IntroductionNote. This book is based on the Wikipedia article, "Africa." The supporting articles are those referenced as major expansions of selected sections.

Africa

Area Population Pop. density Demonym Countries Dependencies Languages Time Zones Largest cities

30,221,532 km2 (11,668,598.7 sq mi) 1,000,010,0001 (2005, 2nd) 30.51/km2 (about 80/sq mi) African 54 (List of countries) List of languages UTC-1 to UTC+4 List of cities

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area.2 With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent has 54 sovereign states, including Madagascar, various island groups, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a member state of the African Union whose statehood is disputed by Morocco.

1"World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision" United Nations (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, population division) 2Sayre, April Pulley. (1999) Africa, Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 0-7613-1367-2.

Africa, particularly central eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago.3 Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones.4 The African expected economic growth rate is at about 5.0% for 2010 and 5.5% in 2011.5

EtymologyAfri was the name of several Semitic peoples who dwelt in North Africa near Carthage ( in modern Tunisia). Their name is usually connected with Phoenician afar, "dust", but a 1981 hypothesis6 has asserted that it stems from a Berber word ifri or Ifran meaning "cave", in reference to cave dwellers.7 Africa or Ifri or Afer8 is name of Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania (Berber Tribe of Yafran).9 Under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of Africa Province, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Roman suffix "-ca" denotes "country or land".10 The later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. Other etymological hypotheses that have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa":

3Homo sapiens: University of Utah News Release: Feb. 16, 2005 4Visual Geography. "Africa. General info". . Retrieved 2007-11-24. 5IMF WEO Oct. 2010 Retrieved 15-10-2010 6Names of countries, Decret and Fantar, 1981 7The Berbers, by Geo. Babington Michell, p 161, 1903, Journal of Royal African people book on ligne 8 9Itineraria Phoenicia, Edward Lipinski, Peeters Publishers, p200, 2004, ISBN 90-429-1344-4 Book on ligne 10"Consultos.com etymology". .

the 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Ant. 1.15) asserted that it was named for Epher, grandson of Abraham according to Gen. 25:4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya. Latin word aprica ("sunny") mentioned by Isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. the Greek word aphrike (), meaning "without cold." This was proposed by historian Leo Africanus (14881554), who suggested the Greek word phrike (, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with the privative prefix "a-", thus indicating a land free of cold and horror. Massey, in 1881, derived an etymology from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, "to turn toward the opening of the Ka." The Ka is the energetic double of every person and "opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the Egyptians, "the birthplace."11 yet another hypothesis was proposed by Michle Fruyt in Revue de Philologie 50, 1976: 221238, linking the Latin word with africus 'south wind', which would be of Umbrian origin and mean originally 'rainy wind'. The Irish female name Aifric is sometimes anglicised as Africa, but the given name is unrelated to the geonym.

History

11"'Nile Genesis: the opus of Gerald Massey'" . Gerald-massey.org.uk. 1907-10-29. . Retrieved 2010-05-18.

PaleohistoryAt the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, Africa was joined with Earth's other continents in Pangaea.12 Africa shared the supercontinent's relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by theropods, prosauropods and primitive ornithischians by the close of the Triassic period.13 Late Triassic fossils are found through-out Africa, but are more common in the south than north.14 The boundary separating the Triassic and Jurassic marks the advent of an extinction event with global impact, although African strata from this time period have not been thoroughly studied.15 Early Jurassic strata are distributed in a similar fashion to Late Triassic beds, with more common outcrops in the south and less common fossil beds which are predominated by tracks to the north.16 As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more iconic groups of dinosaurs like sauropods and ornithopods proliferated in Africa.17 Middle Jurassic strata are neither well represented nor well studied in Africa.18 Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented apart from the spectacular Tendaguru fauna in Tanzania.19 The Late Jurassic life of Tendaguru is very similar to that found in western North America's Morrison Formation.20 Midway through the Mesozoic, about 150160 million years ago, Madagascar separated from Africa, although it remained connected to India and the rest of the Gondwanan landmasses.21 Fossils from Madagascar include abelisaurs and titanosaurs.22 Later into the Early Cretaceous epoch, the India-Madagascar landmass separated from the rest of Gondwana.23 By the Late Cretaceous, Madagascar and India had permanently split ways and continued until later reaching their modern configurations.24

12Jacobs, Louis L. (1997). "African Dinosaurs." Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. Edited by Phillip J. Currie and Kevin Padian. Academic Press. pp. 24. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

By contrast to Madagascar, mainland Africa was relatively stable in position through-out the Mesozoic.25 Despite the stable position, major changes occurred to its relation to other landmasses as the remains of Pangea continued to break apart.26 By the beginning of the Late Cretaceous epoch South America had split off from Africa, completing the southern half of the Atlantic Ocean.27 This event had a profound effect on global climate by altering ocean currents.28 During the Cretaceous, Africa was populated by allosauroids and spinosaurids, including the largest known carnivorous dinosaurs.29 Titanosaurs were significant herbivores in its ancient ecosystems.30 Cretaceous sites are more common than Jurassic ones, but are often unable to be dated radiometrically making it difficult to know their exact ages.31 Paleontologist Louis Jacobs, who spent time doing field work in Malawi, says that African beds are "in need of more field work" and will prove to be a "fertile ground ... for discovery."32

Pre-historyAfrica is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the human species originating from the continent.3334 During the middle of the twentieth century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as 7 million years ago. Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern man, such as Australopithecus afarensis (radiometrically dated to approximately 3.93.0 million years BC),35 Paranthropus boisei (c. 2.31.4 million years BC)36 and Homo ergaster (c. 1.9 million600,000 years BC) have been discovered.37 Throughout humanity's prehistory, Africa (like all other continents) had no nation states, and was instead inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers such as the Khoi and San.383940

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33Genetic study roots humans in Africa, BBC News | SCI/TECH 34Migration of Early Humans From Africa Aided By Wet Weather , sciencedaily.com 35Kimbel, William H. and Yoel Rak and Donald C. Johanson. (2004) The Skull of Australopithecus Afarensis, Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-515706-0. 36Tudge, Colin. (2002) The Variety of Life., Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860426-2. 37 38van Sertima, Ivan. (1995) Egypt: Child of Africa/S V12 (Ppr), Transaction Publishers. pp. 324325. ISBN 1-56000-792-3. 39Mokhtar, G. (1990) UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. II, Abridged Edition: Ancient Africa, University of California Press. ISBN 0-85255-092-8. 40Eyma, A. K. and C. J. Bennett. (2003) Delts-Man in Yebu: Occasional Volume of the Egyptologists' Electronic Forum No. 1, Universal Publishers. p. 210. SBN 1-58112-564-X.

At the end of the Ice Ages, estimated to have been around 10,500 BC, the Sahara had again become a green fertile valley, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5000 BC the Sahara region was becoming increasingly dry and hostile. The population trekked out of the Sahara region towards the Nile Valley below the Second Cataract where they made permanent or semi-permanent settlements. A major climatic recession occurred, lessening the heavy and persistent rains in Central and Eastern Africa. Since this time dry conditions have prevailed in Eastern Africa, and increasingly during the last 200 years, in Ethiopia. The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gathering cultures. It is speculated that by 6000 BC cattle were already domesticated in North Africa.41 In the Sahara-Nile complex, people domesticated many animals including the donkey, and a small screw-horned goat which was common from Algeria to Nubia. In the year 4000 BC the climate of the Sahara started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace.42 This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause migrations of farming communities to the more tropical climate of West Africa.43 By the first millennium BC ironworking had been introduced in Northern Africa and quickly spread across the Sahara into the northern parts of subSaharan Africa44 and by 500 BC metalworking began to become commonplace in West Africa. Ironworking was fully established by roughly 500 BC in many areas of East and West Africa, although other regions didn't begin ironworking until the early centuries AD. Copper objects from Egypt, North Africa, Nubia and Ethiopia dating from around 500 BC have been excavated in West Africa, suggesting that trans-saharan trade networks had been established by this date.45

Early civilizationsAt about 3300 BC, the historical record opens in Northern Africa with the rise of literacy in the Pharaonic civilisation of Ancient Egypt.46 One of the world's earliest and longest-lasting civilizations, the Egyptian state continued, with varying levels of influence over other areas, until 343 BC.4748 Egyptian influence reached deep into modern-day Libya, north to Crete49 and Canaan, and south to the kingdoms of Aksum and Nubia.41Diamond, Jared. (1999) "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York:Norton, pp.167. 42O'Brien, Patrick K. (General Editor). Oxford Atlas of World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. pp.2223 43 44Martin and O'Meara. "Africa, 3rd Ed." Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995. [0] 45 46Were Egyptians the first scribes?, BBC News | Sci/Tech 47Hassan, Fekri A. (2002) Droughts, Food and Culture, Springer. p. 17. ISBN 0-306-46755-0. 48McGrail, Sean. (2004) Boats of the World, Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN 0-19927186-0. 49Shavit, Jacob; Shavit, Yaacov (2001). History in Black: African-Americans in Search of an Ancient Past. Taylor & Francis. p. 77. ISBN 0-714-68216-0. .

