BUKAVU

formerly (until 1966) Costermansville, city, eastern Congo (Kinshasa), central Africa, on a peninsula extending into Lake Kivu. It is a commercial and industrial centre, a lake port, and a tourist city with road access northwest to Kisangani, southwest to Kasai, south to Lubumbashi and Katanga province and to East Africa. There is also air transport to other Congolese cities and to Burundi. The region is known for its agricultural products (coffee, tea, tobacco, quinine, strawberries), its livestock, and its tin and gold. More than 100,000 tons of cargo pass through the port annually, and the city is headquarters for tourists bound for Goma and the Virunga National Park. The city has a school of social studies, a teacher-training college, and a scientific-research institute. It also has a brewery, printing plant, and the Mururu hydroelectric installation. Bukavu is in one of the most densely populated areas of Congo. In 1994 it received hundreds of thousands of political refugees from the neighbouring states of Burundi and Rwanda. Pop. (1994 est.) 201,569.