Sub-Saharan Africa: Defining the Realm
Our first lecture, or activity, in each chapter (or realm) will apply the regional criteria to the realm or "Define the Realm". To do this we will: (1) describe the general physical, cultural, economic, and historical characteristics of the realm; (2) compare the physical, cultural, economic, and historical characteristics of the realm with that of neighboring realms: and (3) look for physical barriers and sparse population densities at the realm's boundaries. Our purpose is twofold: first, to get a basic understanding of the realm to be studied, and second, to understand why our authors divided the world into the 12 realms that they did.
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Application of the Regional Criteria to Sub-Saharan Africa
(This is a review of an exercise we did in the Introduction.)
Use the regional criteria to explain why geographers divide Africa into NORTH AFRICA and SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA.
My wife teaches first grade and when her class studies Africa they study the whole continent, from Morocco and Egypt in the north to South Africa in the south [afntos]. but most college world regional geography textbooks divide the continent of Africa into two different chapters or realms [SSA]. with North African and Southwest Asia in the north and Sub-Saharan Africa in the south. WHY?
Because it makes sense - geographically - to divide Africa in this manner. This can be seen if we apply the regional criteria to the continent of Africa. We will do this by looking at maps of Africa to see if the north is really significantly different from the south.
Look at the following maps and compare them with this map of Africa [SSA] . Which criteria best explain why geographers often divide Africa into two different realms? (Note: not all of the criteria will explain all realm boundaries.)
Physical
Economic
Historical:
pre-colonial
Historical:
colonial
Cultural:
Population Clusters
[popden]
[afpopden]
Realm boundaries often pass through areas of low population density. Is this true for the border between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa?
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Comparison with Neighboring Realms
See my Comparison of Sub-Saharan Africa with neighboring North Africa/Southwest Asia. I hope that this exercise of DESCRIBING and COMPARING neighboring realms will teach us to think like geographers. You should be able to do this for each realm.