An independent centre of civilisation with trading links to Phoenicia was established by Phoenicians from Tyre on the north-west African coast at Carthage.505152 European exploration of Africa began with Ancient Greeks and Romans. In 332 BC, Alexander the Great was welcomed as a liberator in Persian-occupied Egypt. He founded Alexandria in Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty after his death.53 Following the conquest of North Africa's Mediterranean coastline by the Roman Empire, the area was integrated economically and culturally into the Roman system. Roman settlement occurred in modern Tunisia and elsewhere along the coast. Christianity spread across these areas from Palestine via Egypt, also passing south, beyond the borders of the Roman world into Nubia and by at least the 6th century into Ethiopia. In the early 7th century, the newly formed Arabian Islamic Caliphate expanded into Egypt, and then into North Africa. In a short while the local Berber elite had been integrated into Muslim Arab tribes. When the Ummayad capital Damascus fell in the eight century, the Islamic center of the Mediterranean shifted from Syria to Qayrawan in North Africa. Islamic North Africa had become diverse, and a hub for mystics, scholars, jurists and philosophers. During the above mentioned period, Islam spread to subSaharan Africa, mainly through trade routes and migration. 54

9th18th centuryPre-colonial Africa possessed perhaps as many as 10,000 different states and polities55 characterised by many different sorts of political organisation and rule. These included small family groups of hunter-gatherers such as the San people of southern Africa; larger, more structured groups such as the family clan groupings of the Bantu-speaking people of central and southern Africa, heavily structured clan groups in the Horn of Africa, the large Sahelian kingdoms, and autonomous city-states and kingdoms such as those of the Yoruba and Igbo people (also misspelled as Ibo) in West Africa, and the Swahili coastal trading towns of East Africa. By the 9th century AD a string of dynastic states, including the earliest Hausa states, stretched across the sub-saharan savannah from the western regions to central Sudan. The most powerful of these states were Ghana, Gao, and the Kanem-Bornu Empire. Ghana declined in the 11th century but was succeeded by the Mali Empire which consolidated much of western Sudan in the 13th century. Kanem accepted Islam in the 11th century.50Fage, J. D. (1979) The Cambridge History of Africa, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521-21592-7. 51Fage, J. D., et al (1986) The Cambridge History of Africa, Cambridge University Press. Vol. 2, p. 118. 52Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore. (1994) Africa Since 1800, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42970-6. 53"Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt: 332 BC-395 AD" . Wsu.edu. 1999-06-06. . Retrieved 2010-0518. 54Ayoub, Mahmoud M. (2004). Islam: Faith and History. Oxford: Oneworld. pp. 76, 923, 96 7. 55Meredith, Martin (January 20, 2006). "The Fate of Africa A Survey of Fifty Years of Independence". washingtonpost.com. . Retrieved 2007-07-23.

In the forested regions of the West African coast, independent kingdoms grew up with little influence from the Muslim north. The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo was established around the 9th century and was one of the first. It is also one of the oldest Kingdom in modern day Nigeria and was ruled by the Eze Nri. The Nri kingdom is famous for its elaborate bronzes, found at the town of Igbo Ukwu. The bronzes have been dated from as far back as the 9th century. 56 The Ife, historically the first of these Yoruba city-states or kingdoms, established government under a priestly oba (ruler), (oba means 'king' or 'ruler' in the Yoruba language), called the Ooni of Ife. Ife was noted as a major religious and cultural centre in Africa, and for its unique naturalistic tradition of bronze sculpture. The Ife model of government was adapted at Oyo, where its obas or kings, called the Alaafins of Oyo once controlled a large number of other Yoruba and non Yoruba city states and Kingdoms, the Fon Kingdom of Dahomey was one of the non Yoruba domains under Oyo control. The Almoravids were a Berber dynasty from the Sahara that spread over a wide area of northwestern Africa and the Iberian peninsula during the 11th century.57 The Banu Hilal and Banu Ma'qil were a collection of Arab Bedouin tribes from the Arabian peninsula who migrated westwards via Egypt between the 11th and 13th centuries. Their migration resulted in the fusion of the Arabs and Berbers, where the locals were Arabized,58 and Arab culture absorbed elements of the local culture, under the unifying framework of Islam.59 Following the breakup of Mali a local leader named Sonni Ali (14641492) founded the Songhai Empire in the region of middle Niger and the western Sudan and took control of the trans-Saharan trade. Sonni Ali seized Timbuktu in 1468 and Jenne in 1473, building his regime on trade revenues and the cooperation of Muslim merchants. His successor Askia Mohammad I (1493 1528) made Islam the official religion, built mosques, and brought Muslim scholars, including al-Maghili (d.1504), the founder of an important tradition of Sudanic African Muslim scholarship, to Gao.60 By the 11th century some Hausa states such as Kano, jigawa, Katsina, and Gobir had developed into walled towns engaging in trade, servicing caravans, and the manufacture of goods. Until the 15th century these small states were on the periphery of the major Sudanic empires of the era, paying tribute to Songhai to the west and Kanem-Borno to the east.

56"Igbo-Ukwu (ca. 9th century) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art". Metmuseum.org. . Retrieved 2010-05-18. 57Glick, Thomas F. Islamic And Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages. (2005) Brill Academic Publishers page 37 58" Mauritania Arab invasions". Library of Congress Country Studies. 59"Genetic Evidence for the Expansion of Arabian Tribes into the Southern Levant and North Africa". Pubmedcentral.nih.gov. 2010-04-01. . Retrieved 2010-05-18. 60Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge 1988

Height of slave tradeSlavery had long been practiced in Africa.6162 Between the seventh and twentieth centuries, Arab slave trade (also known as slavery in the East) took 18 million slaves from Africa via trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes. Between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries(2000 years) , the Atlantic slave trade took an estimated 712 million slaves to the New World. 636465 In West Africa, the decline of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1820s caused dramatic economic shifts in local polities. The gradual decline of slave-trading, prompted by a lack of demand for slaves in the New World, increasing antislavery legislation in Europe and America, and the British Royal Navy's increasing presence off the West African coast, obliged African states to adopt new economies. Between 1808 and 1860, the British West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.66 Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.67 The largest powers of West Africa: the Asante Confederacy, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and the Oyo Empire, adopted different ways of adapting to the shift. Asante and Dahomey concentrated on the development of "legitimate commerce" in the form of palm oil, cocoa, timber and gold, forming the bedrock of West Africa's modern export trade. The Oyo Empire, unable to adapt, collapsed into civil wars.68

Colonialism and the "Scramble for Africa"In the late nineteenth century, the European imperial powers engaged in a major territorial scramble and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial territories, and leaving only two fully independent states: Ethiopia (known to Europeans as "Abyssinia"), and Liberia. Egypt and Sudan were never formally incorporated into any European colonial empire; however, after the British occupation of 1882, Egypt was effectively under British administration until 1922.

61Historical survey > Slave societies , Encyclopdia Britannica 62Swahili Coast, National Geographic 63Welcome to Encyclopdia Britannica's Guide to Black History , Encyclopdia Britannica 64Focus on the slave trade, BBC 65Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa p 25 by Paul E. Lovejoy 66Sailing against slavery. By Jo Loosemore BBC 67"The West African Squadron and slave trade" . Pdavis.nl. . Retrieved 2010-05-18. 68Simon, Julian L. (1995) State of Humanity, Blackwell Publishing. p. 175. ISBN 1-55786-585X.

Berlin ConferenceThe Berlin Conference held in 188485 was an important event in the political future of African ethnic groups. It was convened by King Leopold of Belgium, and attended by the European powers that laid claim to African territories. It sought to bring an end to the Scramble for Africa by European powers by agreeing on political division and spheres of influence. They set up political the divisions continent by spheres of interest that exist in Africa today.

Independance StrugglesImperial rule by Europeans would continue until after the conclusion of World War II, when almost all remaining colonial territories gradually obtained formal independence.Independence movements in Africa gained momentum following World War II, which left the major European powers weakened. In 1951, Libya, a former Italian colony, gained independence. In 1956, Tunisia and Morocco won their independence from France. Ghana followed suit the next year, becoming the first of the sub-Saharan colonies to be freed. Most of the rest of the continent became independent over the next decade. Portugal's overseas presence in Sub-Saharan Africa (most notably in Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and So Tom and Prncipe) lasted from the 16th century to 1975, after the Estado Novo regime was overthrown in a military coup in Lisbon. Zimbabwe won its independence from the United Kingdom in 1980 after a bitter guerrilla war between black nationalists and the white minority Rhodesian government of Ian Smith. Although South Africa was one of the first African countries to gain independence, the state remained under the control of the country's white minority through a system of racial segregation known as apartheid until 1994.

Post-colonial AfricaToday, Africa contains 54 sovereign countries, most of which still have the borders drawn during the era of European colonialism. Since colonialism, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African states are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule. However, few of them have been able to sustain democratic governments on a permanent basis, and many have instead cycled through a series of coups, producing military dictatorships. Great instability was mainly the result of marginalization of ethnic groups, and graft under these leaders. For political gain, many leaders fanned ethnic conflicts that had been exacerbated, or even created, by colonial rule. In many countries, the military was perceived as being the only group that could effectively maintain order, and it ruled many nations in Africa during the 1970s and early 1980s. During the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, Africa had more than 70 coups and 13 presidential assassinations. Border and territorial disputes were also common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.

