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AfricaAfrica is one of the greatest sized continents of the Earth. The Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea mostly surround Africa. Africa covers 20.4% of the total land area of earth. Africa's physical Northwest frontier is traditionally the eastern border of Egypt. Spain across the straight of Gibraltar is the northern economic frontier for emigrants. Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia.
Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas. Because of the lack of natural regular precipitation and irrigation, as well as virtually no glaciers or mountain aquifer systems there is no natural moderating affect on the climate except near the coasts.
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Timeline
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631 BC Founding of Cyrene, a Greek colony in Libya (North Africa) (approximate date).
21 Beginning of the revolt in Africa led by Tacfarinas.
24 Repression of Tacfarinas' revolt in Africa.
43 In Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Coptic Christianity, Mark the Evangelist becomes the first Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, thus establishing Christian Church in Africa.
50 Diogenes, the Greek explorer, discovers the Great Lakes of Africa.
60 Vitellius is (possibly) proconsul of Africa.
63 Vespasian becomes governor of Africa
65 The first Christian community in Africa is founded by Mark, a disciple of Peter. Mark begins to write his gospel.
150 The Roman army consists of 400,000 men. Of these, there are ten legions (55,000 men) and 140 auxiliary units (80,000 men, of which half are cavalry) based in the Balkans and along the Danube; 50,000 legionaires and auxiliaries in Britain; 45,000 in Germany; 20,000 men in Egypt; and 10,000 in Africa and Numidia.
188 Pertinax becomes consul of Africa.
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Encyclopedia
Africa is one of the greatest sized continents of the Earth. The Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea mostly surround Africa. Africa covers 20.4% of the total land area of earth. Africa's physical Northwest frontier is traditionally the eastern border of Egypt. Spain across the straight of Gibraltar is the northern economic frontier for emigrants. Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas. Because of the lack of natural regular precipitation and irrigation, as well as virtually no glaciers or mountain aquifer systems there is no natural moderating affect on the climate except near the coasts. The name "Africa" is of uncertain etymology. The Greek word ?f???? , meaning "not cold" is a possible origin but not definite. Although European speculation about the nature of Africa south of Sahara date back more then two millennium, Africa is generally assumed to be the longest inhabited continent by human beings. At about 30,370,000 km² including adjacent islands, Africa covers 6.0% of the Earth's total surface area With more than 840,000,000 people in 61 territories, it accounts for over 12% of the world's human population. EtymologyThe name Africa came into Western use through the Romans. The Roman province of Africa, established in the second century BC in the area roughly corresponding to modern-day Tunisia, took its name from Africa terra — "land of the Afri" . The Afri were a tribe — possibly Berber — who dwelt in North Africa near the provincial capital, Carthage. The origin of Afer may be connected with Phoenician `afar, dust . Other etymologies that have been postulated for the ancient name 'Africa' with less support include: - the Latin word aprica, meaning "sunny";
- the Greek word aphrike, meaning "without cold." This was proposed by historian Leo Africanus , who suggested the Greek word phrike , combined with the negating prefix "a-", thus indicating a land free of cold and horror. However, as the change of sound from ph to f in Greek is datable to about the 10th century, it is unlikely this is the origin.
Ancient Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while "Asia" was used to refer to Anatolia and lands to the east. Originally Egypt and the Levant had an indeterminate position between these locations, though as part of the Persian empire they were sometimes absorbed in the loose concept of "Asia". A definite line was drawn between the two continents by the geographer Ptolemy , indicating Alexandria along the Prime Meridian and making the isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea the boundary between Asia and Africa. As Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge.
