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BRIEF OUTLINE / 4 CLASS THEMES
Chapter 6
SUBSAHARAN AFRICA
DEFINING THE REALM 277
- PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
- Africa's Physiography 277
- Continental Drift and Plate Technologies
277
- Natural Environments 277
- Environment and Health 280
- Land and Farming 281
- HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
- Africa's Historical Geography 284
- African Genesis 284
- The colonial transformation 287
- CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
- Cultural Patterns 292
- African Languages 292
- Religion in Africa 293
- Modern Map and Traditional Society 294
- Population and Urbanization 294
- ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 295
REGIONS OF THE REALM 295
- Southern Africa 297
- South Africa 298
- The Middle Tier 303
- The Northern Tier 304
- East Africa 306
- Kenya 206
- Tanzania 308
- Uganda 309
- Rwanda and Burundi 309
- Highland Ethiopia 310
- Equatorial Africa 311
- The Congo 311
- Across the River 311
- West Africa 314
- Nigeria: West Africa's Cornerstone 316
- Coast and Interior 318
- The African Transition Zone 320
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DETAILED OUTLINE
Chapter 6
SUBSAHARAN AFRICA
MAJOR GEOGRAPHIC QUALITIES OF THE REALM
- Physiographically, Africa is a plateau continent without a
linear mountain backbone, with a set of Great Lakes, variable
rainfall, generally low-fertility soils, and mainly savanna and
steppe vegetation.
- Dozens of nations, hundreds of ethnic groups, and many smaller
entities make up Subsaharan Africa's culturally rich and varied
population.
- Most of Subsaharan Africa's peoples depend on farming for
their livelihood.
- Health and nutritional conditions in Subsaharan Africa need
improvement as the incidence of disease remains high and diets are
often unbalanced. The AIDS pandemic began in Africa and has become
a major health crisis in this realm.
- Africa's boundary framework is a colonial legacy; many
boundaries were drawn without adequate knowledge of or regard for
the human and physical geography they divided.
- The realm is rich in raw materials vital to industrialized
countries, but much of Subsaharan Africa's population has little
access to the goods and services of the world economy.
- Patterns of raw-material exploitation and export routes set up
in the colonial period still prevail in most of Subsaharan Africa.
Interregional and international connections are poor.
- During the Cold War, great-power competition magnified
conflicts in several Subsaharan African countries, with results
that will be felt for generations.
- Severe dislocation affects many Subsaharan African countries,
from Liberia to Rwanda. This realm has the largest refugee
population in the world today.
- Government mismanagement and poor leadership afflict the
economies of many Subsaharan African countries.
DEFINING THE REALM
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QUESTION:
What is the difference between the following:
- Realm: Sub-Saharan Africa
- Region: Southern Africa
- Country: South Africa
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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY - Africa's Unique Physical Geography
- Online
Lecture
- Review
- Peripheral location of Africa compared to the world's core
hinders development
- The large size of the African continent:
- 1/5 of Earth's land surface
- 4800 miles north to south
- 4500 miles east to west
- because of it's large size much of Africa is far from the
moisture of oceans therefore parts are very dry (deserts:
Sahara in north and Kalahari in south)
- Unique Physical Geography:
- large size / consequences
- no continental mountain backbone
- linear great lakes cluster
- rift valleys
- erratic rivers (begin by flowing AWAY from the coasts),
some with inland deltas and waterfalls or cataracts
- plateau continent with escarpments and rift valleys
- mostly tropical
- climate and vegetation symmetrical about the equator
- major deserts
- Why?
- Natural Environments
- tropical but elevated
- what are the "Tropics"? (see yellow area in map below)
- climatic regions symmetrical about the equator (G-8)
- steep decline in annual rainfall as you move north or south
of the equator (G-7, G-8)
- Figure G-8 or see map below:
- tropical rain forest = Af and Am climates
- savanna = Aw climates
- steppe - BS climates
- desert = BW climates
- Where is most of Africa's wildlife found?