Cold War conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the policies of the International Monetary Fund, also played a role in instability. When a country became independent for the first time, it was often expected to align with one of the two superpowers. Many countries in Northern Africa received Soviet military aid, while many in Central and Southern Africa were supported by the United States, France or both. The 1970s saw an escalation, as newly independent Angola and Mozambique aligned themselves with the Soviet Union, and the West and South Africa sought to contain Soviet influence by funding insurgency movements. There was a major famine in Ethiopia, when hundreds of thousands of people starved. Some claimed that Marxist/Soviet policies made the situation worse.697071 The most devastating military conflict in modern independent Africa has been the Second Congo War. By 2008, this conflict and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people. Since 2003 there has been an ongoing conflict in Darfur which has become a humanitarian disaster. AIDS has also been a prevalent issue in post-colonial Africa.

GeographyAfrica is the largest of the three great southward projections from the largest landmass of the Earth. Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez (transected by the Suez Canal), 163 km (101 miles) wide.72 (Geopolitically, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula east of the Suez Canal is often considered part of Africa, as well.)73 From the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia (3721' N), to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa (3451'15" S), is a distance of approximately 8,000 km (5,000 miles);74 from Cape Verde, 1733'22" W, the westernmost point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, 5127'52" E, the most easterly projection, is a distance of approximately 7,400 km (4,600 miles).75 The coastline is 26,000 km (16,100 miles) long, and the absence of deep indentations of the shore is illustrated by the fact that Europe, which covers only 10,400,000 km (4,010,000 square miles) about a third of the surface of Africa has a coastline of 32,000 km (19,800 miles).76

69"BBC: 1984 famine in Ethiopia". BBC News. 2000-04-06. . Retrieved 2010-01-01. 70Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa 1990, ISBN 0-521-36022-6, pp. 295296 71Steven Varnis, Reluctant aid or aiding the reluctant?: U.S. food aid policy and the Ethiopian Famine Relief 1990, ISBN 0-88738-348-3, p.38 72Drysdale, Alasdair and Gerald H. Blake. (1985) The Middle East and North Africa, Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-503538-0. 73"Atlas - Xpeditions @ nationalgeographic.com" . National Geographic Society. 2003. . Retrieved 2009-03-01. 74Lewin, Evans. (1924) Africa, Clarendon press. 75(1998) Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary (Index), Merriam-Webster. pp. 1011. ISBN 0-87779-546-0. 76

Africa's largest country is Sudan, and its smallest country is the Seychelles, an archipelago off the east coast.77 The smallest nation on the continental mainland is The Gambia. According to the ancient Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while "Asia" was used to refer to Anatolia and lands to the east. A definite line was drawn between the two continents by the geographer Ptolemy (85165 AD), indicating Alexandria along the Prime Meridian and making the isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea the boundary between Asia and Africa. As Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. Geologically, Africa includes the Arabian Peninsula; the Zagros Mountains of Iran and the Anatolian Plateau of Turkey mark where the African Plate collided with Eurasia. The Afrotropic ecozone and the Saharo-Arabian desert to its north unite the region biogeographically, and the Afro-Asiatic language family unites the north linguistically.

ClimateThe climate of Africa ranges from tropical to subarctic on its highest peaks. Its northern half is primarily desert or arid, while its central and southern areas contain both savanna plains and very dense jungle (rainforest) regions. In between, there is a convergence where vegetation patterns such as sahel, and steppe dominate.

FaunaAfrica boasts perhaps the world's largest combination of density and "range of freedom" of wild animal populations and diversity, with wild populations of large carnivores (such as lions, hyenas, and cheetahs) and herbivores (such as buffalo, deer, elephants, camels, and giraffes) ranging freely on primarily open non-private plains. It is also home to a variety of "jungle" animals including snakes and primates and aquatic life such as crocodiles and amphibians. Africa also has the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna.

77Hoare, Ben. (2002) The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications. p. 11. ISBN 07534-5569-2.

EcologyDeforestation is affecting Africa at twice the world rate, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).78 Some sources claim that deforestation has already wiped out roughly 90% of West Africa's original forests.79 Since the arrival of humans 2000 years ago, Madagascar has lost more than 90% of its original forest.80 About 65% of Africa's agricultural land suffers from soil degradation.81

PoliticsThe African Union (AU) is a 53 member federation consisting of all of Africa's states except Morocco. The union was formed, with Addis Ababa as its headquarters, on 26 June 2001. In July 2004, the African Union's Pan-African Parliament (PAP) was relocated to Midrand, in South Africa, but the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights remained in Addis Ababa. There is a policy in effect to decentralize the African Federation's institutions so that they are shared by all the states. The African Union, not to be confused with the AU Commission, is formed by the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which aims to transform the African Economic Community, a federated commonwealth, into a state under established international conventions. The African Union has a parliamentary government, known as the African Union Government, consisting of legislative, judicial and executive organs. It is led by the African Union President and Head of State, who is also the President of the Pan African Parliament. A person becomes AU President by being elected to the PAP, and subsequently gaining majority support in the PAP. 1 The powers and authority of the President of the African Parliament derive from the Constitutive Act and the Protocol of the Pan African Parliament, as well as the inheritance of presidential authority stipulated by African treaties and by international treaties, including those subordinating the Secretary General of the OAU Secretariat (AU Commission) to the PAP. The government of the AU consists of all-union (federal), regional, state, and municipal authorities, as well as hundreds of institutions, that together manage the day-to-day affairs of the institution. There are clear signs of increased networking among African organisations and states. In the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Zaire), rather than rich, non-African countries intervening, neighbouring African countries became involved (see also Second Congo War). Since the conflict began in 1998, the estimated death toll has reached 5 million.

78Deforestation reaches worrying level UN . AfricaNews. June 11, 2008. 79Forests and deforestation in Africa the wasting of an immense resource . afrol News. 80Terrestrial Ecoregions Madagascar subhumid forests (AT0118), National Geographic. 81Nature laid waste: The destruction of Africa. The Independent. June 11, 2008.

Political associations such as the African Union offer hope for greater cooperation and peace between the continent's many countries. Extensive human rights abuses still occur in several parts of Africa, often under the oversight of the state. Most of such violations occur for political reasons, often as a side effect of civil war. Countries where major human rights violations have been reported in recent times include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Cte d'Ivoire.

EconomyAlthough it has abundant natural resources, Africa remains the world's poorest and most underdeveloped continent, due to a variety of causes that may include the spread of deadly diseases and viruses (notably HIV/AIDS and malaria), corrupt governments that have often committed serious human rights violations, failed central planning, high levels of illiteracy, lack of access to foreign capital, and frequent tribal and military conflict (ranging from guerrilla warfare to genocide).82 According to the United Nations' Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 25 ranked nations (151st to 175th) were all African.83 Poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and inadequate water supply and sanitation, as well as poor health, affect a large proportion of the people who reside in the African continent. In August 2008, the World Bank84 announced revised global poverty estimates based on a new international poverty line of $1.25 per day (versus the previous measure of $1.00). 80.5% of the Sub-Saharan Africa population was living on less than $2.50 (PPP) a day in 2005, compared with 85.7% for India.85 The new figures confirm that sub-Saharan Africa has been the least successful region of the world in reducing poverty ($1.25 per day); some 50% of the population living in poverty in 1981 (200 million people), a figure that rose to 58% in 1996 before dropping to 50% in 2005 (380 million people). The average poor person in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to live on only 70 cents per day, and was poorer in 2003 than he or she was in 1973 86 indicating increasing poverty in some areas. Some of it is attributed to unsuccessful economic liberalization programs spearheaded by foreign companies and governments, but other studies and reports have cited bad domestic government policies more than external factors.87888982Richard Sandbrook, The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985 passim 83[1], United Nations 84"World Bank Updates Poverty Estimates for the Developing World" . Econ.worldbank.org. . Retrieved 2010-05-18. 85"The developing world is poorer than we thought, but no less successful in the fight against poverty". World Bank. . 86Economic report on Africa 2004: unlocking Africas potential in the global economy , (Substantive session 28 June-23 July 2004) United Nations 87"Neo-Liberalism and the Economic and Political Future of Africa" . Globalpolitician.com. 2005-12-19. . Retrieved 2010-05-18. 88"Capitalism Africa Neoliberalism, Structural Adjustment, And The African Reaction" . Science.jrank.org. . Retrieved 2010-05-18. 89http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=58925

From 1995 to 2005, Africa's rate of economic growth increased, averaging 5% in 2005. Some countries experienced still higher growth rates, notably Angola, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea, all three of which had recently begun extracting their petroleum reserves or had expanded their oil extraction capacity. The continent has 90% of the worlds cobalt, 90% of its platinum, 50% of its gold, 98% of its chromium, 70% of its tantalite,90 64% of its manganese and one-third of its uranium.91 The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has 70% of the worlds coltan, and most mobile phones in the world have coltan in them. The DRC also has more than 30% of the worlds diamond reserves.92 Guinea is the worlds largest exporter of bauxite.93 As the growth in Africa has been driven mainly by services and not manufacturing or agriculture, it has been growth without jobs and without reduction in poverty levels. In fact, the food security crisis of 2008 which took place on the heels of the global financial crisis has pushed back 100 million people into food insecurity.94 In recent years, the People's Republic of China has built increasingly stronger ties with African nations. In 2007, Chinese companies invested a total of US$1 billion in Africa.95

DemographicsAfrica's population has rapidly increased over the last 40 years, and consequently it is relatively young. In some African states half or more of the population is under 25 years of age.96 African population grew from 221 million in 1950 to 1 billion in 2009.9798 Speakers of Bantu languages (part of the Niger-Congo family) are the majority in southern, central and East Africa proper. But there are also several Nilotic groups in East Africa, and a few remaining indigenous Khoisan ('San' or 'Bushmen') and Pygmy peoples in southern and central Africa, respectively. Bantu-speaking Africans also predominate in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and are found in parts of southern Cameroon. In the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, the distinct people known as the Bushmen (also "San", closely related to, but distinct from "Hottentots") have long been present. The San are physically distinct from other Africans and are the indigenous people of southern Africa. Pygmies are the pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of central Africa.9990" Africa: Developed Countries' Leverage On the Continent". AllAfrica.com. February 7, 2008. 91" Africa, China's new frontier". Times Online. February 10, 2008. 92" DR Congo poll crucial for Africa". BBC News. November 16, 2006. 93" China tightens grip on Africa with $4.4bn lifeline for Guinea junta". The Times. October 13, 2009. 94" The African Decade?". Ilmas Futehally. Strategic Foresight Group 95" China and Africa: Stronger Economic Ties Mean More Migration". By Malia Politzer, Migration Information Source. August 2008. 96"Africa Population Dynamics". . 97Population. Western Kentucky University. 98Africa's population now 1 billion. AfricaNews. August 25, 2009. 99Pygmies struggle to survive in war zone where abuse is routine . Times Online. December 16, 2004.

