Chp 18: Physical
Geography of Africa
Take Five…
 Complete the Skill Builder questions on
pg 415
Landforms of The African
Continent
 Plateau over most of the continent
 1,000 feet above sea level
 “plateau continent”
 Water Basins (depressions)
 625 miles wide
 5,000 feet deep
 Ex: Chad, Sudan, Congo, & Djouf Basins
 Rivers
 Nile=Longest river in the world
 4,000 miles
 Provides Irrigation waters
 95% of water resource for Egypt
Nile River
Valleys, Mountains, & Lakes
(Oh My…)
 Rift Valleys—caused by continental separation


Lake Tanganyika—longest freshwater lake in the
world
Lake Victoria—world’s 2nd largest freshwater lake
 Volcanic mountains


Mount Kenya
Mount Kilimanjaro--Africa’s Highest Mtn.
 Escarpment—steep slope with plateau on top

The Great Escarpment in Southern Africa
Wally Points…
 What is the problem associated with rift
valleys in Africa?
Africa’s Natural Resources
 Rich mineral resources


Gold (30% of world’s resources); Platinum (80%)
Cobalt; Copper; Diamonds; Chromium (used in
production of stainless steel)
Oil—Libya, Nigeria, Algeria (world’s leading
petroleum countries); Angola & Gabon also rich in
oil resources
 Is not rich in economic development


Exploited by European imperialist countries
Africa slow to develop infrastructure and industries
Gold Production
Take Five…
 What do African countries, such as
Angola spend the oil money on?
In class assignment…pg 419
 Complete the Economic Map Activity on
pg 419
In class assignment
 Read Chp 18 Section 3 and make a list
of pros and cons for the building of the
Aswan Dam
 Then, write a paragraph either defending
or supporting the Dam
African Climate and Vegetation
 Deserts
 Kalahari
 Namib
 Sahara=largest desert in the world
 3,000 miles
 Temperatures over 100 during the day and freezing
at night
 Only 2 million Africans live here
 Aquifers=underground water resources
 Oasis
 Tropics of Africa?
 90% of continent lies between the Tropics of Cancer
and Capricorn
Kalahari
Sahara
Native Peoples of the Sahara
Take Five…
 From the youtube video—how did the
Bushmen survive without a lot of rainfall?
Where did they live?
The Gods Must Be Crazy…
Oasis in Kenya
Rainfall in Africa
 Mediterranean climates in Northern and
Southern Africa

Rainfall N =(Dec & Jan) & S = (June & July)
 East Africa
 Periodic droughts
 Central Africa
 Rainforest=throughout the year
 ½ of Africa is the tropical savannah w/ 2 rainy
seasons each year
 Western Africa
 Adequate rainfall
Vegetation
 Tropical grasslands cover the majority of African
landscapes

Serengeti Plain
 Rainforest in the Central regions of Africa




Congo Basin
Variety of plant and animal life
Canopy
Problems with slash/burn techniques
 ½ of original rainforest destroyed
Serengeti Plain
Congo Basin
Interesting and Unusual Plant
and Animal Life in Africa
Human-Environment
Interaction
 Desertification of the Sahel

Causes
 Overgrazing
of livestock
 Farming and increased soil erosion
 Wind erosion
 Drilling for water leads to increased levels of
salt which prevents growth
 Increased population

Effects
 Destroying
forests and rainforests
Human-Environment
Interaction
 Oil Resources in Nigeria
 World’s 6th largest oil exporter
 Nigeria borrowed money against oil
profits for internal improvements
 Oil prices dropped leaving Nigeria in
debt to foreign countries
Effects of Nigerian Oil Industry
 Mismanagement of money, corruption of
government officials and decline of oil prices
has injured the Nigerian economy
 400+ oil spills
 Bandits sabotaging oil pipelines with consent of
the government
 New leadership-President Olusegun Obasanjo
(1999) pledged to fire corrupt government
employees and clean up corruption and
mismanagement
Controlling the Nile River
 Periods of drought/flooding
 Flooding provided silt for fertile soils
along the banks of the Nile—but also
destroyed homes/farms etc
 Egyptians tried canals and dams to stop
the environmental problem
 Aswan High Dam (1970)