- The "Sahel" is the BS steppes just south of the Sahara
desert (BW)
- Population
- population of ALL countries in Subsaharan Africa = 1/2 that
of China
- see Table G-1
- NOT densely populated (G-9, G-10)
- some good soils, water, - but small in area
- "and of corn (maize), millet, and root crops (yams,
cassava, sweet potatoes)
- not high yielding rice and wheat
- few green revolution effects in Africa
- result: low yields and food challenges
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
- Measures of Economic Development
- Introduction / Some Facts / see Table G-1
- GNP per capita declined 25% in the 1980s
- food production is down 20% from 1970
- population has doubled since 1970
- at the current annual growth rate (2.2%) the population
will double in 32 years and quadruple in 64 years (know the
"rule of 70")
- at the current annual growth rate (2.2 %) the population
will be over 2 billion by the year 2050 current population
is 714.3 million (2006)
- Africa, 10 % of the world's population - receives only 2
% of the world's direct private investment
- 27 Sub-Saharan African countries are among the 40
poorest countries in the world
- see table G-1 of your textbook
- Online Lectures
- INCOME: Figure G-11
- AGRICULTURE:
- large areas of shifting cultivation in the wetter
areas
- and nomadic herding in the drier areas
- Environment and Health
- endemic
- epidemic
- pandemic
- malaria
- yellow fever
- AIDS
- 41 million cases in world including 27 million in
Africa (over half of all cases in 2005)\
- 25 million deaths since early 1980s
- in 2004 more than 2.3 million deaths in Subsaharan
Africa
- in 2004 75% of the total deaths in the world from
AIDS were in Subsaharan Africa
- Effects:
- life expectancy declining 47-50 years (only 36
years in Botswana, see Table G-1)
- declining population growth rates
- declining output
- fewer people of working age to care for young and
elderly
- orphans
- Land and Farming
- 67% of population depends on farming
- highest of any realm
- issue of land tenure:
- definition: the way people own, occupy, and use
land
- traditionally land owned by community in many parts of
Subsaharan Africa
- European colonization: land alienation changed
land tenure to private ownership
- post independence: some states nationalized farm
land (i.e. government took it over)
- corrupt and inefficient government management
- price controls kept prices low for city dwellers
hurting farmers
- state marketing boards were inefficient
- rapid population growth and communal land tenure
- shifting cultivation and shortened fallow time
resulting in smaller harvests
- pastoralism and shortened fallow time
- African Economic Development
- Farming is important ("the key")
- Development: Trade vs. Aid ?
- Agricultural Subsidies in the MDCs lower prices and hurt
African Farmers:
[we help our farmers, but hurt theirs]
- Debt Relief would help:
- Other Barriers to economic development
- But farm production is declining !!!
- government mismanagement and corruption
- inadequate rural infrastructure
- roads
- storage facilities
- lack of electricity
- inadequate access to credit
- Population and Urbanization in Subsaharan Africa (p. 294)
- only 33% urban population
- but urbanizing at a fast pace
- large informal sector
- rural-to-urban migration forming squatter villages
- See map G-11 and table G-1
- How does Subsaharan Africa compare to the rest of the
world?
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
- Introduction
- "cradle of humanity" (evolution of humans)
- little is known of early history
- absence of a written record
- colonial policies de-emphasized African history
- African Genesis
- Early Trade - West Africa and regional
complementarity (Fig. G-7, G-8, map below)
- In West Africa there is great variability in climate and
rainfall over a short distance (a few hundred miles, see map
below). This provided opportunities for trade.
- coastal rain forest (80-200 inches of rain a year)
- source of ivory, spice, dried foods
- savanna
- steppe
- desert (0-4 inches of rain a year)
- Early States
- Inland from the coast to facilitate trade between the
coast and the desert
- West African Culture Hearth (Figure 7-3)
- Other African States (Figure 6-5)
- The great Bantu migration
- The Colonial Transformation
- Early European contact - coastal stations and forts
- Slavery - moved activity from the inland savanna to the
coast
- Decline of interior savanna states
- Coastal states gained wealth form the slave trade
- some slave trade earlier
- European took perhaps 30 million slaves (figure
6-7)
- Why so many to Brazil?