The peoples of North Africa comprise two main Semitic groups; Berber and Arabic-speaking peoples in the west, and Egyptians and Libyans in the east. These peoples have always been ethnically, culturally, physically, historically and linguistically far more closely related to the Semites of the Middle East than to the Africans of Sub Saharan Africa. The Arabs who arrived in the seventh century introduced the Arabic language and Islam to North Africa. The Semitic Phoenicians (who founded Carthage) and Hyksos, the IndoIranian Alans, the Indo- European Greeks, Romans and Vandals settled in North Africa as well. Berbers still make up the majority in Morocco, while they are a significant minority within Algeria. They are also present in Tunisia and Libya.100 The Semitic Tuareg and other often-nomadic peoples are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan-speaking group (though many also speak Arabic), who developed an ancient civilisation in northeast Africa. Some Ethiopian and Eritrean groups (like the Amhara and Tigrayans, collectively known as "Habesha") speak languages from the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic linguistic family (due to invasion and settlement in the region by Semitic peoples from North Africa and Arabia), while the Oromo and Somali speak languages from the Cushitic branch of Afro-Asiatic. Sudan is divided between a mostly Muslim Nubian and Beja north and a Christian and animist Nilotic south, with Mauritania somewhat similarly structured. Some areas of East Africa, particularly the island of Zanzibar and the Kenyan island of Lamu, have also received Arab Muslim and Southwest Asian settlers and merchants throughout the Middle Ages and in antiquity.101 Prior to the decolonization movements of the post-World War II era, Europeans were represented in every part of Africa.102 Decolonisation during the 1960s and 1970s often resulted in the mass emigration of Europeandescended settlers out of Africa especially from Algeria and Morocco (1.6 million pieds-noirs in North Africa),103 Kenya, Congo,104 Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola.105 By the end of 1977, more than one million Portuguese were thought to have returned from Africa.106 Nevertheless, White Africans remain an important minority in many African states, particularly South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Runion.107 The African country with the largest White African population is South Africa.108 The Afrikaners, the Anglo-Africans (of British origin) and the Coloureds are the largest European-descended groups in Africa today.

100Q&A: The Berbers. BBC News. March 12, 2004. 101The Story of Africa. BBC World Service. 102"We Want Our Country" (3 of 10). Time. November 5, 1965 103Raimondo Cagiano De Azevedo (1994). " Migration and development co-operation.". Council of Europe. p.25. ISBN 9287126119 104Jungle Shipwreck. Time. July 25, 1960 105Flight from Angola, The Economist , August 16, 1975 106Portugal - Emigration, Eric Solsten, ed. Portugal: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993. 107Holm, John A. (1989). Pidgins and Creoles: References survey. Cambridge University Press. p. 394. ISBN 0521359406. 108South Africa: People: Ethnic Groups. World Factbook of CIA

European colonization also brought sizable groups of Asians, particularly people from the Indian subcontinent, to British colonies. Large Indian communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are present in Kenya, Tanzania, and some other southern and East African countries. The large Indian community in Uganda was expelled by the dictator Idi Amin in 1972, though many have since returned. The islands in the Indian Ocean are also populated primarily by people of Asian origin, often mixed with Africans and Europeans. The Malagasy people of Madagascar are an Austronesian people, but those along the coast are generally mixed with Bantu, Arab, Indian and European origins. Malay and Indian ancestries are also important components in the group of people known in South Africa as Cape Coloureds (people with origins in two or more races and continents). During the 20th century, small but economically important communities of Lebanese and Chinese109 have also developed in the larger coastal cities of West and East Africa, respectively.110

LanguagesBy most estimates, well over a thousand languages (UNESCO has estimated around two thousand) are spoken in Africa.111 Most are of African origin, though some are of European or Asian origin. Africa is the most multilingual continent in the world, and it is not rare for individuals to fluently speak not only multiple African languages, but one or more European ones as well. There are four major language families indigenous to Africa. The Afro-Asiatic languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285 million people widespread throughout the Horn of Africa, North Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia. The Nilo-Saharan language family consists of more than a hundred languages spoken by 30 million people. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by Nilotic tribes in Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, and northern Tanzania. The Niger-Congo language family covers much of Sub-Saharan Africa and is probably the largest language family in the world in terms of different languages. The Khoisan languages number about fifty and are spoken in Southern Africa by approximately 120,000 people. Many of the Khoisan languages are endangered. The Khoi and San peoples are considered the original inhabitants of this part of Africa.

109 110" Lebanese Immigrants Boost West African Commerce", By Naomi Schwarz, VOANews.com, July 10, 2007 111"Africa". UNESCO. 2005. Archived from the original on June 2, 2008. . Retrieved 2009-0301.

Following the end of colonialism, nearly all African countries adopted official languages that originated outside the continent, although several countries also granted legal recognition to indigenous languages (such as Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa). In numerous countries, English and French (see African French) are used for communication in the public sphere such as government, commerce, education and the media. Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Malagasy and Spanish are examples of languages that trace their origin to outside of Africa, and that are used by millions of Africans today, both in the public and private spheres. Prior to World War I, Italian and German were used in certain areas also.

CultureSome aspects of traditional African cultures have become less practiced in recent years as a result of years of neglect and suppression by colonial and post-colonial regimes. There is now a resurgence in the attempts to rediscover and revalourise African traditional cultures, under such movements as the African Renaissance, led by Thabo Mbeki, Afrocentrism, led by a group of scholars, including Molefi Asante, as well as the increasing recognition of traditional spiritualism through decriminalization of Vodou and other forms of spirituality. In recent years, traditional African culture has become synonymous with rural poverty and subsistence farming.

Visual art and architectureAfrican art and architecture reflect the diversity of African cultures. The oldest existing examples of art from Africa are 82,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells that were found in the Aterian levels at Grotte des Pigeons, Taforalt, Morocco. The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt was the world's tallest structure for 4,000 years, until the completion of Lincoln Cathedral around the year 1300. The stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe are also noteworthy for their architecture, and the complexity of monolithic churches at Lalibela, Ethiopia, of which the Church of Saint George is representative.

Music and danceEgypt has long been a cultural focus of the Arab world, while remembrance of the rhythms of sub-Saharan Africa, in particular West Africa, was transmitted through the Atlantic slave trade to modern samba, blues, jazz, reggae, hip hop, and rock. The 1950s through the 1970s saw a conglomeration of these various styles with the popularization of Afrobeat and Highlife music. Modern music of the continent includes the highly complex choral singing of southern Africa and the dance rhythms of the musical genre of soukous, dominated by the music of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Indigenous musical and dance traditions of Africa are maintained by oral traditions, and they are distinct from the music and dance styles of North Africa and Southern Africa. Arab influences are visible in North African music and dance and, in Southern Africa, Western influences are apparent due to colonisation.

SportsFifty-three African countries have football (soccer) teams in the Confederation of African Football, while Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana have advanced to the knockout stage of recent FIFA World Cups. South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup tournament, becoming the first African country to do so. According to FIFA ranking, Egypt currently has the best soccer team in Africa. Their team has won the African Cup 7 times, and a record-making 3 times in a row. Cricket is popular in some African nations. South Africa and Zimbabwe have Test status, while Kenya is the leading non-test team in One-Day International cricket and has attained permanent One-Day International status. The three countries jointly hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Namibia is the other African country to have played in a World Cup. Morocco in northern Africa has also hosted the 2002 Morocco Cup, but the national team has never qualified for a major tournament. Rugby is a popular sport in South Africa.

ReligionAfricans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs 112 and statistics on religious affiliation are difficult to come by since they are too sensitive a topic for governments with mixed populations.113 According to the World Book Encyclopedia, Islam is the largest religion in Africa, followed by Christianity. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, 45% of the population are Muslims, 40% are Christians and less than 15% continue to follow traditional African religions. A small number of Africans are Hindu, Baha'i, or have beliefs from the Judaic tradition. Examples of African Jews are the Beta Israel, Lemba peoples and the Abayudaya of Eastern Uganda. There is also a small minority of Africans who are non-religious.