Geography
Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the Earth's exposed surface. Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez , 130 km wide. From the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia , to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa , is a distance of approximately 8,000 km ; from Cape Verde, 17°33'22" W, the westernmost point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, 51°27'52" E, the most easterly projection, is a distance of approximately 7,400 km . The coastline is 26,000 km long, and the absence of deep indentations of the shore is illustrated by the fact that Europe, which covers only 10,400,000 km² — about a third of the surface of Africa — has a coastline of 32,000 km . Paranthropus boisei was an early hominin [i] and described as the largest of the Paranthropus [i]'...
and Homo ergaster is an extinct hominid [i] species [i] which lived throughout eastern and southern Africa [i] ...
have been discovered.
Early civilizations and tradeAbout 3300 BC, the historical record opens in Africa with the rise of literacy in the Pharaonic-ruled civilisation of Egypt, which continued, with varying levels of influence over other areas, until 343 BC. Prominent civilizations at different times include Carthage, the Kingdom of Aksum, the Nubian kingdoms, the empires of the Sahel , Great Zimbabwe, and the Kongo.
Apart from the Nile valley, the Sahara desert presented a near impenetrable barrier between north and south, until the introduction of the camel. This beast of burden was first brought to Egypt by the Persians after 525 BC, although large herds did not become common enough in North Africa to establish the trans-Saharan trade until the eighth century AD. The Sanhaja Berbers were the first to exploit this, and after the spread of Islam a steady trade in precious metals, ivory, salt and slaves ensued between the Muslim states in the Maghreb and the Sahelian kingdoms.
Pre-colonial Africa possessed perhaps as many as 10,000 different states and polities characterised by different sorts of political organisation and rule. These included small family groups of hunter-gatherers such as the San people of southern Africa; larger, more structured groups such as the family clan groupings of the Bantu-speaking people of central and southern Africa and heavily-structured clan groups in the Horn of Africa, the Sahelian Kingdoms, and autonomous city-states such as the Swahili coastal trading towns of the East African coast, whose trade network extended as far as China.
In 1414, the Chinese admiral Zheng He visited Africa's east coast. In 1482, the Portuguese established the first of many trading stations along the coast of Ghana at Elmina. The chief commodities dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The European discovery of the Americas in 1492 was followed by a great development of the slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been an overland trade almost exclusively, and never confined to any one continent.
Slavery began to be phased out in Europe and America in the early nineteenth century, resulting in a dramatic shift in the economies of coastal states such as Dahomey and Asante.
Pre-colonial explorationIn the mid nineteenth century European and particularly British explorers became interested in exploring the heart of the continent and opening the area for trade, mining and other commercial exploitation. In addition, there was a desire to convert the inhabitants to Christianity. The central area of Africa was still largely unknown to Europeans at this time. David Livingstone explored the continent between 1852 and his death in 1873, amongst other claims to fame, he was the first European to see the Victoria Falls. A prime goal for explorers was to locate the source of the River Nile. Expeditions by Burton and Speke and Speke and Grant located Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. The latter was eventually proven as the source of the Nile. With subsequent expeditions by Baker and Stanley, Africa was well explored by the end of the century and this was to lead the way for the colonisation which followed.
Colonialism and the "scramble for Africa"
In the late nineteenth century, the European imperial powers staged a major "scramble for Africa" and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial nation states, and leaving only two independent nations: Liberia, the Black American colony, and Orthodox Christian Abyssinia . This colonial occupation continued until after the conclusion of World War II, when all the colonial states gradually obtained formal independence.
Colonialism had a destabilizing effect on what had been a number of ethnic groups that is still being felt in African politics. Before European influence, national borders were not much of a concern, with Africans generally following the practice of other areas of the world, such as the Arabian Peninsula, where a group's territory was congruent with its military or trade influence. The European insistence of drawing borders around territories to isolate them from those of other colonial powers often had the effect of separating otherwise contiguous political groups, or forcing traditional enemies to live side by side with no buffer between them. For example, although the Congo River appears to be a natural geographic boundary, there were groups that otherwise shared a language, culture or other similarity who resided on both sides. The division of the land between Belgium and France along the river isolated these groups from each other. Those who lived in Saharan or Sub-Saharan Africa and traded across the continent for centuries often found themselves crossing borders that existed only on European maps.