- strong role of African middlemen
- kept Europeans on the coast (little inland penetration
until centuries later) except in southern Africa
- Colonization
- EUROPEAN COLONIAL OBJECTIVES
- Early contact:
- A port along the West African coast
- A water route to South Asia and Southeast
Asia
- 1500's - looking for resources; Slaves
- Colonization:
- 1850 - industrial revolution occurs in Europe
- Increased demand for mineral resources
- Need to expand agricultural production
- BERLIN CONFERENCE 1884 (Figure 6-8)
- 14 states divided up Africa without consideration of
cultures
- Results of superimposed boundaries
- African peoples were divided.
- Unified regions were ripped apart.
- Hostile societies were thrown together.
- Hinterlands were disrupted.
- Migration routes were closed off.
- When independence returned to Africa after 1950, the
realm had already acquired a legacy of political
fragmentation.
- COLONIAL POLICIES (figure 6-8)
- Great Britain:
- "Indirect Rule"
- Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe
- Indigenous power structures were left intact to
some degree and local rulers were made representatives
of the crown.
- France:
- "Assimilationist"
- Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, etc.
- Enforced a direct rule, which propagated the
French culture through language, laws, education and
dress (acculturation)
- Portugal:
- "harsh direct control"
- Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique
- First to enslave and colonize and one of the last
to grant independence
- Maintained rigid control
- raw resource oriented
- Belgium:
- "ruthless exploitation"
- Rwanda, Dem. Dep. of the Congo, Burundi
- "paternalistic" ?? -- Treated Africans as though
they where children who needed to be tutored in
western ways; did not try to make them Belgium
- Raw resource oriented; ignored the development of
natives
- as many as 10 million killed
- THE LEGACY OF COLONIALISM- What are the lasting effects
of colonization?
- boundaries still in place today
- exploitative transportation systems hinder
development, all roads lead to the coast, few inland
connections
- location of African cities
- African "elites" during colonization retained their
power = authoritarian rule and military takeovers
- Democracies: Ghana, Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa,
Nigeria (?)
- European lingua franca and official
languages
- Antagonism between tribes (e.g., Rwanda)
- Low level of development is linked to
colonization
- Dual economy remains intact; most states rely on a
single crop or mineral and are vulnerable to world
markets.
- THE COLD WAR LEGACY
- what was the cold war?
- Marxism in Ethiopia
- Somalia
- War in Angola
CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY (Cultural Patterns)
- Introduction
- colonization had little impact on the lives of most
Africans
- 67% still subsistence farmers
- thousands of languages (Figure 6-6)
- "most complex cultural mosaic on Earth"
- African Languages (Figure 6-9)
- importance of language in defining the northern border of
the realm (Figures G-2 and 6-9)
- language families
- thousand of languages
- only about 40 African languages are spoken by more than 1
million people
- only about a half dozen spoken by more than 10 million
people (Hausa, Yoruba, and Ibo in Nigeria, Swahili in the east,
Lingala in central Africa, and Zulu in south Africa)
- lingua franca (plural: linguae francae)
- French and English
- Hausa in West African savanna
- Swahili in East Africa
- Pidgin languages along West Africa's coast
- Multilingualism
- a centrifugal force in many countries
- Nigeria: English is the official language, about 250
languages total
- Religion in Africa (Figure 7-2)
- traditional religions clashed with Islam and European
religions
- Christianity
- first entered Africa in Nubia and Axum (Sudan and
Ethiopia) in the fourth century AD (Figure 6-5)
- Ethiopia has been Christian area ever since
- Colonization brought Christianity to the rest of the
realm
- transculturation (rather than acculturation); a blending
