There are more than 50 independent countries in Africa and on the islands off its coasts. Together, they make up more than one third of the membership of the United Nations. In 1991 Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali became the first African and the first Arab to serve as secretary-general of the United Nations. After the conclusion of World War II, the African people gained their independence from European countries that had controlled most of the continent since the 19th century. France and the United Kingdom had the largest colonial empires, though Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, and Italy also had African possessions.
By the end of 1990, only South Africa remained under the control of a white minority government; even there, President F. W. de Klerk in 1990 took steps toward clearing away obstacles to negotiations for a new constitution. The African countries have developed political and economic relations with nations throughout the world. Many of the world’s essential minerals, including copper, gold, and uranium, are mined in Africa. The continent’s extensive river system represents one of the world’s major potential sources of hydroelectric power.
Long before the colonial period, there were great African kingdoms whose rulers presided over magnificent courts. Their merchants traded in gold, salt, and other goods with faraway countries, often traveling vast distances over caravan routes across the plains and deserts. The art, language, and, especially, the music of the Western world have been affected by African culture. Jazz has its root in Central and West African rhythms. The Land The continent of Africa lies astride the equator, extending beyond 35 N. latitude and reaching almost 35 S. , or about as far north as Washington, D. C. , and about as far south as Uruguay.
It is the second largest landmass in the world, after Eurasia, and its area is more than three times that of the United States. Its population in 1990 was estimated at 648 million, increasing at a rate of 3 percent a year. The average population density is only 55. 5 per square mile (21. 4 per square kilometer), but this is misleading because much of the land is almost uninhabitable desert or rain forest. Roughly one third of Africa’s total land area is devoted to agriculture, but in nearly half the countries less than 6 percent of the land is cultivated. Geologically, Africa is the oldest of the continents.
It formed the core of the ancient landmass of Gondwanaland, from which the Southern Hemisphere continents are said to have drifted. Because of its age, Africa has undergone erosion for hundreds of millions of years. Most of the mountains have been worn away, and today much of the area is a rolling plateau ranging between 500 and 4,500 feet (150 and 1,400 meters) above sea level. While Africa has no massive mountain ranges like the Rocky Mountains or the Himalayas, it does have the Atlas Mountains in the northwest, the Ahaggar and Tibesti ranges in the Sahara, and the East African highlands stretching from Ethiopia to Tanzania.
The highest mountain in Africa, snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro at 19,340 feet (5,895 meters) high, is in the Eastern Highlands. Running the length of the highlands is the great Rift Valley. This deep, narrow break in the Earth’s surface has a number of branches in which long, narrow lakes such as Tanganyika, Nyasa, and Rudolf are located. The valley is nearly 3,500 miles (5,600 kilometers) long and varies in width between 20 and 60 miles (30 and 100 kilometers). Of several islands off the coast of Africa, Madagascar is the largest. Others include the Cape Verde Islands, the Comoros, Mauritius, and the Seychelles.
Climate and Vegetation The climate and vegetation reflect the position of the continent astride the equator. A sequence of ecological zones extends north and south of the equator: the equatorial forest, the savanna grasslands, the desert, and the area of mild, Mediterranean-type climate. Where highlands occur within these zones, conditions are cooler and wetter. The rainfall of these zones is associated with the movement of air masses, caused by the seasonal warming and cooling of different parts of the Earth as it rotates around the sun. In the Northern Hemisphere, or north of the equator, rain falls from April to September.
In the Southern Hemisphere, it rains from October to March. The exceptions are the equatorial regions, which have year-round rainfall; the extreme north and south of the continent, which have only winter rainfall (Mediterranean climate); and parts of West and East Africa, where the climate is affected by the seasonal monsoon winds. The heaviest rainfall occurs in the equatorial regions. The savanna areas receive moderate rainfall. In the deserts rainfall is uncommon, but when it does occur it usually comes in the form of heavy downpours. In the savanna and desert areas rain falls mainly in the summer months; winters are almost completely dry.