Created Lake Nasser—300 mile lake
Regulates water flow to farming regions
Aswan Dam
Aswan High Dam
Aswan High Dam
Lake Nasser
Problems associated with the
Aswan Dam
 Relocation of Nubian population
 Relocation of artifacts from the Temple Abu





Simbel
Destruction of some Egyptian artifacts
Decreased fertility without seasonal floods
Drains installed to flush out the salt deposits
which would have naturally been removed with
seasonal flooding
Increased in mosquito born diseases (malaria)
Evaporation of Lake Nasser
Temple of Abu Simbel
In Class Assignment…
 Make a chart of the 5 different regions of
Africa include: primary climate of the
region, countries in the region,
imperialistic nations taking over the
region, government of the region and
major natural resources of the region.
Take Five…
 Complete the Skill Builder Questions on
pg 431
Chp 19: From Human
Beginnings to New Nations
 East Africa
 North Africa
 West Africa
 Central Africa
 Southern Africa
East Africa
 “cradle of humanity”

Evidence of humanoids from 2 mill years
ago
 Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia,
Tanzania, and Uganda
Northern Africa
East African Trade
 100s AD-Trade along the Red Sea &
Indian Ocean-Aksum (Ethiopia)
 Center for Christianity
 Taking advantage of Monsoon winds
 600s AD-Kilwa (Tanzania) emerges as a
new trading center with middle east
 East Africa= cultural crossroads
Aksum
Colonization and Imperialism
 Europe interested in rich natural
resources
 Berlin Conference 1884-1885




Dividing Africa among European rulers
African chiefs were not invited
European country must illustrate and
maintain control in a region
Division without regard to cultural, ethnical
or any other African considerations
Colonization…
 By 1914 only Liberia & Ethiopia was free
from European control


U.S. in Liberia
Ethiopia defeated the Italians in 1896
Take Five…
 What happens to African countries, after
receiving their independence from
European countries? Ex?
Problems associated with
ending colonization
 Political instability
 Economic hardship
 Ethnical disputes

Ex: Rwanda’s Civil War in 1990
East African Economies
 Farming



70% rural
Cash crops: coffee, tea, sugar
Dependent on world market
 Tourism


Wildlife parks
Game reserves
Kenyan Wildlife Reserve
Maintaining East African
Traditions
 160 different ethnic groups

2 largest ethnic groups
 Masai

Mainly traditional farmers
 Kikuyu


Farmers as well as urban workers
The Mau Mau
How East Africans Cope with
the AIDS Pandemic
 HIV infections
 Spread of the disease
 Tradition vs modern
medicine
 Economy
 Population decline
 Orphans
North Africa
 Countries of North Africa: Algeria, Egypt,
Libya, Morocco, Sudan & Tunisia
 Life along the Nile river



The “gift of the Nile”
Seasonal floods
Prosperous agriculture
Egyptian Pharaohs
 3300 BC earliest Egyptian civilizations
 3100 BC unification of Egypt
 Artifacts and gains from Egyptians



Pyramids
Papyrus
Advances in Medicine
Pyramids
The Sphinx
Papyrus
Take Five…
 Complete the Skill Builder questions on
pg 439
Islam in North Africa
 Fall of the Egyptians to the Romans/
Byzantine Empire
 Northern African invaded numerous
times
 By 632 AD Muslims spread Islam to
Northern Africa
 750 AD Muslims controlled most of N.
Africa
Economies of Northern Africa
 Agriculture
 Cash crops
 Mining
 Oil



Algeria= major export
Libya 99% of exports
Labor shortages
African Souks
Culture…
 Souks
 Protest music


Rai—Algerian resentment toward French
colonization
Banning and criticizing rai
Women in Northern Africa
 Slow to have reforms for women
 Polygamy
 Tunisia


7% parliament
9 % business owners
Take Five…
 Complete the Skill Builder questions on
pg 442
West Africa
 Countries of Western Africa: Benin,
Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote
d’Ivorie, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania,
Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierre Leone,
and Togo
West Africa
Wally Points…
 Why would people want to trade gold for
salt?
The importance of trade
 Location, location, location



200 AD trade between West Africa and the
Sahara
Gold for salt trade
Good ports, open to European traders by
1300’s
Stateless societies
 Many African states lived as extended
family clan groups without official
leadership other than the patriarch of the
family
 Blood money
 Polygamy
 Polytheistic
Take Five…
 Complete the Skill Builder questions on
pg 443
Economies of West Africa
 Exports

