Manono

Manono is a town and territory in Tanganyika Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The town lies on the western bank of the Lukushi River, a tributary of the Luvua River, and is a river port to which barges bring cargo from Lubumbashi, with a disused railway line running to Muyumba and National Road 33 passing through it. Its economy is centered on mining: the surrounding area holds about 100 million tonnes of minerals including spodumene (lithium), columbite, tin and tantalite, and mining by Geomines began in 1915. The Manono-Kitolo mine produced perhaps 180,000 tonnes of cassiterite ore before the collapse of the tin price in the 1980s hit the town hard, and exploration for lithium has been under way since 2017. The Second Congo War badly damaged the town and its hydro-electric plant. Manono has a tropical savanna climate, classified Aw under the Koppen system, and a cathedral built by Belgian missionaries.