Congo Rainforest Webcam – Yangambi’s Equatorial Canopy

The Congo Rainforest Webcam looks south over the treetops of the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from a research tower about 6 kilometers (4 miles) north-east of Yangambi town. Rounded crowns of broadleaf trees fill almost the whole frame, layer behind layer, under a thin strip of sky. Mist often settles between the crowns, and when the sun breaks through, shafts of light can slant down into it. The camera is part of the PhenoCam Network, which uses the pictures to follow the canopy’s seasonal rhythm, such as when trees flush new leaves. It takes still pictures in daylight only, from about 7 am until 5:30 pm Central Africa Time, so overnight the last frame of the afternoon stays on screen until new pictures resume on their own the next morning.

About the Congo Rainforest at Yangambi

Yangambi sits on the north bank of the Congo River in Tshopo Province, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Kisangani, the provincial capital. The forest around it was declared a biosphere reserve in 1976 under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme, covering 235,000 hectares (about 581,000 acres). The ground below the camera lies at 357 meters (1,171 feet) above sea level, and the trees in view are evergreen broadleaf rainforest. The Congo Basin holds the second largest continuous tropical forest on Earth, after the Amazon.

The camera is mounted on the CongoFlux tower, a 57 meter (187 foot) mast that Ghent University began building in early 2020. The canopy here is about 35 meters (115 feet) high, so the top of the tower stands well clear of the tallest crowns. The first instruments went in during October 2020, making it the first tower of its kind in the Congo Basin, measuring how much carbon dioxide the rainforest takes up and how much water evaporates from it. The camera has sent pictures to PhenoCam since May 2022, and the archive for this site held more than 22,000 images by October 2026.

Yangambi grew up around research. In the colonial era it was home to INEAC, the Belgian Congo’s national institute for agronomic studies and one of the world’s most important centers for tropical agriculture and forestry research. After independence the station became part of INERA, the Congolese agronomic research institute. PhenoCam publishes every image from the camera openly under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Weather and Climate in Yangambi

Yangambi lies less than 1 degree north of the equator, so it has no winter or summer in the usual sense. The weather station at the tower site records a mean annual temperature of 24.9 C (76.8 F), and night lows average around 20 C (68 F). Afternoon highs typically run around 30 C (86 F) in every month, with the warmest afternoons tending to come in the drier months around February. The climate is classed as tropical rainforest, and rain falls in every month of the year, adding up to roughly 1,800 millimeters (71 inches) annually.

The year still has a rhythm. February is usually the driest month, and the heaviest rain tends to fall from August to November. In wet spells the camera often shows low cloud or mist lying in the hollows of the forest, as it did at midday in mid-October 2026. The forest is evergreen, so the frame never turns brown, but individual crowns can change shade as they drop old leaves and push out new ones, the slow shift the PhenoCam images are meant to catch. Days last close to 12 hours all year, so the camera’s working hours barely move between seasons.

Things to Do Near Yangambi

Yangambi is a research town rather than a resort, and its landmarks are scientific. The herbarium holds about 150,000 dried plant specimens, and Meise Botanic Garden and INERA renovated it in 2018. In 2019 the Royal Museum for Central Africa opened a wood biology laboratory in the town, the first in sub-Saharan Africa. The reserve itself is wild forest, and a 2018 study confirmed common chimpanzees living in the area.

Kisangani is the nearest city, the capital of Tshopo Province and the fifth most populous urban area in the country, with an estimated 1.6 million people in 2016. From there the CongoFlux team travels about 100 kilometers (62 miles) along the Congo River by pontoon to reach the tower. Upstream of Kisangani, the Boyoma Falls, once called Stanley Falls, string seven cataracts along more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the Lualaba River between Ubundu and Kisangani. None of the steps is more than 5 meters (16 feet) high, but together they drop 61 meters (200 feet) and form the largest waterfall in the world by annual flow volume.

Similar Webcams You Might Like

Another camera in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a research station in Kenya and a cloud forest in Ecuador make good next stops.

• Gorilla Forest Corridor Webcam
• Mpala Research Centre Webcam
• Ecuador Hummingbird Feeders Webcam

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the Congo Rainforest Webcam located?

The camera stands on a research tower in the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve, Tshopo Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The tower is about 6 kilometers (4 miles) north-east of Yangambi town, which lies on the north bank of the Congo River roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Kisangani.

What can you see on the Congo Rainforest Webcam?

The view faces south over unbroken canopy: dozens of broadleaf crowns in different shades of green, a few pale trunks and branches showing between them, and a strip of sky along the top. Mist and low cloud often drift through the frame. There are no roads, rivers or buildings in view.

What is the weather like in Yangambi?

Warm and wet all year. The mean temperature is about 25 C (77 F), nights average around 20 C (68 F), and roughly 1,800 millimeters (71 inches) of rain falls in a typical year. February is usually the driest month, and August to November is the wettest stretch.

Why is the Congo Rainforest Webcam not updating right now?

The camera only takes pictures in daylight, from about 7 am until 5:30 pm Central Africa Time (UTC+2). After dark the afternoon’s last picture stays on screen, and new images start again on their own the next morning, with nothing to reload.

Is the Congo Rainforest Webcam a live video stream?

No. It is a StarDot still camera that sends fresh pictures to the PhenoCam Network through the day. It also records a near-infrared version of the same view, which PhenoCam shows on a separate page.

What does the flux tower at Yangambi measure?

The CongoFlux tower measures the exchange of carbon dioxide between the rainforest and the atmosphere, along with how much water the forest gives off. Before it, the Congo Basin had no tower of this kind.

How tall are the trees at Yangambi?

The canopy around the tower is about 35 meters (115 feet) high. The tower rises to 57 meters (187 feet), so the camera looks down onto the crowns rather than up at them.

Source: PhenoCam Network