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Definition: Africa |
AfricaNoun1. The second largest continent; located south of Europe and bordered to the west by the South Atlantic and to the east by the India Ocean. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "Africa" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream that you are in Africa surrounded by Cannibals, foretells that you will be oppressed by enemies and quarrelsome persons. For a woman to dream of African scenes, denotes she will make journeys which will prove lonesome and devoid of pleasure or profit. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Literature | Africa Teneo te, Africa (I take possession of thee, O Africa). When Cæsar landed at Adrumetum, in Africa, he tripped and fell - a bad omen; but, with wonderful presence of mind, he pretended that he had done so intentionally, and kissing the soil, exclaimed, "Thus do I take possession of thee, O Africa." Told also of Scipio. (See Don Quixote, Pt. II. Bk. vi. ch.6.) Africa semper aliquid novi affert. "Africa is always producing some novelty." A Greek proverb quoted (in Latin) by Pliny, in allusion to the ancient belief that Africa abounded in strange monsters. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Africa is the world's third-largest continent. At 11,608,000 sq. miles (30,065,000 km²), it covers 20.3% of the total land area on Earth, and with over 800 million human inhabitants it accounts for around one seventh of Earth's human population.The ancient Romans used the name Africa terra --- "land of the Afri" (plural, or "Afer" singular) --- for the northern part of the continent, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia. The origin of Afer may be the Arabic afer, dust; the Afridi tribe, who dwelt in Northern Africa around the area of Carthage; Greek aphrike, without cold; or Latin aprica, sunny.
Map
See also: World map .
Geography
Main Article: Geography of Africa
History
Main Article: History of AfricaAfrica is home to the oldest inhabited territory on earth, and it is believed the human race originated from what is now this continent.
For most of humanity's history, Africa had no nation states, and was instead inhabited by many small, loosely associated tribal groups, kingdomss, and families. In the 14th century European explorers arrived in Africa. By bargaining with some local tribal leaders, Europeans were able to capture millions of Africans, and export them for labour around the world in what became known as the global slave trade. In the early 19th century the European imperial powers staged a massive "scramble for Africa" and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial states. This occupation continued until the conclusion of the Second World War, after which all colonial states were gradually granted independence. Today, Africa is home to over 30 independent countries, many of which still have borders drawn during the era of European colonialism.
Map showing European claimants to the African continent
Politics
Since independence, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, violence, and authoritarianism. Until recently, few nations in Africa were able to sustain democratic governments, instead cycling through a series of brutal coups and military dictatorships.
Border and territorial disputes have also been common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.
Failed government policies have also resulted in many widespread famines, and significant portions of Africa remain without enough food or water to survive. The spread of dangerous diseases is also rampant, especially the deadly AIDS virus.
Despite numerous hardships, there have been some signs the continent has hope for the future. With international help, many African governments have been able to turn their economies around, and some nations are showing growth for the first time in decades. Democratic governments seem to be spreading, and although still not the majority, more and more Africans are living in freedom than ever before. Political associations such as the African Union are also offering hope for greater co-operation and peace between the continent's many countries.
Demographics
The population of Africa is almost entirely black. The nations of Zimbabwe and South Africa maintain small, but significant white and Asian minorities groups. Some northern countries, such as Egypt and Morocco, have Arabic majorities.
Africa is home to a wide variety of different religious groups. Christianity and Islam have a significant presence in many countries, while others retain regionally unique tribal beliefs and customs.