Territories and regionsThe countries in this table are categorised according to the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations, and data included are per sources in cross-referenced articles. Where they differ, provisos are clearly indicated. Name of Area 114 region and (km) territory, with flag Eastern Africa: 6,384,904 Population (2009 est) Density (per km) Capital

except where noted

316,053,651

49.5

112"African Religion on the Internet" , Stanford University 113Onishi, Normitsu (November 1, 2001). "Rising Muslim Power in Africa Causing Unrest in Nigeria and Elsewhere". The New York Times Company. . Retrieved 2009-03-01. 114Continental regions as per UN categorisations/map.

Burundi Comoros Djibouti Eritrea Ethiopia Kenya

27,830 2,170 23,000 121,320 1,127,127 582,650

8,988,091115 752,438116 516,055117 5,647,168118 85,237,338119 39,002,772120 20,653,556121 14,268,711122 1,284,264123 223,765124

322.9 346.7 22.4 46.5 75.6 66.0 35.1 120.4 629.5 489.7

Bujumbura Moroni Djibouti Asmara Addis Ababa Nairobi Antananarivo Lilongwe Port Louis Mamoudzou

Madagascar587,040 Malawi Mauritius Mayotte (France) 801,590 Mozambique Runion (France) Rwanda 26,338 2,512 118,480 2,040 374

21,669,278125

27.0

Maputo

743,981(2002) 296.2

Saint-Denis

10,473,282126 87,476127 9,832,017128

397.6 192.2 15.4

Kigali Victoria Mogadishu

Seychelles 455 Somalia 637,657

115USCensusBureau:Countries and Areas Ranked by Population: 2009 119 118 117 116 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128

Tanzania Uganda Zambia

945,087 236,040 752,614

41,048,532129 32,369,558130 11,862,740131 121,585,754 12,799,293132 18,879,301133 4,511,488134

43.3 137.1 15.7 18.4 10.3 39.7 7.2

Dodoma Kampala Lusaka

Middle Africa:6,613,253 Angola Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Congo 1,284,000 342,000 1,246,700 475,440 622,984

Luanda Yaound Bangui

10,329,208135 4,012,809136 68,692,542137

8.0 11.7 29.2

N'Djamena Brazzaville Kinshasa

Democratic 2,345,410 Republic of the Congo Equatorial Guinea Gabon So Tom and Prncipe Northern Africa: Algeria129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141

28,051

633,441138

22.6

Malabo

267,667 1,001

1,514,993139 212,679140

5.6 212.4

Libreville So Tom

8,533,021 2,381,740

211,087,622 34,178,188141

24.7 14.3 Algiers

Egypt142 Libya Morocco Sudan Tunisia Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic148

1,001,450 1,759,540 446,550 2,505,810 163,610 266,000

83,082,869143 82.9 total, Asia 1.4m 6,310,434144 34,859,364145 41,087,825146 10,486,339147 405,210149 3.6 78.0 16.4 64.1 1.5

Cairo Tripoli Rabat Khartoum Tunis El Aain

Spanish and Portuguese territories in Northern Africa: Canary Islands (Spain)150 Ceuta (Spain)151 Madeira Islands (Portugal)152142Egypt is generally considered a transcontinental country in Northern Africa (UN region) and Western Asia; population and area figures are for African portion only, west of the Suez Canal. 143 144 145 146 147 148The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is recognized as a sovereign state by the African Union, however, Morocco claims the entirety of the country as Morocco's own Southern Provinces, and has occupied most of its territory since it declared its independence from Spain in 1976. Morocco's occupation and annexation of this territory has not been recognized internationally. 149 150The Spanish Canary Islands, of which Las Palmas de Gran Canaria are Santa Cruz de Tenerife are co-capitals, are often considered part of Northern Africa due to their relative proximity to Morocco and Western Sahara; population and area figures are for 2001. 151The Spanish exclave of Ceuta is surrounded on land by Morocco in Northern Africa; population and area figures are for 2001. 152The Portuguese Madeira Islands are often considered part of Northern Africa due to their relative proximity to Morocco; population and area figures are for 2001.

7,492

1,694,477(2001226.2 )

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

20

71,505(2001)

3,575.2

797

245,000(2001) 307.4

Funchal

Melilla (Spain)153 Southern Africa: Botswana Lesotho Zimbabwe Namibia South Africa Swaziland Western Africa: Benin Burkina Faso

12

66,411(2001)

5,534.2

2,693,418 600,370 30,355 390,580 825,418 1,219,912

56,406,762 1,990,876154 2,130,819155 11,392,629156 2,108,665157 49,052,489158

20.9 3.3 70.2 29.1 2.6 40.2 Gaborone Maseru Harare Windhoek Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Pretoria159 Mbabane

17,363 6,144,013 112,620 274,200

1,123,913160 296,186,492 8,791,832161 15,746,232162

64.7 48.2 78.0 57.4

Porto-Novo Ouagadougou

Cape Verde 4,033 Cte d'Ivoire 322,460

429,474163 20,617,068164

107.3 63.9

Praia Abidjan,165 Yamoussoukro

153The Spanish exclave of Melilla is surrounded on land by Morocco in Northern Africa; population and area figures are for 2001. 154 155 156 157 158 159Bloemfontein is the judicial capital of South Africa, while Cape Town is its legislative seat, and Pretoria is the country's administrative seat. 160 161 162 163 164 165Yamoussoukro is the official capital of Cte d'Ivoire, while Abidjan is the de facto seat.

Gambia Ghana Guinea GuineaBissau Liberia Mali

11,300 239,460 245,857 36,120

1,782,893166 23,832,495167 10,057,975168 1,533,964169

157.7 99.5 40.9 42.5

Banjul Accra Conakry Bissau

111,370 1,240,000

3,441,790170 12,666,987171 3,129,486172 15,306,252173

30.9 10.2 3.0 12.1

Monrovia Bamako Nouakchott Niamey Abuja Jamestown

Mauritania 1,030,700 Niger Nigeria Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (UK) Senegal Sierra Leone Togo Africa Total 56,785 30,368,609 196,190 71,740 1,267,000 923,768 410

158,259,000174 161.5 7,637175 14.4

13,711,597176 6,440,053177

69.9 89.9

Dakar Freetown

6,019,877178

106.0

Lom

1,001,320,281 33.0

166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

See alsoUrbanization in Africa Highest mountain peaks of Africa Lists: List of topics related to Africa List of African countries by population List of cities in Africa

Further readingAsante, Molefi (2007). The History of Africa. USA: Routledge. ISBN 0415771390. Clark, J. Desmond (1970). The Prehistory of Africa. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 9780500020692. Crowder, Michael (1978). The Story of Nigeria. London: Faber. ISBN 9780571049479. Davidson, Basil (1966). The African past; chronicles from antiquity to modern times. Harmondsworth: Penguin. OCLC 2016817. Gordon, April A.; Donald L. Gordon (1996). Understanding contemporary Africa. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 9781555875473. Khapoya, Vincent B. (1998). The African experience: an introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 9780137458523. Naipaul, V. S.. The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief. Picador, 2010. ISBN 978030472050

External linksGeneral information Africa at the Open Directory Project African & Middle Eastern Reading Room from the United States Library of Congress Africa South of the Sahara from Stanford University The Index on Africa from The Norwegian Council for Africa Africa from The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online Aluka Digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa

Atlas of Our Changing Environment: Africa from United Nations Environment Programme Africa Interactive Map from the United States Army Africa

Wikimedia Atlas of Africa History African Kingdoms The Story of Africa from BBC World Service Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) Charles Finch: Nile Genesis News media allAfrica.com current news, events and statistics Focus on Africa magazine from BBC World Service Travel Africa travel guide from Wikitravel bjn:Aprika gag:Afrika

History of AfricaThe history of Africa begins with the first emergence of Homo sapiens in East Africa, continuing into the present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states. The history of Africa has been a challenge for researchers in the field of African studies due to the scarcity of written sources in large parts of SubSaharan Africa. Scholarly techniques such as the recording of oral history, historical linguistics, archaeology and genetics have been crucial.