In nations that had substantial European populations, for example Rhodesia and South Africa, systems of second-class citizenship were often set up in order to give Europeans political power far in excess of their numbers. In the Congo Free State, personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium, the native population was submitted to inhumane treatments, and a near slavery status assorted with forced labor. However, the lines were not always drawn strictly across racial lines. In Liberia, the citizens who were descendants of American slaves managed to have a political system for over 100 years that gave ex-slaves and natives to the area roughly equal legislative power despite the fact the ex-slaves were outnumbered ten to one in the general population. The inspiration for this system was the United States Senate, which had balanced the power of free and slave states despite the much-larger population of the former.
Europeans often changed the balance of power, created ethnic divides where they did not previously exist, and introduced a cultural dichotomy detrimental to the native inhabitants in the areas they controlled. For example, in what are now Rwanda and Burundi, two ethnic groups Hutus and Tutsis had merged into one culture by the time German colonists had taken control of the region in the nineteenth century. No longer divided by ethnicity as intermingling, intermarriage, and merging of cultural practices over the centuries had long since erased visible signs of a culture divide, the Belgians instituted a policy of racial categorization, upon taking control of the region, as racial based categorization and philosophies was a fixture of the European culture of that time. The term Hutu originally referred to the agricultural-based Bantu-speaking tribes that moved into present day Rwandan and Burundi from the West, and the term Tutsi referred to Northeastern cattle-based tribes that migrated into the region later. The terms to the indigenous peoples eventually came to describe a person's economic class. Individuals who owned roughly 10 or more cattle were considered Tutsi, and those with fewer were considered Hutu, regardless of ancestral history. This was not a strict line but a general rule of thumb, and one could move from Hutu to Tutsi and vice versa.
The Belgians introduced a racialized system. Individuals who had characteristics the Europeans admired — fairer skin, ample height, narrow noses, etc. — were given power amongst the colonized peoples. The Belgians determined these features were more ideally Hamitic, and in turn more ideally European and belonged to those people closest to Tutsi in ancestry. They instituted a policy of issuing identity cards based on this philosophy. Those closest to this ideal were proclaimed Tutsi and those not were proclaimed Hutu.
Post-colonial AfricaToday, Africa is home to 53 independent countries, which mostly still have the borders drawn during the era of European colonialism.
Since colonialism, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African nations are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule. Few nations in Africa have been able to sustain democratic governments, and many have instead cycled through a series of brutal coups and military dictatorships. A number of Africa's post-colonial political leaders were military generals who were poorly educated and ignorant on matters of governance. Great instability, however, was mainly the result of marginalization of other ethnic groups and graft under these leaders. For political gain, many leaders fanned ethnic conflicts that had been exacerbated, or even created, by colonial rule. In many countries, the military was perceived as being the only group that could effectively maintain order, and it ruled many nations in Africa during the 1970s and early 1980s. During the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, Africa had more than 70 coups and 13 presidential assassinations. Border and territorial disputes were also common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.
Cold War conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the policies of the International Monetary Fund, also played a role in instability. When a country became independent for the first time, it was often expected to align with one of the two superpowers. Many countries in Northern Africa received Soviet military aid, while many in Central and Southern Africa were supported by the United States, France or both. The 1970s saw an escalation, as newly independent Angola and Mozambique aligned themselves with the Soviet Union and the West and South Africa sought to contain Soviet influence. Some countries were ruled by communist parties that sought to impose Soviet policies resulting in atrocities such as the Ethiopian famine of 1985-89.
PoliticsFailed government policies and political corruption combined with the effects of global climate change have resulted in many widespread famines, and significant portions of Africa remain with distribution systems unable to disseminate enough food or water for the population to survive. What had before colonialism been the source for 90% of the world's gold had become the poorest continent on earth, its former riches enjoyed by those on other continents. The spread of disease is also rampant, especially the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus and the associated acquired immune deficiency syndrome , which has become a deadly epidemic on the continent. Despite numerous hardships, there have been some signs the continent has hope for the future. Democratic governments seem to be spreading, though they are not yet the majority . As well, many nations have recognized basic human rights for all citizens and have created reasonably independent judiciaries.