Because of the differences in rainfall between one part of the continent and another, the vegetation is also widely varied. In the areas around the equator, where it rains the year around, are dense rain forests that may contain as many as 3,000 different tree and plant species per square mile. The forest usually forms three layers: a ground cover of shrubs and ferns between 6 and 10 feet (2 and 3 meters) high; a woody layer of trees and climbers reaching about 60 feet (18 meters); and a canopy of broad-leaved evergreen trees growing as high as 150 feet (46 meters).
Between the equatorial rain forests and the great deserts to the north and south are the savanna areas. These are open grasslands scattered with trees such as acacias and baobabs. Farmers and herders live in the savanna. In the eastern and southern regions of Africa, certain savanna areas contain large numbers of wild animals. A serious problem for the people of the savanna is that the vegetation is being used up, leaving the land bare. The population in these areas has grown rapidly since the 1950s, creating a rising demand for pasture and for wood used as fuel and for construction.
There is concern among conservationists that the removal of vegetation may cause the savanna to become more desertlike. Another problem is that the summer rains are unpredictable in amount, duration, and distribution. Occasionally the monsoons fail and drought results. Between 1970 and 1974 a drought occurred over much of the African savanna. It was particularly severe in West Africa, where it is estimated that 250,000 people and 6 million head of livestock died. Beyond the savanna, where the annual rainfall is less than 16 inches (40 centimeters), are the Sahara, the Namib, and the Kalahari deserts.
The deserts cannot support large populations. In the Sahara there are a few nomadic herders, such as the Tuareg and the Gabbra. A number of countries extract minerals, notably petroleum in Algeria and Libya. While the rain forest, savanna, and deserts cover most of the continent, there are smaller areas of mountain and Mediterranean environments. The mountain environments are found in such highland areas as the Atlas Mountains and the Ethiopian Highlands. The Mediterranean climatic zones are restricted to two narrow bands, one in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia and one in South Africa. The People
The people and cultures of Africa are as diverse as its geography. North of the Sahara the inhabitants are a mixture of Arab stock with indigenous peoples such as the Berbers. Egypt, Libya, and the Maghreb (Arabic for “west,” comprising Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco) have strong cultural and ethnic ties with the Arabic Middle East. In many ways they are more a part of that world than of Africa south of the Sahara. Arab influence is also strong in East Africa, where intermarriage of Arabs with the local Bantu produced the distinctive Swahili culture, and in Western and Central Africa just south of the Sahara.
Hamito-Semitic peoples are found in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia and Somalia), as well as in Egypt, while the extreme southwestern part of the continent is the home of certain Khoisan peoples the Bushmen and Hottentots. Most of the rest of the continent is dominated by black peoples of various ethnic groups. Anthropologists have identified almost 3,000 different ethnic groups or peoples in Africa, speaking approximately 1,000 different languages. (See also African Languages. ) During the colonial period, many Europeans went to Africa to live, and some remained permanently.
Most gravitated to the possessions of their respective countries. Many people from Lebanon, Syria, India, and Palestine also immigrated to Africa. Some went to work for the colonial governments and then became involved in business and trade. Asians still live in a number of African countries and are still employed as shopkeepers and traders. For the most part, Europeans who planned to settle in Africa went to the southern parts of the continent. The Dutch arrived in South Africa as early as the mid-17th century, settling first in the Cape and then moving north, where they fought a series of wars with the Africans.
Later, the British also settled in South Africa, principally in Natal, as well as in Northern and Southern Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe) and in the Eastern Highlands. The Germans went to South-West Africa (Namibia) and the Portuguese to Angola and Mozambique. The presence of these white settler populations, which usually controlled the local government and economy, complicated the arrangements made at independence. In most parts of Africa, however, people of different races have learned to live together peacefully.
