戴维·利文斯通（英语：David Livingstone；1813年3月19日－1873年5月1日），英国探险家、传教士，维多利亚瀑布和马拉维湖的发现者，非洲探险的最伟大人物之一。

李文斯顿一生致力向非洲土着传扬基督教，以慰藉非洲土着的心，并深入非洲大陆各处设立布道会，收效甚微；然而，他接受贩卖奴隶军阀保护穿梭非洲内陆各个部落间，虽无力拯救被掳获的奴隶，更坚定了他的信念：认为必须引入「基督教·通商·文明」到非洲的内陆才可能绝禁奴隶贸易。李文斯顿于1858—1864年持续六年，得到每皇家地理学会（Royal Geographical Society）赞助的两次探勘——以结果来论断：受限于他的能力及经验，不能管理一个大型项目，是一个不称职的领导者——政府终止了预算，探勘计划以失败告终。他个人继续第二次的探勘尼罗河源头的任务，最终未能找到非洲尼罗河的集水区，也未能完全拯救黑奴，但他深刻认识及呼吁，使世界注意到非洲奴隶贩卖的悲惨，唤醒人类的良知，最终能在十九世纪结束前将英国议会于1833年8月28日通过废除奴隶制（Slavery Abolition Act 1833）法令，在日不落帝国的各殖民政府实施，在「意识上」终结了与人类文明共存的奴隶制度。

David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with Henry Morton Stanley on 10 November 1871 gave rise to the popular quotation "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Livingstone was one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century in Victorian era Britain. He had a mythical status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial and colonial expansion. His fame as an explorer and his obsession with discovering the sources of the River Nile was founded on the belief that that if he could solve the age old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab-Swahili slave trade. "The Nile sources," he told a friend, "are valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among men. It is this power which I hope to remedy an immense evil." His subsequent exploration of the central African watershed would form the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration. At the same time, his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as a posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European Scramble for Africa".