There are a number of systems of transport in Burundi, including road and water-based infrastructure, the latter of which makes use of Lake Tanganyika. Furthermore, there are also some airports in Burundi.
A great hindrance to Burundi’s economic development is lack of adequate transportation. The country is landlocked, and there are currently no railways in Burundi.
Contents |
Roads total 12,322 kilometres (7,657 mi) as of 2004, and only about 7 percent of them remain open in all weather; the rest are classed as local roads or tracks. In 2003, there were 24,000 passenger cars and 23,500 commercial vehicles.
Lake Tanganyika is used for transport, with the major port on the lake being Bujumbura. Most freight is transported down waterways.
Burundi possesses eight airports, of which one has paved runways, whose length exceeds 3,047m. The main airport in the country is Bujumbura International Airport.
Air service is maintained by Air Burundi, which operates domestic service and flies to Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. International service is also provided by Air Zaïre, Sabena, and other airlines. As of 2004, there were an estimated eight airports in Burundi, of which the international airport in Bujumbura (as of 2005) was the country’s primary and only paved airport. There are also a number of helicopter landing strips. In 1997, 11,000 passengers travelled on international and domestic flights.
1 (2007)
Burundi does not possess any railway infrastructure, although there are proposals to connect Burundi to its neighbours via railway.
A Chinese study in August 2006 resulted in a promise to construct a railway starting at the existing Tanzanian railway network, connecting at Isaka, running via Kigali in Rwanda, through to Burundi. Tanzanian railways use 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) metre gauge, although TAZARA and other neighbouring countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) use the 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) Cape gauge, leading to some potential difficulties.
Another project was launched in the same year, which aims to link Burundi and Rwanda (which also has no railways) to the DRC and Zambia, and therefore to the rest of Southern Africa. At a meeting to inaugurate the Northern Corridor Transit Coordination Authority (NCTCA), the governments of Uganda and Burundi backed the proposed new railway from the Ugandan western railhead at Kasese into the DRC.
Additionally, Burundi has been added to a planned railway project to connect Tanzania and Rwanda.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the CIA World Factbook.
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||