country pop. dens. area population (/km²) (km²) (2002-07-01 est.) Mauritius 588 2,040 1,200,206 Mayotte (Fr.) 457 374 170,879 Reunion (Fr.) 296 2,512 743,981 Comoros 283 2,170 614,382 Rwanda 281 26,338 7,398,074 Burundi 229 27,830 6,373,002 Seychelles 176 455 80,098 Sao Tome and Principe 170 1,001 170,372 Nigeria 141 923,768 129,934,911 Gambia 129 11,300 1,455,842 Uganda 105 236,040 24,699,073 Cape Verde 101 4,033 408,760 Togo 93 56,785 5,285,501 Malawi 90 118,480 10,701,824 Ghana 85 239,460 20,244,154 Sierra Leone 78 71,740 5,614,743 Lesotho 73 30,355 2,207,954 Egypt 71 1,001,450 70,712,345 Morocco (excluding Western Sahara) 70 446,550 31,167,783 Swaziland 65 17,363 1,123,605 Benin 60 112,620 6,787,625 Ethiopia 60 1,127,127 67,673,031 Tunisia 60 163,610 9815,644 Senegal 54 196,190 10,589,571 Kenya 53 582,650 31,138,735 Côte d'Ivoire 52 322,460 16,804,784 Burkina Faso 46 274,200 12,603,185 Tanzania 39 945,087 37,187,939 Guinea-Bissau 37 36,120 1,345,479 Eritrea 37 121,320 4,465,651 South Africa 36 1,219,912 43,647,658 Cameroon 34 475,440 16,184,748 Guinea 32 245,857 7,775,065 Liberia 30 111,370 3,288,198 Zimbabwe 29 390,580 11,376,676 Madagascar 28 587,040 16,473,477 Mozambique 24 801,590 19,607,519 Democratic Republic of the Congo 24 2,345,410 55,225,478 Djibouti 21 23,000 472,810 Equatorial Guinea 18 28,051 498,144 Saint Helena (UK) 18 410 7,317 Sudan 15 2,505,810 37,090,298 Algeria 14 2,381,740 32,277,942 Zambia 13 752,614 9,959,037 Somalia 12 637,657 7,753,310 Mali 9.1 1,240,000 11,340,480 Republic of the Congo 8.7 342,000 2,958,448 Angola 8.5 1,246,700 10,593,171 Niger 8.4 1,267,000 10,639,744 Chad 7.0 1,284,000 8,997,237 Central African Republic 5.8 622,984 3,642,739 Gabon 4.6 267,667 1,233,353 Libya 3.1 1,759,540 5,368,585 Mauritania 2.7 1,030,700 2,828,858 Botswana 2.7 600,370 1,591,232 Namibia 2.2 825,418 1,820,916 Western Sahara (Morocco) 1.0 266,000 256,177
See also
Sub-Saharan Africa
External link
- An Irish anarchist in Africa provides a readable and compelling, but biased, introduction to today's western Africa.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Africa."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Africa Alphabet was developed 1928 under the lead of Diedrich Westermann. He developed it with a group of Africanists at the IAI in London. Its aim was to be able to write all the African languages for practical and scientific purposes.See also: Standard Alphabet by Lepsius, African reference alphabet
Source
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Florian Coulmas, 1996, Blackwell, Oxford
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Africa Alphabet."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Sub-Saharan Africa is currently the area where AIDS is taking the largest toll. Some countries now have around 25% of the working adult population who are HIV-positive, the highest being Botswana with 35.8% (1999 estimate - source World Press Review).As these people begin to develop full-blown AIDS, they will be unable to work, and require significant medical care. This is likely to cause a collapse of societies and governments in the region, further increasing the suffering and hardship faced. Many governments in the region continued to deny that there was a problem for years, and are only now starting to work towards solutions. Lack of adequate health-care, ignorance towards the disease and its causes, as well as the money to educate and treat are the main reasons that most AIDS deaths occur in Third World countries. Social movements in countries like South Africa, as well as international development agencies such as Oxfam, have insisted that developing countries should be permitted to manufacture cheap copies of patented AIDS medicines, a move generally resisted by the pharmaceutical companies.
Scientific studies have suggested that AIDS spread initially in West Africa, but it is possible that there were several separate "initial sources".
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "AIDS in Africa."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Africa is the name of a continent representing the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the earth's surface. It includes within its remarkably regular outline an area, according to 1911 computations, of 29,000,000 km2 (11,262,000 square miles), excluding the islands.
Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez, 130 km (80 miles) wide. From the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka, a little west of Cape Blanc, in 37 deg. 21' N., to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas, 34 deg. 51' 15" S., is a distance approximately of 8,000 km (5,000 miles); from Cape Verde, 17 deg. 33' 22" W., the westernmost point, to Ras Hafun, 51 deg. 27' 52" E., the most easterly projection, is a distance (also approximately) of 7,400 km (4,600 miles). The length of coast-line is 26,000 km (16,100 miles) and the absence of deep indentations of the shore is shown by the fact that Europe, which covers only 9,700,000 km2 (3,760,000 square miles), has a coast-line of 32,000 km (19,800 miles).