Prehistory

PaleolithicAccording to paleontology, early hominids' skull anatomy was similar to their close cousins, the great African forest apes, the gorilla and chimpanzee, but the hominids had adopted a bipedal locomotion and freed their hands. This gave them a crucial advantage, enabling them to live in both forested areas and on the open savanna at a time when Africa was drying up and the savanna was encroaching on forested areas. This occurred 10 to 5 million years ago.179 By 3 million years ago, several australopithecine (southern ape) hominid species had developed throughout southern, eastern and central Africa. They were tool users, not makers of tools. They scavenged for meat and were omnivores.180 By approximately 2.3 million years ago, primitive stone tools were first used to scavenge kills made by other predators and to harvest carrion and marrow for their bones. In hunting, Homo habilis was probably not capable of competing with large predators, and was still more prey than hunter. H. habilis probably did steal eggs from nests, and may have been able to catch small game, and weakened larger prey (cubs and older animals). The tools were classed as Oldowan.181 Around 1.8 million years ago Homo ergaster first appeared in the fossil record in Africa. From Homo ergaster, Homo erectus (upright man) evolved 1.5 million years ago. Some of the earlier representatives of this species were still fairly small-brained and used primitive stone tools, much like H. habilis. The brain later grew in size, and H. erectus eventually developed a more complex stone tool technology called the Acheulean. Possibly the first hunters, H. erectus mastered the art of making fire, and was the first hominid to leave Africa, colonizing most of the Old World, and perhaps later giving rise to Homo floresiensis. Although some recent writers suggest that Homo georgicus was the first and most primitive hominid to ever live outside Africa, many scientists consider H. georgicus to be an early and primitive member of the H. erectus species.182183 The fossil record shows Homo sapiens living in southern and eastern Africa at least 100,000 and possibly 150,000 years ago. Around 40,000 years ago, the species' expansion out of Africa launched the colonization of the planet by modern human beings. By 10,000 BCE, Homo sapiens has spread to all corners of the world. Their migration is traced by linguistic, cultural and (increasingly) computer-analyzed genetic evidence.184185186179Shillington, Kevin (2005), History of Africa, p. 2. Rev. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-59957-8. 180Shillington (2005), p. 2. 181Shillington (2005), p. 2-3. 182Shillington (2005), p. 3. 183Ehret, Christopher (2002), The Civilizations of Africa, p. 22. Charlottesville: University of Virginia. ISBN 0-8139-2085-X. 184 185The genetic studies by Luca Cavalli-Sforza are considered pioneering in tracing the spread of modern humans from Africa. 186Sarah A. Tishkoff,* Floyd A. Reed, Franoise R. Friedlaender, Christopher Ehret, Alessia Ranciaro, Alain Froment, Jibril B. Hirbo, Agnes A. Awomoyi, Jean-Marie Bodo, Ogobara Doumbo, Muntaser Ibrahim, Abdalla T. Juma, Maritha J. Kotze, Godfrey Lema, Jason H. Moore, Holly Mortensen, Thomas B. Nyambo, Sabah A. Omar, Kweli Powell, Gideon S. Pretorius, Michael W. Smith, Mahamadou A. Thera, Charles Wambebe, James L. Weber, Scott

Emergence of agricultureAround 16,000 BCE, from the Red Sea hills to the northern Ethiopian highlands, nuts, grasses and tubers were being collected for food. By 13,00011,000 BCE, people began collecting wild grains. This spread to southwest Asia, which domesticated its wild grains, wheat and barley. Between 10,000 and 8,000 BCE, northeast Africa was cultivating wheat and barley and raising sheep and cattle from southwest Asia. A wet climatic phase in Africa turned the Ethiopian highlands into a mountain forest. Omotic speakers domesticated enset around 6500-5500 BCE. Around 7000 BCE, the settlers of the Ethiopian highlands domesticated donkeys, and by 4000 BCE domesticated donkeys had spread to southwest Asia. Cushitic speakers, partially turning away from cattle herding, domesticated teff and finger millet between 5500 and 3500 BCE.187188 In the steppes and savannahs of the Sahara and Sahel, the Nilo-Saharan speakers started to collect and domesticate wild millet and sorghum between 8000 and 6000 BCE. Later, gourds, watermelons, castor beans, and cotton were also collected and domesticated. The people started capturing wild cattle and holding them in circular thorn hedges, resulting in domestication.189 They also started making pottery. Fishing, using bone tipped harpoons, became a major activity in the numerous streams and lakes formed from the increased rains. In West Africa, the wet phase ushered in expanding rainforest and wooded savannah from Senegal to Cameroon. Between 9000 and 5000 BCE, NigerCongo speakers domesticated the oil palm and raffia palm. Two seed plants, black-eyed peas and voandzeia(African groundnuts) were domesticated, followed by okra and kola nuts. Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger-Congo speakers invented polish stone axes for clearing forest.190 Most of Southern Africa was occupied by pygmy peoples and Khoisan who engaged in hunting and gathering. Some of the oldest rock art was produced by them.191 Just prior to Saharan desertification, the communities that developed south of Egypt, in what is now modern day Sudan, were full participants in the Neolithic revolution and lived a settled to semi-nomadic lifestyle, with domesticated plants and animals.192 It has been suggested that megaliths found at Nabta Playa are examples of the world's first known archaeoastronomical devices, predating Stonehenge by some 1000 years.[2] The sociocultural complexity observed at Nabta Playa and expressed by different levels of authority within the society there has been suggested as forming the basis for the structure of both the Neolithic society at Nabta and the Old Kingdom of Egypt.193M. Williams. The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans. Published 30 April 2009 on Science Express. 187Diamond, Jared (1997), Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, pp. 126127. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-03891-2. 188Ehret (2002), pp. 64-75, 80-81, 87-88. 189Ehret (2002), pp. 64-75. 190Ehret (2002), pp. 82-84. 191Ehret (2002), pp. 94, 95. 192Dr. Stuart Tyson Smith 193Late Neolithic megalithic structures at Nabta Playa - Wendorf (1998)

By 5000 BCE, Africa entered a dry phase, and the climate of the Sahara region gradually became drier. The population trekked out of the Sahara region in all directions, including towards the Nile Valley below the Second Cataract, where they made permanent or semipermanent settlements. A major climatic recession occurred, lessening the heavy and persistent rains in central and eastern Africa. Since then, dry conditions have prevailed in eastern Africa.

MetallurgyThe first metals to be smelted in Africa were lead, copper, and bronze in the fourth millennium BCE.194 Smelting of copper and its alloy arose in northern Africa, from southwest Asia ro the Ar Mountains north of Nigeria. Copper was already being smelted in Egypt during the predynastic period, and bronze came into use not long after 3000 BCE at the latest195 in Egypt and Nubia. Nubia was a major source of copper, as well as gold.196 The use of gold and silver in Egypt also dates back to the predynastic period.197198 In the region of the Ar Mountains in Niger, copper was being smelted independently of developments in the Nile valley between 3000 and 2500 BCE. The process used was not well developed, indicating that it was not brought from outside the region; it became more mature by about the 1500 BCE.199 By the 1st millennium BCE, iron-working had been introduced in northwestern Africa, Egypt, and Nubia.200 In 670 BCE, Nubians were pushed out of Egypt by Assyrians using iron weapons, after which the use of iron in the Nile valley became widespread. The notion of iron spreading to Sub-Saharan Africa via the Nubian city of Meroe is no longer widely accepted. Metalworking in West Africa has been dated as early as 2500 BCE at Egaro west of Termit in Niger, and ironworking was practiced there by 1500 BCE.201 In addition, iron smelting was developed in the area between Lake Chad and the African Great Lakes between 1000 and 600 BCE, long before it reached Egypt. Before 500 BCE, Nok culture in the Jos Plateau was already smelting iron.202203

Antiquity194Nicholson, Paul T, and Ian Shaw (2000), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, p. 168. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45257-1. 195Nicholson and Shaw (2000), pp. 149160 196http://wysinger.homestead.com/nubians.html 197Nicholson and Shaw (2000), pp. 161165, 170. 198Ehret (2002), pp. 136-137. 199Ehret (2002), pp. 136, 137. 200Martin and O'Meara. "Africa, 3rd Ed." Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995. 201Iron in Africa: Revising the History, UNESCO Aux origines de la mtallurgie du fer en Afrique, Une anciennet mconnue: Afrique de l'Ouest et Afrique centrale. 202Shillington (2005), pp. 37-39. 203O'Brien, Patrick Karl (2002), Atlas of World History, pp. 22-23. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-521921-X.

EgyptAfter the desertification of the Sahara, settlement became concentrated in the Nile Valley, where numerous sacral chiefdoms appeared. The regions with the largest population pressure were in the delta region of lower Egypt, in upper Egypt, and also along the second and third cataracts of the Dongola reach of the Nile in Nubia. This population pressure and growth was brought about by the cultivation of southwest Asian crops, including wheat and barley, and the raising of sheep, goats, and cattle. Population growth led to competition for farm land and the need to regulate farming. Regulation was established by the formation of bureaucracies among sacral chiefdoms. The first and most powerful of the chiefdoms was Ta-Seti, founded around 3500 BCE. The idea of sacral chiefdom spread throughout upper and lower Egypt.204 Later consolidation of the chiefdoms into broader political entities began to occur in upper and lower Egypt, culminating into the unification of Egypt into one political entity by Narmer (Menes) in 3100 BCE. Instead being viewed as a sacral chief, he became a divine king. The henotheism, or worship of a single god within a polytheistic system, practiced in the sacral chiefdoms along upper and lower Egypt, became the polytheistic religion of ancient Egypt. Bureaucracies became more centralized under the pharaohs, run by viziers, governors, tax collectors, generals, artists, and technicians. They engaged in tax collecting, organizing of labor for major public works, and building irrigation systems, pyramids, temples, and canals. During the Fourth Dynasty (2620-2480 BCE), long distance trade was developed, with the Levant for timber, with Nubia for gold and skins, with Punt for frankincense, and also with the western Libyan territories. For most of the Old Kingdom, Egypt developed her fundamental systems, institutions and culture, always through the central bureaucracy and by the divinity of the Pharaoh.205 After the third millennium BCE, Egypt started to extend direct military and political control over her southern and western neighbors. By 2200 BCE, the Old Kingdom's stability was undermined by rivalry among the governors of the nomes who challenged the power of pharaohs and by invasions of Asiatics into the delta. The First Intermediate Period had begun, a time of political division and uncertainty.206

204Ehret (2002), pp. 143-46. 205Davidson, Basil (1991), Africa In History: Themse and Outlines, pp. 30-33. Revised and expanded ed. New York: Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-684-82667-4 206Davidson (1991), pp. 30-33.

