Lake Kariba: Travel Guide to the World’s Largest Reservoir

Lake Kariba: Travel Guide to the World’s Largest Reservoir: History & Culture

Discover Lake Kariba: Travel Guide to the World’s Largest Reservoir

Lake Kariba is the world’s largest artificial lake and reservoir by volume, formed behind the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River and shared between Zimbabwe and Zambia. On the Zimbabwean side, the lakeside town of Kariba is the main base for houseboating, fishing and wildlife viewing along a shoreline scattered with drowned forest and game-rich national parks. This guide covers the dam’s history, what there is to do on the lake, and where to stay.

Lake Kariba at a glance

• Country: Zimbabwe (shared with Zambia)
• Province: Mashonaland West
• Lake area: 5,580 km²
• Storage capacity: 185 km³, the world’s largest by volume
• Dam height: 128 m; built 1956-1959
• Nearest airport: Kariba Airport (KAB)
• Best time to visit: April to November (cooler, drier months; houseboating runs year-round)

History

Construction of the Kariba Dam began in November 1956 and finished in 1959, when it was the largest dam wall in the world. The 128 m-high concrete arch dam sits at Kariba Gorge on the Zambezi and today generates power for both Zambia and Zimbabwe through separate north and south bank stations. Filling the lake required resettling more than 30,000 Batonka people and, in a widely reported rescue effort known as Operation Noah, evacuating thousands of stranded wild animals from the rising water.

Operation Noah

As the dam wall closed and the water began to rise, wildlife officer Rupert Fothergill led a five-year rescue effort, Operation Noah, that ran from 1958 to 1964 and relocated more than 6,000 stranded animals to the mainland as the lake slowly submerged the valley: elephants, antelope, lions, leopards, zebras, warthogs, birds and snakes among them. The most demanding rescues were the rhinos: an animal would be sedated, rolled onto a sledge, dragged to the water’s edge and loaded onto a raft buoyed up by 18 petrol drums, then towed as far as 19 km to dry land. Forty-four rhinos were saved this way. Operation Noah is remembered today as one of the largest wildlife rescue operations ever undertaken, and it helped establish relocation techniques still used in conservation work.

Tiger fishing

Kariba’s tiger fish, prized for their fight rather than their size, have drawn anglers to the lake since it first filled. The Kariba Invitation Tiger Fishing Tournament, organised by the Rhodesian National Anglers Union, held its first competition in June 1962 with 142 fishermen; by 1991 that had grown to 333 teams, making it, by some measures, the world’s largest single-species game-fishing tournament recognised by the World Game Fishing Association. Now known as the Kariba International Tiger Fishing Tournament, it has run most years since 1962, timing its competition heats around the lake’s cooler months, when tiger fish are most active.

What to do on the lake

Houseboating is the signature Kariba experience, with vessels ranging from simple charters to larger multi-cabin boats cruising the shoreline and its drowned trees. Fishing, particularly for tiger fish, is a major draw, and the lake borders Matusadona National Park and other protected areas where game viewing continues from the water as much as from land.

Getting there

Kariba Airport (KAB) serves the town directly. The lake is also reachable by road from Harare, roughly 365 km away via Chinhoyi, and by houseboat or ferry along the lake itself from towns further west such as Binga.

For travelling the length of the lake itself, the Sea Lion ferry links Kariba to Mlibizi, near the lake’s western end, carrying up to 70 passengers and 15 vehicles on a 22-hour overnight crossing that departs both ports at 09h00; the fare includes chair-beds or deck mattresses, three meals and a cash bar, an unhurried alternative to the long road route around the lake’s southern shore.

Where to stay

Kariba Safari Lodge, overlooking the lake, is rated 4.9/5 from 260 reviews on TripAdvisor, ranked the #1 Best Value among Kariba’s luxury lodges. See our Kariba Safari Lodge page for the full write-up. Other named properties around the lake, including houseboat operators and lodges such as Bumi Hills Safari Lodge, were not independently verified to the site’s rating standard in this pass.