The main structural lines of the continent show both the east-to-west direction characteristic, at least in the eastern hemisphere, of the more northern parts of the world, and the north-to-south direction seen in the southern peninsulas. Africa is thus composed of two segments at right angles, the northern running from east to west, the southern from north to south, the subordinate lines corresponding in the main to these two directions.
Large version The mean elevation of the continent approximates closely to 600 m (2,000 ft.), which is roughly the elevation of both North and South America, but is considerably less than that of Asia, 950 m (3,117 ft.). In contrast with the other continents it is marked by the comparatively small area both of very high and of very low ground, lands under 180 m (600 ft.) occupying an unusually small part of the surface; while not only are the highest elevations inferior to those of Asia and South America, but the area of land over 3,000 m (10,000 ft.) is also quite insignificant, being represented almost entirely by individual peaks and mountain ranges. Moderately elevated tablelands are thus the characteristic feature of the continent, though the surface of these is broken by higher peaks and ridges. (So prevalent are these isolated peaks and ridges that a special term [Inselberg-landschaft] has been adopted in Germany to describe this kind of country, which is thought to be in great part the result of wind action.)
As a general rule, the higher tablelands lie to the east and south, while a progressive diminution in altitude towards the west and north is observable. Apart from the lowlands and the Atlas range, the continent may be divided into two regions of higher and lower plateaus, the dividing line (somewhat concave to the north-west) running from the middle of the Red Sea to about 6 deg. S. on the west coast.
We thus obtain the following four main divisions of the continent:
(1) The coast plains - often fringed seawards by mangrove swamps - never stretching far from the coast, except on the lower courses of streams. Recent alluvial flats are found chiefly in the delta of the more important rivers. Elsewhere the coast lowlands merely form the lowest steps of the system of terraces which constitutes the ascent to the inner plateaus.
(2) The Atlas range, which, orographically, is distinct from the rest of the continent, being unconnected with any other area of high ground, and separated from the rest of the continent on the south by a depressed and desert area (the Sahara), in places below sea-level.
(3) The high southern and eastern plateaus, rarely falling below 600 m (2000 ft.), and having a mean elevation of about 1000 m (3500 ft.)
(4) The north and west African plains, bordered and traversed by bands of higher ground, but generally below 600 m (2000 ft.) This division includes the great desert of the Sahara.
The third and fourth divisions may be again subdivided. Thus the high plateaus include:
(a) The South African plateau as far as about 12 deg. S., bounded east, west and south by bands of high ground which fall steeply to the coasts. On this account South Africa has a general resemblance to an inverted saucer. Due south the plateau rim is formed by three parallel steps with level ground between them. The largest of these level areas, the Great Karroo, is a dry, barren region, and a large tract of the plateau proper is of a still more arid character and is known as the Kalahari Desert.
The South African plateau is connected towards the north-east with (b) the East African plateau, with probably a slightly greater average elevation, and marked by some distinct features. It is formed by a widening out of the eastern axis of high ground, which becomes subdivided into a number of zones running north and south and consisting in turn of ranges, tablelands and depressions. The most striking feature is the existence of two great lines of depression, due largely to the subsidence of whole segments of the earth's crust, the lowest parts of which are occupied by vast lakes. Towards the south the two lines converge and give place to one great valley (occupied by Lake Nyasa), the southern part of which is less distinctly due to rifting and subsidence than the rest of the system.
Farther north the western depression, sometimes known as the Central African trough or Albertine rift-valley, is occupied for more than half its length by water, forming the four lakes of Tanganyika, Kivu, Albert Edward and Albert, the first-named over 400 miles long and the longest freshwater lake in the world. Associated with these great valleys are a number of volcanic peaks, the greatest of which occur on a meridional line east of the eastern trough. The eastern depression, known as the East African trough or rift-valley, contains much smaller lakes, many of them brackish and without outlet, the only one comparable to those of the western trough being Lake Rudolf or Basso Norok.
