evidence: The Congo River is a long, arcing river with a basin that spans nine countries in West-Central Africa. This extensive body of water provides food, water, medicine and transport to about 75 million people in the surrounding basin, according to Yale University's Global Forest Atlas. [...] The Congo River system runs through the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, western Zambia, northern Angola, and parts of Cameroon and Tanzania, according to National Geographic. [...] From 1971 to 1997, the Congo River was known as the Zaire River, during the reign of Democratic Republic of the Congo's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who changed the entire country's name to Zaire, the Atlantic reported. (Zaire is the Portuguese adaptation of the Kikongo word nzere or nzadi, which means "river that swallows all rivers.")