Africa
Africa
1. Africa is the second largest continent, making
up around 20% of the earth’s land mass.
2. Africa is the second-most populous continent
with a population of over a billion people.
3. Poverty and political instability have long
been problems for many of the countries of
Africa.
Saharan Africa
1. Northern Africa is called Saharan Africa
because it is physically dominated by the
Sahara Desert.
2. The Sahara Desert is the largest in the world,
covering around 3 million square miles with
around 80,000 miles of oases.
3. An oasis is a fertile patch of land within a
desert usually created where an underground
river rises to the earth’s surface.
4. The temperatures range from around 130° in
the day and 30° at night.
Sahara Desert
The Nile River
1. The Nile River is the longest river in the
world – 4,145 miles long.
2. Annual flooding along the Nile created a
fertile delta in the country of Egypt.
3. Over 90% of Egypt’s population lives within
eyesight of the Nile River Delta.
4. The Aswan High Dam now controls flooding
on the Nile and has led to an increase in
Egypt’s agriculture.
Nile River
Aswan High Dam
Sub-Saharan Africa
1. Sub-Saharan Africa consists of more than 40
countries whose combined populations
compromises more than 70% of Africa’s total
population.
2. Sub-Saharan Africa has one-tenth of the
world’s population who speak one-third of
the world’s known languages.
3. Poverty and political instability are serious
problems in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Physical Geography of Sub-Saharan
Africa
1. Large portions of Sub-Saharan Africa are
covered with savannas – natural grasslands
found in tropical regions.
2. Along the equator there are regions of tropical
rain forests.
3. The Great Rift Valley – a deep, trench-like valley
with steep walls – stretches from Mozambique
to Ethiopia.
4. Many volcanoes are found along the edges of
the Great Rift Valley, including Mt. Kilimanjaro,
which is Africa’s highest point at 19,340 feet.
Savannas
Great Rift Valley
Mt. Kilimanjaro
Northern Africa
1. Northern Africa consists of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Libya and Egypt.
2. These countries (except for Egypt) cover an area known
as the Maghreb, which is an Arab word used to describe
the countries that share the Atlas Mountains and the
small coastal plains along the Mediterranean Sea.
3. Culturally, these countries are more similar to the
Middle East than the rest of Africa because they were
conquered by Arab Muslims.
4. The original inhabitants of the region were the Berbers,
who were nomadic herders that depended on the fertile
valleys and oases of the region for survival.
The Maghreb
Egypt
1. Egypt is home to one of
the oldest civilizations
in the world.
2. Tourism is important to
Egypt, with many
people coming to see
the pyramids, which
were built as tombs for
the early pharaohs of
Egypt.
3. Also important to Egypt
is the Suez Canal, which
connects the
Mediterranean Sea to
the Gulf of Suez.
Suez Canal
Western Africa
1. The countries of Mauritania, Mali, Niger,
Chad, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea
Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria
make up the region known as Western
Africa.
The Sahel
1. Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and the Sudan are
called the Sahel Countries.
2. The Sahel is a large area of savannas that separate
the Sahara Desert from the tropical forests of
Africa.
3. The Sahel is considered a transition zone because:
1. Rainfall increases from less than 5 inches a year to more
than 50 inches a year.
2. The population becomes less Arabic and more African.
3. The Islamic religion is replaced by Christianity or smaller,
tribal religions.
The Lost Boys of the Sudan
1. During the 1980’s, a civil war broke out in
southern Sudan.
2. Around 20,000 boys between the ages of 7
and 17 fled the area, fearing execution or of
being forced into the army.
3. Travelling thousands of miles through
dangerous lands, the survivors eventually
ended up in a refugee camps in Kenya and
Ethopia.
Central Africa
1. Central Africa consists of Cameroon, Central
African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon,
Congo and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.
2. Much of this region lies along the equator
and is covered in tropical rain forests.
3. The region is sparsely populated and largely
rural – many people in this region survive as
subsistence farmers.
The Bantu
1. The Bantu are a group
of people who migrated
from Central Africa into
Western and Southern
Africa.
2. There are around 60
million Bantu but they
are known more for
their language than
their ethnicity.
3. There are around 400
closely related Bantu
languages – Swahili is
the largest.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo
1. In 1965, Joseph Mobutu seized control of the
country known as the Belgian Congo and changed
its name to Zaire.
2. Mobutu’s rule was extremely harsh and corrupt
and in 1997 he was overthrown but a civil war
broke out soon after between the various ethnic
groups of the country.
3. Neighboring countries sent troops in to bring
things under control but ended up fighting each
other over the resources of the area.
4. Today, the United Nations is still working to bring
peace to the region – millions have died over the
years, mainly due to disease and famine.
Joseph Mobutu
Eastern Africa
1. Eastern Africa consists of Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda,
Burundi and Tanzania.
2. This region is referred to as the Horn of Africa.
3. A few of these countries are relatively stable,
but political instability and civil war are quite
common in the region, mainly due to ethnic
disputes.
4. Extreme poverty and famine are also serious
problems.
Lake Victoria
1. Lake Victoria is located in Eastern Africa.
2. It is the largest lake in Africa and the third
largest lake in the world.
3. The area around Lake Victoria is one of
Africa’s most populated regions (over 500
people per square mile).
Lake Victoria
Victoria Falls
1. Victoria Falls is located in southern Africa on the
Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and
Zimbabwe.
2. Victoria Falls is known as the greatest curtain of
falling water in the world.
Rwanda and Burundi
1. An ethnocracy is a government in which one
ethnic group rules over others.
2. In Rwanda, 80% of the population are Hutu
and they controlled the government until a
civil war broke out in the 1990’s between
them and the Tutsi.
3. In Burundi, the Tutsi control the government,
even though they make less than 20% of the
population.
South Africa
1. South Africa consists
of Angola, Zambia,
Malawi, Namibia,
Botswana, Zimbabwe,
Mozambique, South
Africa, Lesotho,
Swaziland and
Madagascar.
2. The southern tip of
Africa is known as the
Cape of Good Hope.
Tugela Falls
1. Tugela Falls, at 3,110 feet, is the highest waterfall
in Africa.
2. It is the second highest waterfall in the world.
South Africa
1. With the exception of the country of South
Africa, this region is one of the poorest of
Africa.
2. Droughts and diseases are serious problems
within the region.
3. These problems have led to a great deal of
political instability and conflict.
The Afrikaners
1. In the late 1600’s, Dutch
colonists settled Cape
Town in South Africa.
2. They slowly moved
northward into the
interior, developing
farms.
3. In the late 1800’s,
diamonds were
discovered in the region,
leading to large numbers
of Europeans moving
into the area
Homelands/Apartheid
1. In order to control the large black population of
South Africa, the government created
homelands.
2. These areas made up about 14% of the
country’s land but 75% of the population was
forced to live there.
3. Each ethnicity/tribe had their own homeland
and weren’t allowed out of it unless they had a
pass from the government.
4. This system of separation became known as
apartheid – “apartness”.
The African National Congress
1. The ANC was formed to
protest apartheid.
2. Its leader was Nelson
Mandela.
3. The S. African
government banned the
party and threw
Mandela in jail for life.
4. In 1994, when free
elections were finally
held, Mandela was
elected president of
South Africa.