Wrg 11e lecture_ch08

1. Chapter 8 Lecture
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World Regional
Geography
A Developmental Approach
11th Edition
Africa South of
the Sahara

2. Chapter Learning Outcomes
• Gain knowledge of the ancient, medieval, and colonial history of
Africa South of the Sahara.
• Understand the human causes of environmental degradation in sub-
Saharan Africa.
• Develop appreciation for the environmental, sociocultural, and
economic diversity of Africa’s regions.
• Identify the multidimensional aspects of human development and
the underlying factors accounting for patterns of income inequality
and poverty.
• Discover the development strategies that address poverty and
human development issues in Africa South of the Sahara.
• Acquire an understanding of the unique human and physical
geographies that characterize the countries of West, Central, East,
and Southern Africa.
• Know how intraregional trading groups in West and Southern Africa
have evolved and how they have contributed to regional
development.
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3. Map
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4. Map
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5. Landforms
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6. Natural Regions of Africa South of the
Sahara
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7. Tropical Rainforest
• Equatorial portions of the Democratic Republic of
the Congo
• Gabon
• Republic of Congo
• South and Central Cameroon
• Coastal strips of West Africa
• Portions of Kenya
• Mean temperatures above 64 degrees
• 60–80 inches of rain annually on average
• Some places up to 160 inches of rain
• This supports lush rainforest vegetation.
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8. Tropical Savanna
• Inland
• Rainfall
– Average rainfall is 40–60 inches annually in heaviest wooded
sections.
– 20–40 inches annually in grassland regions of drier regions
– Central African Republic, Southern Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda,
Burundi, Northern Angola, Southern Congo, and Gabon
• Home to most famous national parks and game reserves
• Serengeti National Park—A “World Heritage Site”
• Ecotourism becoming an economic development draw
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9. Steppe
• Climatic transition zones between savanna
grasslands and true deserts
• Soil is primarily entisol.
• Fragile ecology of Kalahari Desert in Southwestern
Africa and Sahel zone on south side of Sahara
constantly threatened
– Soil degradation
– Desertification
• Rainfall 10–20 inches annually
• 87°–100° range in temperatures
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10. Desert
• Sahara Desert is the largest desert region
of Africa.
• Temperatures regularly exceed 100°.
• Parts of Central Sahara receive less than
four inches of rain annually.
• Southwest coast of Namibia—Temperatures
are cooler.
• Lack of soil moisture restricts vegetation.
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11. Highlands
• Isolated mountain areas of southern and
eastern sections of sub-Saharan Africa
• Varied temperatures, rainfall, and soil
conditions
• Environmental conditions vary with
altitude.
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12. Climate
• The ITCZ is a major determinant of sub-
Saharan Africa’s wind patterns and rainfall
regimes.
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13. Population
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14. Settlements
• Population
– 788 million population
– 2.5 percent population growth per year
– 805 million projected by 2010
– 1.1 billion by 2025
• Two zones of dense settlement
1. West African coastal belt stretching from Dakar,
Senegal to Libreville, Gabon
• Most of regions are urban, economic, and political centers
2. North–south belt from Ethiopian highlands down
through Lake Victoria, copper belt of Democratic
Republic of Congo and Zambia, to Witwatersrand
district of South Africa
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15. Ancient Civilizations
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16. Pre-Colonial
• Long and rich history prior to European colonization
• Ancient civilizations emerged in central part of Nile River Valley.
– Meroe–Capital of black kingdom of Kush
• Western Africa
– Kumbi and Saleh in Ghana
– Timbuktu, Djenne, and Gao in Songhai
– Emerged between 700–1600 as great centers of learning and trade
• Central African urban civilizations beget modern states.
– Congo
– Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire)
– Angola
– Zambia
– Rwanda
– Burundi
• Less urbanized as they lacked centralized empires and intricate trade networks
• Coastal East Africa
• Mogadishu (Somalia)
• Kenya
– Malindi
– Gedi
– Mombasa
• Tanzania
– Zanzibar
– Kilwa
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17. European Colonialism
• The early period—1400–1880
• Portuguese
– Sea route to India
– Initial contact in 1420
– Confined their activities to the coast
• Other colonial establishers
– Spanish
– English
– French
– Dutch
• Trade in goods and commodities until 1492
• Shipment of African slaves to the New World
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18. European Colonialism
• 1884 Berlin Conference marked the formal
era of African colonization.
