dense fishing populations on these lakes make this one of the worst places on Earth for crocodile attacks.
• Ethiopia — the Rift Valley lakes, above all the linked lakes of Chamo and Abaya in the south, famous for exceptionally large animals, plus the Omo, the Awash, the Baro, and the Blue Nile gorge. The high plateau is too cold; the low Rift and the lowland rivers are croc country.
• South Sudan — the Sudd, the immense White Nile wetland, is superb habitat and a place of heavy, badly-counted loss. Assume crocodiles throughout the Nile system and its floodplains.
• Sudan — the middle Nile and its tributaries, the Blue and White Niles up to their confluence at Khartoum, and southern lakes and rivers.
• Somalia — the Jubba and Shabelle rivers of the south.
• Rwanda, Burundi, eastern DR Congo — the lakes and rivers of the western Rift: Lake Tanganyika (where the famous Gustave is said to range), Lake Kivu's outflows, and the Rusizi and Lukuga rivers. The Lukuga is where the kayaker Hendri Coetzee was taken.