By 2130, the period of stagnation was endedby Mentuhotep, the first Pharaoh of the 11th dynasty, and the emergence of the Middle Kingdom. Pyramid building resumed, long-distance trade re-emerged, and the center of power moved from Memphis to Thebes. Connections with the southern regions of Kush, Wawat and Irthet at the second cataract were made stronger. Then came the Second Intermediate Period, with the invasion of the Hyksos on horse-drawn chariots and utilizing bronze weapons, a technology not yet seen in Egypt. Horse-drawn chariots soon spread to the west in the inhabitable Sahara and North Africa. The Hyksos failed to hold on to their Egyptian territories and were absorbed by Egyptian society. This eventually led to one of Egypt's most powerful phases, the New Kingdom (1580-1080 BCE), with the Eighteenth Dynasty. Egypt became a superpower controlling Nubia and Palestine while exerting political influence on the Libyans to the West and on the Mediterranean.207 As before, the New Kingdom ended with invasion from the west by Libyan princes, leading to the Third Intermediate Period. Beginning with Shoshenq I, the Twenty-second Dynasty was established. It ruled for two centuries.208 To the south, Nubian independence and strength was being reasserted. This reassertion led to the conquest of Egypt by Nubia, begun by Kashta and completed by Piye (Pianhky, 751-730 BCE) and Shabaka (716-695 BCE). This was the birth of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt. The Nubians tried to reestablish Egyptian traditions and customs. They ruled Egypt for a hundred years. This was ended by an Assyrian invasion, with Taharqa experiencing the full might of Assyrian iron weapons. The Nubian pharaoh Tantamani was the last of the Twenty Fifth Dynasty.209 When the Assyrians and Nubians left, a new Twenty-sixth Dynasty emerged from Sais. It lasted until 525 BCE, when Egypt was invaded by the Persians. Unlike the Assyrians, the Persians stayed. In 332, Egypt was conquered by Alexander of Macedon. This was the beginning of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ended with Roman conquest in 30 BCE. Pharaonic Egypt had come to an end.210

NubiaAround 3500 BCE, one of the first sacral kingdoms to arise in the Nile was TaSeti, located in northern Nubia. Ta-Seti was a powerful sacral kingdom in the Nile Valley at the 1st and 2nd cataracts that exerted an influence over nearby chiefdoms. Based on its pictorial representation, it claimed to have ruled over Upper Egypt. Ta-Seti traded as far as Syro-Palestine, as well as with Egypt. Ta-Seti exported gold, copper, ostrich feathers, ebony and ivory to the Old Kingdom. By the 32nd century BCE, Ta-Seti was in decline. After the unification of Egypt by Narmer in 3100 BCE, Ta-Seti was invaded by the Pharaoh Hor-Aha of the First Dynasty, destroying the final remnants of the kingdom. Ta-Seti is affiliated with A-Group culture known to archaeology.211207 208 209 210 211Ehret (2002), pp. 144, 145.

Small sacral kingdoms continued to dot the Nubian portion of the Nile for centuries after 3000 BCE. Around the latter part of the third millennium, there was further consolidation of the sacral kingdoms. Two kingdoms in particular emerged: the Sai kingdom, immediately south of Egypt, and Kingdom of Kerma at the third cataract. Sometime around the 18th century BCE, the Kingdom of Kerma conquered the Kingdom of Sai, becoming a serious rival to Egypt. Kerma occupied a territory from the first cataract to the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile, and River Atbara. About 15751550 BCE, during the later part of the Seventeenth Dynasty, the Kingdom of Kerma invaded Egypt.212 The Kingdom of Kerma also allied itself with the Hyksos invasion of Egypt.213 Egypt eventually re-energized under the Eigthteenth Dynasty and conquered the Kingdom of Kerma or Kush, ruling it for almost 500 years. The Kushites were Egyptianized during this period. By 1100 BCE, the Egyptians had withdrawn from Kush. The region regained independence and reasserted its culture. Kush built a new religion around Amun and made Napata its spiritual center. In 730 BCE, the Kingdom of Kush invaded Egypt, taking over Thebes and beginning the Nubian Empire. The empire extended from Palestine to the confluences of the Blue Nile, the White Nile, and River Atbara.214 In 760 BCE, the Kushites were expelled from Egypt by iron-wielding Assyrians. Later, the administrative capital was moved from Napata to Mere, developing into a new Nubian culture. Initially Meroites were highly Egyptianized, but they subsequently began to take on distinctive features. Nubia became a center of iron-making and cotton cloth manufacturing. Egyptian writing was replaced by the Meroitic alphabet. The lion god Apedemak was added to the Egyptian pantheon of gods. Trade links to the Red Sea increased, linking Nubia with Mediterranean Greece and Rome. Its architecture and art became more unique, with pictures of lions, ostriches, giraffes, and elephants. Eventually with the rise of Aksum, Nubia's trade links were broken and it suffered environmental degradation from the tree cutting required for iron production. In 350 CE, the Aksumite king Ezana brought Mere to an end.215

212Alberge, Dalya. Tomb Reveals Ancient Egypt's Humiliating Secret, The Times{London}, 28 July 2003(Monday). 213Ehret (2002), pp. 148-151. 214Shillington (2005), pp. 40-41. 215Shillington (2005), pp. 42-45.

CarthageThe Egyptians referred to the people west of the Nile, ancestral to the Berbers, as Libyans. The Libyans were agriculturalists like the Mauri of Morocco and the Numidians of central and eastern Algeria and Tunis. They were also nomadic, having the horse, and occupied the arid pastures and desert, like the Gaetuli. Berber desert nomads were typically in conflict with Berber coastal agriculturalists.216 The Phoenicians were seamen of the Mediterranean. They were in constant search for valuable metals like copper, gold, tin, and lead. Soon they began to populate the North African coast with settlements, trading and mixing with the native Berber population. In 814 BCE, Phoenicians from Tyre established the city of Carthage. By 600 BCE, Carthage had become a major trading entity and power in the Mediterranean, largely due to trade with tropical Africa. Carthage's prosperity fostered the growth of the Berber kingdoms, Numidia and Mauretania. Around 500 BCE, Carthage provided a strong impetus for trade with sub-Saharan Africa. Berber middlemen, who had maintained contacts with sub-Saharan Africa since the desert had desiccated, utilized pack animals to transfer products from oasis to oasis. Danger lurked from the Garamantes of Fez, who raided caravans. Salt and metal goods were traded for gold, slaves, beads, and ivory.217 The Carthaginians were rivals to the Greeks and Romans. Carthage fought three wars with Rome: the First Punic War (264 to 241 BCE), over Sicily; the Second Punic War (218 BC to 201 BCE), in which Hannibal invaded Europe; and the Third Punic War (149 B.C to 146 BCE). Carthage lost the first two wars, and in the third it was destroyed, becoming the Roman province of Africa, with the Berber Kingdom of Numidia assisting Rome. The Roman province of Africa became a major agricultural supplier of wheat, olives, and olive oil to imperial Rome via exorbitant taxation. Two centuries later, Rome brought the Berber kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania under its authority. In the 420s CE, Vandals invaded North Africa and Rome lost her territories. The Berber kingdoms subsequently regained their independence.218 Christianity gained a foothold in Africa at Alexandria in the 1st century CE and spread to northwest Africa. By 313 CE, with the Edict of Milan, all of Roman North Africa was Christian. Egyptians adopted Monophysite Christianity and formed the independent Coptic Church. Berbers adopted Donatist Christianity. Both groups refused to accept the authority of the Roman Church. In 642 CE, Arab Muslims conquered Byzantine Egypt, and by 711 CE they had conquered all of North Africa. By the 10th century, the majority of population of North Africa was Muslim.219

216Iliffe, John (2007), Africans: The History of a Continent, p. 30. 2nd ed. New York:Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68297-8. 217Shillington (2005), pp. 63-65. 218Shillington (2005), pp. 65. 219Shillington (2005), pp. 65-67, 72-75.

SomaliaIn antiquity, the ancestors of the Somali people were an important link in the Horn of Africa connecting the region's commerce with the rest of the ancient world. Somali sailors and merchants were the main suppliers of frankincense, myrrh and spices, all of which were valuable luxuries to the Ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Mycenaeans and Babylonians.220221 In the classical era, several flourishing Somali city-states such as Opone, Mosyllon and Malao competed with the Sabaeans, Parthians and Axumites for the rich Indo-Greco-Roman trade.222 The birth of Islam opposite Somalia's Red Sea coast meant that Somali merchants and sailors living on the Arabian Peninsula gradually came under the influence of the new religion through their converted Arab Muslim trading partners. With the migration of Muslim families from the Islamic world to Somalia in the early centuries of Islam, and the peaceful conversion of the Somali population by Somali Muslim scholars in the following centuries, the ancient city-states eventually transformed into Islamic Mogadishu, Berbera, Zeila, Barawa and Merka, which were part of the Berber (the medieval Arab term for the ancestors of the modern Somalis) civilization.223224 The city of Mogadishu came to be known as the City of Islam,225 and controlled the East African gold trade for several centuries.226

AksumAksumite Empire

220Phoenicia, pg. 199. 221Rose, Jeanne, and John Hulburd, The Aromatherapy Book, p. 94. 222Vine, Peter, Oman in History, p. 324. 223David D. Laitin, Said S. Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of a State, (Westview Press: 1987), p. 15. 224I.M. Lewis, A modern history of Somalia: nation and state in the Horn of Africa, 2nd edition, revised, illustrated, (Westview Press: 1988), p.20 225Brons, Maria (2003), Society, Security, Sovereignty and the State in Somalia: From Statelessness to Statelessness?, p. 116. 226Morgan, W. T. W. (1969), East Africa: Its Peoples and Resources, p. 18.