of the traditional and Christian beliefs
- Islam
- Penetrated Africa much earlier than Christianity (except
for Ethiopia in the horn of Africa)
- Leaders of West African states converted
- Spread through the savanna to what is now northern
Nigeria, Ghana, and the Ivory coast
- encircled the Christians in Ethiopia and spread down the
Horn of Africa through Somalia into Kenya and Tanzania
coast, and the island of Zanzibar
- Islamic Front: (Figure 6-10 and 6-19) in the African
Transition Zone
- Islamic Front: Problems / Conflicts between Islamic
North and Christian/Animist South (Figure 6-19)
- Nigeria (Figure 6-17)
- Africa's most populous state
- 3 major nations and 250 other peoples
- Figure 6-19 misleading - not all of Nigeria is
50-70% Islamic
- Figure 7-2 is better
- return to democracy in 1999 elections
- Sharia (Islamic) law proclaimed in twelve northern
States
- severe criminal penalties including amputation,
death by stoning
- schools segregated by gender
- many Muslim driven taxis won't pick up
women
- certain jobs reserved for men only
- riots, many Christians fled to the south
- Ivory Coast
- Divided Sudan (p. 349)
- Politics in Africa
- 45 states but no nation-states
- strong centrifugal forces
- including outside intervention during the Cold War
- the colonial legacy also hinders political stability
- The African Union
REGIONS OF SUBSAHARAN AFRICA (Figure 6-10)
- Southern Africa
- East Africa
- Equatorial Africa
- West Africa
- African Transition Zone
SOUTHERN AFRICA (Figure 6-11)
- What is the difference between the following:
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Southern Africa
- South Africa
- 10 countries
- 6 landlocked states
- Northern zone marks limit of Congo basin
- Plateau country
- Rich in natural resources
- Agricultural diversity
- but still poor
- The Republic of South Africa
- apartheid and separate development
- the Dutch, British, and the Boer War (who won?)
- "Africa's most pluralistic and heterogeneous society
(Table 6-1)
- historic regionalism
- The Middle Tier of countries
- The Northern Tier
EAST AFRICA (Figure 6-14)
- Lies astride the equator
- Mainly highlands
- Cooler and generally drier conditions
- Ethnic diversity
- Swahili
- KENYA
- Dominant state in region
- Capitalist approach to development
- Nairobi (2.6 million)
- Coffee, tea, tourism revenues
- Swahili is the lingua franca
- 1980s - world's fastest growing populations
- AIDS
- government corruption
- TANZANIA
- socialist approach to development
- now: political stability and democracy
- UGANDA
- Kingdom of Buganda
- landlocked state
- Idi Amin
- LRA: Lord's Resistance Army
- RWANDA and BURUNDI
- Tutsi pastoralist (cattle herder)
- Hutu farmers
- Movie: "Hotel Rwanda"
- HIGHLAND ETHIOPIA
- physically and culturally part of East Africa WHY?
- Africans, not Arabs
- highlands
- future economic ties with Kenya to the south?
EQUATORIAL AFRICA (Figure 6-15)
WEST AFRICA (Figure 6-16)
- steppe and desert states to the north
- smaller, wetter, coastal states to the south
- 4 British, 9 French, 1 Portuguese former colonies, 1 long
independent state
- Why is it a REGION?
- most populous region
- desertification in the north
- periodic markets
- Conflicts:
- Ivory Coast
- Liberia
- Sierra Leone
- NIGERIA
- Africa's most populous country
- At independence (1960), Nigeria was composed of three
regions (based on regional tribal bases of the Hausa-Fulani,
Yoruba, and Ibo).
- In 1967 interregional rivalries led to civil war when
the eastern region tried to succeed as the Republic of
Biafra = civil war
- Regions were subdivided and rearranged to ensure a civil
war did not occur again.
- Currently - a Federal State
- Capital city moved from Lagos to Abuja (Forward
Capital)
- oil found in the Niger delta area followed by wasteful
development policies
AFRICAN TRANSITION ZONE (Figure 6-18)
- Sahel
- Islamic Front
- turmoil between the Islamic/Arab north and the
Christian/Animist Africans in the south
- conflicts:
- Sudan
- Eritrea and Ethiopia
- Ethiopia and Ogaden
- Somalia and Somaliland