• European powers met without African
consent or participation.
• Allocate territory amongst themselves
• European colonizers felt free to impose
their values, policies, and institutions on a
fragmented and disunited continent.
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19. European Colonialism
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20. Independence
• Independence movements
– Starts in 1950s; some didn’t take place until late 1970s and onward.
– World War II had taken a toll on European economies.
– United Nations espousing “self-determination”
– Increasing exposure of dehumanizing and exploitative nature of
colonialism
• Impact of colonialism
– Political boundaries drawn by Europeans
• Imposed or forced ethnic hostilities to share territory
• Divided ethnicities between countries
– Small-sized and landlocked states
– Lack of extensive transportation network
– Dual or triple heritages
– Neocolonialism—Retaining some economic relationships with
European colonial ruler
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21. Language
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22. Language
• More than 1,000 languages
• Most do not have a written form or tradition
• Forty languages are spoken by more than one million
people.
• Niger-Kordofanian is the largest group with two branches.
– Kordofanian
– Niger-Congo
• Afro-Asiatic covers much of North Africa.
• Malay-Polynesian family introduced to Madagascar
2,000 years ago.
• Afrikaans—Derivative of Dutch, dates back to 1602 when
Boers arrived in South Africa
• No possibility of a lingua franca
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23. Religion
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24. Religion
• Islam in northern regions
• Christianity in central and southern sections
• Strong Roman Catholic presence
– Rwanda
– Burundi
– Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Anglican
– Ghana
– Nigeria
– Kenya
• Presbyterians in Malawi
• Coptic Christians in Ethiopia and North Africa
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25. Family and Kinship Relations
• Unilineal descent—Focus on patriarchal
• 3.4 percent of African societies are patrilineal.
• Traditional African society views marriage as a
union of two extended families.
• Bride wealth—Contractual exchange
• Common customs and traditions
– Extended family
– Respect for elderly
– Socialization between elderly and young
– Significance of ancestors
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26. Village Life and Traditional Agriculture
• Seven out of ten reside in rural areas
• Smallest unit of residence is village compound
or homestead.
• Rural residents rely on agriculture for livelihood
and sustenance.
– Shifting cultivation—Farmers move every few years in
search of new land after soil in existing plots become
exhausted.
– Rotational bush fallow system—Cultivated area
rotates around a fixed area.
• Pastoralism—Grassland and semiarid regions
of Africa
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27. Urbanization
• Rural-to-urban migration
• 275 million (35%) live in urban areas now.
• Least urbanized in the world
• Highest urbanization growth rate in the world
• African cities exert strong force of primacy.
• Economic opportunity is a strong pull.
• Effects
– Inadequate water supply and sewage disposal
– Inefficient public transportation
– Weak basic infrastructure
– Measured by the City Development Index (CDI)
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28. Trading Partners
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29. Economic Dimensions of Development
• Poor performance
• Structural problems in key productive sectors
• Low levels of investment
• Poor export performance
• Declining terms of trade
• Severe debt burdens
• Inefficient resource use
• Low levels of technological capacity
• Highly protectionist policies—Import substitution
industrialization
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30. The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Development
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31. Uneven Patterns of Development
• Dualistic patterns
• Extreme gaps between Africa and more
industrialized countries
• Core-periphery disparities between more
modern centers and traditional rural
peripheries
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32. Development Strategies
• Interdependent development—Developing
cooperative and compatible arrangements to
facilitate development
– Cooperation between national and local governments
– Local and international organizations
– National and international governments/organizations
• Regional cooperation and interdependence
– Organization of African Unity (OAU, 1963)
– African Economic Community (AEC)
– Memberships in other regional blocs
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33. Manufacturing Regions
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34. West, Central, and East Africa:
Diversity in Development
• Thirty-two countries
• 72 percent of sub-Saharan African
land area
• 77 percent of sub-Saharan
population Benin
• More tropical environment owing to proximity to
the equator
• Lower levels of European settlement
• Less industrial capacity
• Immense geographical, cultural, and economic
diversity
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35. West Africa
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Ghana
• Nigeria
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36. Côte d’Ivoire: Model of African Capitalism?