The earliest state in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia was D'mt, dated around the eighth and 7th centuries BCE. D'mt traded through the Red Sea with Egypt and the Mediterranean, providing frankincense. By the fifth and 3rd centuries, D'mt had declined, and several successor states took its place. Later there was greater trade with southern Arabia, mainly with the port of Saba. Adulis became an important commercial center in the Ethiopian highlands. The interaction of the peoples in the two regions, the southern Arabia Sabaeans and the northern Ethiopians, resulted in the Ge'ez culture and language and eventual development of the Ge'ez script. Trade links increased and expanded from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, with Egypt, Greece, and Rome, to the Black Sea, and to Persia, India, and China. Aksum was known throughout those lands. By the 5th century BCE, the region was very prosperous, exporting ivory, hippopotamus hides, gold dust, spices, and live elephants. It imported silver, gold, olive oil, and wine. Aksum manufactured glass crystal, brass, and copper for export. A powerful Aksum emerged, unifying parts of eastern Sudan, northern Ethiopia (Tigre), and Eritrea. Its kings built stone palatial buildings and were buried under megalithic monuments. By 300 CE, Aksum was minting its own coins in silver and gold.227 In 331 CE, King Ezana(320-350 CE) was converted to Monophysite Christianity supposedly by Frumentius and Aedesius, who were stranded on the Red Sea coast. Some scholars believed the process was more complex and gradual than a simple conversion. Around 350, the time Ezana sacked Meroe, the Syrian monastic tradition took root within the Ethiopian church. 228 In the 6th century, Aksum was powerful enough to add Saba on the Arabian peninsula to her empire. At the end of the 6th century, the Persians pushed Aksum out of peninsula. With the spread of Islam through western Asia and northern Africa, Aksum's trading networks in the Mediterranean were closed. The Red Sea trade diminished as it was diverted to the Persian Gulf and dominated by Arabs, causing Aksum to decline. By 800 CE, the capital was moved south, into the interior highlands, and Aksum was much diminished. 229

West Africa and Bantu ExpansionIn the western Sahel, the rise of settled communities was largely due to the domestication of millet and sorghum. Archaeology points to sizable urban populations in West Africa beginning in the 2nd millenium BCE. Symbiotic trade relations developed before the trans-Saharan trade, in response to the opportunities afforded by north-south diversity in ecosystems across deserts, grasslands, and forests. The salt-starved agriculturists received salt from the desert nomads. The protein-starved desert nomads acquired meat and other foods from pastoralists and farmers of the grasslands and from fishermen on the Niger River. The forest dwellers provided furs and meat.230

227Collins, Robert O., and James M. Burns (2007), A History of Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 66-71. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68708-9. 228Iliffe (2007), p. 41. 229Shillington (2005), pp. 66-71. 230Collins and Burns (2007), pp. 79-80.

Tichit(Dhar Tichitt) was prominent among the early urban centers, dated to 2000 BCE, in present day Mauritania. About 500 hundred stone settlements litter the region in what was once a rainier Sahara. Its inhabitants fished and grew millet. Around 300 BCE, the region became more desiccated and the settlements began to decline, most likely relocating to Koumbi Saleh. From the type of architecture and pottery, it is believed that Tichit was related to the subsequent Ghana Empire. Old Jenne (Djenne) began to be settled around 300 BCE, producing iron and with sizable population, evidenced in crowded cemeteries. Living structures were made of sun-dried mud. By 250 BCE, Jenne was a large, thriving market town.231232 Farther south, in central Nigeria, around 1000 BCE, the Nok culture developed on the Jos Plateau. It was a highly centralized community. The Nok people produced miniature lifelike representations in terracotta, including human heads, elephants, and other animals. By 500 BCE, they were smelting iron. By 200 CE, the Nok culture had vanished. Based on stylistic similarities with Nok terracottas, the bronze figurines of Ife and Benin are believed to be continuation of the tradition.233 The Bantu expansion was a critical movement of people in African history and the settling of the continent. Bantu is a branch of the Niger-Congo family. "Bantu" comes from the root word ntu, which means people. The expansion began in the second millennium BCE, from Cameroon. Its first thrust was eastward to the Great Lakes region in the second millennium BCE. In the first millennium BCE, Bantu languages spread from the Great Lakes to southern and east Africa. An early expansion was south to the upper Zambezi valley in the 2nd century BCE. Then, Bantu speakers pushed westward to the savannahs of present-day Angola and eastward into Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in the 1st century CE. The second thrust from the Great Lakes was eastward, 2,000 years ago, expanding to the Indian Ocean coast and Tanzania. The eastern group eventually met the southern migrants from the Great Lakes in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Both groups continued southward, with eastern group continuing to Mozambique and reaching Maputo in the 2nd century CE, and rexpanding as far as Durban. By the later first millennium CE, the expansion had reached the Great Kei River of South Africa. Sorghum, a major Bantu crop, could not thrive under the regime of winter rainfall of Namibia and the western Cape. Khoisan people inhabited the remaining parts of southern Africa. The Bantu expansion was complex, gradual, and not simply linear in detail.234

MedievalNorth Africa

231Iliffe, John (2007). pp. 49,50 232Collins and Burns (2007), p. 78. 233Shillington, Kevin (2005), p. 39. 234Iliffe (2007), pp. 34, 35.

Maghreb (the West)By the 9th century CE, the unity brought about by the Islamic conquest of North Africa and the expansion of Islamic culture came to an end. Conflict arose as to who should be the successor of the prophet. The Umayyads had initially taken control of the Caliphate, with their capital at Damascus. Later, the Abbasids had taken control, moving the capital to Baghdad. The Berber people, being independent in spirit and hostile to outside interference in their affairs and to Arab exclusivity in orthodox Islam, adopted Shi'ite and Kharijite Islam, both considered unorthodox and hostile to the authority of the Abbasid Caliphate. Numerous Kharijite kingdoms came and fell during the eighth and 9th centuries, asserting their independence from Baghdad. In the early 10th century, Shi'ite groups from Syria, claiming descent from Muhammad's daughter Fatima, founded the Fatimid Dynasty in the Maghreb. By 950, they had conquered all of the Maghreb, and by 969 all of Egypt. They had immediately broken away from Baghdad.235 In an attempt to bring about a purer form of Islam among the Sanhaja Berbers, Abdallah ibn Yasin founded the Almoravid movement in present-day Mauritania and Western Sahara. The Sanhaja Berbers, like the Soninke, practiced an indigenous religion along side Islam. Abdallah ibn Yasin found ready converts in the Lamtuna Sanhaja, who were dominated by the Soninke in the south and the Zenata Berbers in the north. By the 1040s, all of the Lamtuna was converted to the Almoravid movement. With the help of Yahya ibn Umar and his brother Abu Bakr ibn Umar, the sons of the Lamtuna chief, the Almoravids created an empire extending from the Sahel to the Mediterranean. After the death of Abdallah ibn Yassin and Yahya ibn Umar, Abu Bakr split the empire in half, between himself and Yusuf ibn Tashfin, because it was too big to be ruled by one individual. Abu Bakr took the south to continue fighting the Soninke, and Yusuf ibn Tashfin took the north, expanding it to southern Spain. The death of Abu Bakr in 1087 saw a breakdown of unity and increase military dissension in the south. This caused a re-expansion of the Soninke. The Almoravids were once held responsible for bringing down the Ghana Empire in 1076, but this view is no longer credited.236 During the tenth through 13th centuries, there was a large-scale movement of bedouins out of the Arabian Peninsula. About 1050, a quarter of a million Arab nomads from Egypt moved into the Maghreb. Those following the northern coast were referred to as Banu Hilal. Those going south of the Atlas Mountains were the Banu Sulaym. This movement spread the use of the Arabic language and hastened the decline of the Berber language and the Arabisation of North Africa. Later an Arabised Berber group, the Hawwara, went south to Nubia via Egypt.237

235Shillington (2005), pp. 75, 76. 236Shillington, Kevin (2005). p 90. 237Shillington, Kevin (2005), pp. 156, 157

In the 1140s, Abd al-Mu'min declared jihad on the Almoravids, charging them with decadence and corruption. He united the northern Berbers against the Almoravids, overthrowing them and forming the Almohad Empire. During this period, the Maghreb became thoroughly Islamised, and saw the spread of literacy, the development of algebra, and the use of the number zero and decimals. By the 13th century, the Almohad states had split into three rival states. Muslim states were largely extinguished in Spain by the Christian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. Around 1415, Portugal engaged in a reconquista of North Africa by capturing Ceuta, and in later centuries Spain and Portugal acquired other ports on the North African coast. In 1492, Spain defeated Muslims in Granada, effectively ending eight centuries of Muslim domination in southern Iberia.238 Portugal and Spain took the ports of Tangiers, Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis. This put them in direct competition with the Ottoman Empire, which re-took the ports using Turkish corsairs (pirates and privateers). The Turkish corsairs would use the ports for raiding Christian ships, a major source of booty for the towns. Technically, North