Gold, diamonds, magnesium & bauxite
 Dependent upon world market
 Sierra Leone


One of the worst economic countries in
West Africa
Civil war, instable governments and
uneducated population
Culture of West Africa
 Asasia-cloth historically created for
royalty by the Ashanti people of Ghana
 Benin bronzes
 Music
Elements of jazz, blues,
reggae
 Kora=cross between the a
lute and a harp

Wally Points…
 What is significant about a father giving
his son a stool as a present in Ashanti
culture?
Asasia
Benin Bronze Works
Central Africa
 Countries of Central Africa: Cameroon,
Central African Republic, Dem. Rep. of
Congo, Rep. of Congo, Equatorial
Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and
Principe
European colonization
 Begin in Central Africa
 Importance of the slave trade
 Willingness of African leaders to trade
 Portuguese island of Sao Tome
The “Gold Coast”
 The slave trade

Competing tribes selling prisoners of war
to Europeans
 Portuguese and Dutch
 The middle passage
 Tight and loose packing
 Fear of depopulation
Triangle Trade Routes
Middle Passage
Tight Packing
European Colonization
 Role of King Leopold II of Belgium
 Rubber workers and beginning of
European colonization within the interior
 Central Africa colonized primarily by
Belgium and France
 Independence in the 1960’s
Central African Culture
 Reflections
against colonization and retaining
African culture


Ex: Congolese—culture above the West
Picasso—Fang sculpture
Central African Education
 Focusing on education to improve
workforce
 Less than ½ 16-20 year olds in SubSaharan Africa attend school
 Language barriers (700+ languages
spoken)
 Shortage of teachers
 Hopeful for the future
Southern Africa
 Countries of Southern Africa: Angola,
Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho,
Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius,
Mozambique, Namibia, S. Africa,
Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Southern Africa
Take Five…
 Complete the Skill Builder questions on
pg 454
Mutapa Empire
 Mwene Mutapa
 Economy based on Gold trade
 Portuguese colonization
Imperialism and Colonization
 South Africa


The Zulu
Dutch colonization (1600’s)
 Boer’s-Dutch

farmers
British imperialism
 Defeat
the Zulu
 Defeat the Boers
Zulu
Boers
KhoiKhoi and San People of
South Africa
Apartheid
 White minority controlled government,
economy, everything
 75% black majority controlled nothing
 Separation of the races
 Nelson Mandela



Jailed from 1964-1982
House arrest from 1982-1990
Elected President in democratic election of
1994
Nelson Mandela
Economies of Southern Africa
 Sanctions during Apartheid
 Gaps between the rich and poor—based
on race and ethnicity

Ex: Botswana
resources (3rd largest diamond
producer)
 Mismanagement of money
 Lack of agricultural goods
 Unequal distribution of wealth
 Valuable
Affects of AIDS in Southern
Africa
 25% of all adults infected in Zimbabwe
and Botswana
 Reduction of labor
 Orphans
Chp 20 Today’s Issues
 Africa after colonization







Political instability
Economic uncertainty
Lack of education in some areas
Tribal warfare (Civil war)
Mismanagement of resources
Lacking infrastructure & technology
Indebtedness
Take Five…
 Do you think that African countries
should have their debt forgiven or
reduced? Why or why not?
Reducing debt and raising
standard of living
 Debt forgiveness
 Regional cooperation to promote trade

Ex: Economic Community of West African
States
 Cash crops to diversification
 Education
Diseases
 Cholera
 Malaria
 Sleeping Sickness
 Smallpox
 AIDS
 Tuberculosis
 Ebola virus
Why so proliferate?
 Lack of clean drinking water
 Mosquitoes—no netting
 Lack of education
 Lack of medicine
 Lack of doctors
Assistance…
 World financial assistance
 World government agencies


Global Fund for Children’s Vaccines
Peace Corps
 Education
 Public health
 Private charity
Mental maps
 Look at your own maps then put them
away and find the following locations—
are you right?
 Nigeria
Nile River
 Johannesburg
Sahara
 Algeria
Kalihari
 Lake Victoria
Congo R
 Sudan
Egypt
 Somalia
Botswana