Most African nations have official policies of equal rights under the law regardless of race, color, or creed. Even Zimbabwe, where the whites fought a bitter rearguard action for 15 years, became independent in 1980 under black leadership with an official multiracial policy. Most white settlers in Kenya and Zambia have been accepted by the native peoples of those two countries. The major exception is South Africa. Whites make up less than one fifth of the South African population. If the so-called Bantu homelands are included, the percentage is even smaller.
These black homelands have been granted independence by South Africa but are not recognized by any other country. ) Nevertheless, the whites continue to maintain control over the African and Asian people in South Africa. Racial segregation has been an official government policy, but starting in 1990 many legal pillars of apartheid were toppled. Securing racial equality in South Africa has been a major aim of all other African countries. Another aim was freedom for Namibia, Africa’s last colony. Accords for its independence from South Africa were finally signed in late 1988. Traditional societies.
Usually foreigners refer to African people who speak the same language as members of the same “tribe. ” Although the family is the most important social unit in Africa, non-Africans mistakenly overemphasize the “tribe. ” Indeed, the use of the term is inappropriate; African peoples should instead be referred to as belonging to different societies. Six major types of societies developed in Africa before colonial rule in the 19th century. They were: hunting and gathering societies; cattle-herding societies; forest dwellers; fishermen; grain-raising societies; and city, or urban, societies.
The hunting and gathering societies were those whose livelihood was based on hunting wild game. When game was scarce, they relied on roots, herbs, and berries. Few of these societies still exist, though the Khoisan of the Kalahari Desert are an example. Cattle-herding societies still live on the savanna, in areas where there are no cattle-killing tsetse flies. These groups have developed around the herding and trading of beef cattle. Cattle herders include, among others, the Fulani of northern Nigeria, the Masai of Kenya, and the Zulu of South Africa.
They have a division of labor: men herd and hunt, while women garden and build houses. Such societies require a great deal of land for grazing cattle because there is little grass on the plain. The tropical forest societies related to nature in a different way. Because the land was relatively more fertile, large populations could be supported in these areas. Most often, people lived in scattered villages. This scattering prevented overuse of the land. With axes and hoes, these people cut away at the dense brush, piled and burned it, and used the ashes for fertilizer (slash-and-burn agriculture).
Their crops included cassavas (plants with tuberous roots that taste like potatoes), sweet potatoes, bananas, plantains (hard, green fruits of the banana family), and some cereal grains. The villagers were bound to one another in tightly knit, dependent groups. Together they cleared the dense forest, and in times of trouble they assisted one another. On the coasts and along the rivers, the societies of fishermen found good sources of protein for their diet. Their life centered around fishing, usually with nets. They traded the fishes for animal skins and other necessities produced by the people of the interior forests.
Some members of the village were specialists in boatbuilding or netmaking, but all the work required cooperation. The high quality of these people’s diet was a major factor in their producing large and dense populations. The granary societies developed on the open plateau and in areas infested with tsetse flies. These people used the slash-and-burn technique to clear land in order to grow millet, sorghum, cassava, rice, and corn. Unlike the cattle herders who moved from place to place, the granary societies had more settled life-styles that required order and stability.
Stable systems of land use guaranteed each family adequate land for growing grain and other crops. Before European colonization large urban societies had flourished for centuries in West Africa along the edge of the forest-savanna areas. Successful cattle herding and grain agriculture created agricultural surpluses that supported these societies. As the cities grew wealthy, trade became possible, and long trade routes developed southward into the Congo region (now largely Zaire) and northeastward across the Sahara to the Arab societies of the Mediterranean.
Leather, ivory, gold, animal skins, feathers, timber, metal artwork, and other trade goods were sold. Bureaucracies were established to control taxes, trade, and land. Great urban centers developed in the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. The influence of these urban trading societies can still be seen in Kano and Zaria in Nigeria, Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and Timbuktu in Mali, as well as in the lakeside and port cities that are located in Central and East Africa.