• Closest to exhibiting capitalistic characteristics
• Diverse agricultural base
– Cocoa
– Coffee
– Timber
– Palm oil
• Minerals
– Diamonds
– Iron ore deposits
– Petroleum
• Certain amount of state-led capitalism since independence
• Economic jolt in 1980s led to acceptance of World Bank and
IMF structural programs
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37. Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS)
• Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) created in 1975.
• Largest of Africa’s regional organizations
• Fifteen members
• Objectives
– Establishment of a common customs tariff
– Common trade policy
– Free movement of capital and people
– Harmonization of agricultural, communications,
energy, and infrastructural policy
– Nonaggression and mutual defense
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38. Central Africa
• Central African Republic
• Gabon
• The Democratic Republic of Congo
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39. East Africa
• Somalia
• Tanzania
• Ethiopia
• Kenya
• Rwanda
• Burundi
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40. Southern Africa
• Angola
• Mozambique
• Namibia
• Botswana
• South Africa
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41. South Africa / Spatial Development Initiative
(SDI) areas
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42. South Africa / Historical Background
• 1806—British takeover
– Attracted by rich mineral reserves in gold and
diamonds
– Ended slavery
– Great Trek—Afrikaners migrate to NE interior
• Met resistance from Ndebele and Zulu
– Zulus eventually defeated in 1838 in Battle of
Blood River
• Annexed Orange Free State and Transvaal
territories
• Suppressed the Dutch Boers in Anglo–Boer War
from 1899–1902
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43. South Africa / Legitimization of Apartheid:
1948–1989
• 1913 Native Land Act
– Restricted Africans to 10 percent of country’s land area
– Denied them land ownership rights outside the reserves
• Land share increased to 14 percent in 1936.
• 1948—The National Party gained control.
• Instituted a series of laws to enforce apartheid
(separateness; “apartness”)
• Petty apartheid
– Legislative acts impacting people’s lives
– Discouraging races from using same facilities
– Prohibition of mixed marriages
– Forced relocation
– Pass laws to restrict intracountry travel
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44. South Africa / The Transition Period:
1989–1993
• End of Cold War and dissolution of
U.S.S.R. led to Cuban disengagement in
Nambia.
• Sullivan Principles had been in place
in the United States.
• Economic sanctions impacted
• Increased costs for security
• More cohesive resistance to white
majority rule
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45. South Africa / Postapartheid South Africa
• De Klerk initiates changes.
– Releases Mandela from prison
– Legalizes some banned political parties
• African National Congress (ANC)
• South African Communist Party
• Pan African Congress
– New Constitution with a Bill of Rights (signed into law by
Mandela in 1996)
• Essentially, De Klerk paved the way for the demise of
the dominant political structure.
– ANC triumphs in 2004 elections.
– He becomes one of two deputy presidents under Mandela after
1994 elections.
– A bit of tension
– The National Party, after an attempt at reinvention, is moribund
and expires a few years later—a shell of its previous potent
political strength.
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46. South Africa / Postapartheid South Africa
• Land reform
– Reconstruction & Development Program (1994)
– Restitution of Land Rights Act (1994)
– Masakahane Campaign
• Controversial comments/actions by
President Mbeki
– HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.
– AIDS is a “disease of poverty.”
– “African solutions” to “African problems”
– Attempt to broker Zimbabwean political crisis
between Mugabe and Tsvangirai
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47. Restructuring of Provinces in South Africa
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48. Summary of Chapter
• Sub-Saharan Africa has an enduring legacy marked
by ancient civilizations that were major centers of
commerce, culture, learning, and technological
innovation.
• An immediate challenge confronting sub-Saharan
African countries is the severity of environmental and
forest degradation caused by such human-related
factors as slash-and-burn agriculture, logging, and
fuelwood consumption.
• The regions of West, Central, and East Africa, like
Southern Africa, exhibit considerable diversity in their
environmental and ethnic characteristics.
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