There are clear signs of increased networking among African organisations and states. In the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo , rather than rich, non-African countries intervening, about half a dozen neighbouring African countries became involved . Since the conflict began in 1998, the estimated death toll has reached 4 million.
Many observers suggest that the conflict played a role similar to that of World War II for Europe, after which the people in the neighbouring countries decided to integrate their societies in such a way that war between them becomes as unthinkable as a war between, say, France and Germany would be today. Political associations such as the African Union are also offering hope for greater co-operation and peace between the continent's many countries. Extensive human rights abuses still occur in several parts of Africa, often under the oversight of the state. Most of such violations occur for political reasons, often as a side effect of civil war. Countries where major human rights violations have been reported in recent times include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, and Côte d'Ivoire.
Economy
Due largely to the effects of colonialism, corrupt governments and despotism, Africa is the world's poorest inhabited continent. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 25 ranked nations were all African nations.
While rapid growth in China and now India, and moderate growth in Latin America, has lifted millions beyond subsistence living, Africa has gone backwards in terms of foreign trade, investment, and per capita income. This poverty has widespread effects, including lower life expectancy, violence, and instability -- factors intertwined with the continent's poverty.
Some areas, notably Botswana and South Africa, have experienced economic success, including the opening of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. This is partly due to its wealth of natural resources, being the world's leading producer of both gold and diamonds, and partly due to its well-established legal system. South Africa also has access to financial capital, numerous markets, skilled labor, and first world infrastructure in much of the country. Other African countries are making comparable progress, such as Ghana and Kenya, and some, like Egypt, have a longer history of commercial and economic success.
Nigeria sits on one of the largest proven oil reserves in the world and has the highest population among nations in Africa, with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
From 1995 to 2005, economic growth picked up, averaging 5% in 2005. However some countries experienced much higher growth in particular, Angola, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea, all three of which have recently begun extracting their petroleum reserves.
DemographicsAfricans may be grouped according to whether they live north or south of the Sahara; these groups are called North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans, respectively. Afro-Asiatic speaking peoples predominate in North Africa, while Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by a number of populations grouped according to their language — Niger-Congo predominantly in West Africa, Afro-Asiatic in the Horn of Africa, Nilo-Saharan in Eastern Africa and the central Sahara, and Khoisan in the south.
Speakers of Bantu languages are the majority in southern, central and east Africa proper. But there are also several Nilotic groups in East Africa, and a few remaining indigenous Khoisan and Pygmy peoples in southern and central Africa, respectively. Bantu-speaking Africans also predominate in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and are found in parts of southern Cameroon and southern Somalia. In the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, the distinct people known as the Bushmen have long been present. The San are physically distinct from other Africans and are the indigenous people of southern Africa. Pygmies are the pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of central Africa.
The peoples of North Africa comprise two main groups; Berber and Arabic-speaking peoples in the west, and Egyptians in the east. The Arabs who arrived in the seventh century introduced the Arabic language and Islam to North Africa. The Semitic Phoenicians, the European Greeks, Romans and Vandals settled in North Africa as well. Berbers still make up the majority in Morocco, while they are a significant minority within Algeria. They are also present in Tunisia and Libya. The Tuareg and other often-nomadic peoples are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan-speaking group , who developed an ancient civilization in northeast Africa.
During the past century or so, small but economically important colonies of Lebanese and Chinese have also developed in the larger coastal cities of West and East Africa, respectively.
Some Ethiopian and Eritrean groups speak Semitic languages. The Oromo and Somali peoples speak Cushitic languages, but some Somali clans trace their founding to legendary Arab founders. Sudan and Mauritania |