At no great distance east of this rift-valley are Kilimanjaro - with its two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi, the former 5889 m (19,321 ft.), and the culminating point of the whole continent - and Kenya, 5184 m (17,007 ft.). Hardly less important is the Ruwenzori range, over 5060 m (16,600 ft.), which lies east of the western trough. Other volcanic peaks rise from the floor of the valleys, some of the Kirunga (Mfumbiro) group, north of Lake Kivu, being still partially active.
(c) The third division of the higher region of Africa is formed by the Ethiopian highlands, a rugged mass of mountains forming the largest continuous area of its altitude in the whole continent, little of its surface falling below 1500 m (5000 ft.), while the summits reach heights of 4600 m to 4900 m (15,000 to 16,000 ft.). This block of country lies just west of the line of the great East African trough, the northern continuation of which passes along its eastern escarpment as it runs up to join the Red Sea. There is, however, in the centre a circular basin occupied by Lake Tsana.
Both in the east and west of the continent the bordering highlands are continued as strips of plateau parallel to the coast, the Ethiopian mountains being continued northwards along the Red Sea coast by a series of ridges reaching in places a height of 2000 m (7000 ft.). In the west the zone of high land is broader but somewhat lower. The most mountainous districts lie inland from the head of the Gulf of Guinea (Adamawa, etc.), where heights of 1800 m to 2400 m (6000 to 8000 ft.) are reached. Exactly at the head of the gulf the great peak of the Cameroon, on a line of Volcanic action continued by the islands to the south-west, has a height of 4075 m (13,370 ft.), while Clarence Peak, in Fernando Po, the first of the line of islands, rises to over 2700 m (9000 ft.). Towards the extreme west the Futa Jallon highlands form an important diverging point of rivers, but beyond this, as far as the Atlas chain, the elevated rim of the continent is almost wanting.
The area between the east and west coast highlands, which north of 17 deg. N. is mainly desert, is divided into separate basins by other bands of high ground, one of which runs nearly centrally through North Africa in a line corresponding roughly with the curved axis of the continent as a whole. The best marked of the basins so formed (the Congo basin) occupies a circular area bisected by the equator, once probably the site of an inland sea.
The arid region, the Sahara - the largest desert in the world, covering 9,000,000 km2 (3,500,000 square miles) - extends from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Though generally of slight elevation it contains mountain ranges with peaks rising to 2400 m (8000 ft.) Bordered N.W. by the Atlas range, to the N.E. a rocky plateau separates it from the Mediterranean; this plateau gives place at the extreme east to the delta of the Nile. That river (see below) pierces the desert without modifying its character. The Atlas range, the north-westerly part of the continent, between its seaward and landward heights encloses elevated steppes in places 160 km (100 miles) broad. From the inner slopes of the plateau numerous wadis take a direction towards the Sahara. The greater part of that now desert region is, indeed, furrowed by old water-channels.
The following table gives the approximate altitudes of the chief mountains and lakes of the continent:
Mountain Ft. Rungwe (Nyasa) 10,400 Drakensberg 10,7002 Lereko or Sattima (Aberdare Range) 13,2143 Cameroon 13,370 Elgon 14,1523 Karissimbi (Mfumbiro) 14,6833 Meru 14,9553 Taggharat (Atlas) 15,0002 Simen Mountains, Ethiopia 15,1602 Ruwenzori 16,6193 Kenya 17,0073 Kilimanjaro 19,3213
Lake Ft. Chad 8502 Leopold II 1100 Rudolf 1250 Nyasa 16453 Albert Nyanza 20282 Tanganyika 26243 Ngami 2950 Mweru 3000 Albert Edward 30043 Bangweulu 3700 Victoria Nyanza 37203 Abai 4200 Kivu 48293 Tsana 5690 Naivasha 61353
Basin of the Atlantic 4,070,000 square miles Basin of the Mediterranean 1,680,000 square miles Basin of the Indian Ocean 2,086,000 square miles Inland drainage area 3,452,000 square miles The areas of individual river-basins are:
Congo (length over 3000 miles) 1,425,000 square miles Nile (length fully 4000 miles) 1,082,0004 square miles Niger (length about 2600 miles) 808,0005 square miles Zambezi (length about 2000 miles) 513,500 square miles Lake Chad 394,000 square miles Orange (length about 1300 miles) 370,505 square miles Orange (actual drainage area) 172,500 square miles The area of the Congo basin is greater than that of any other river except the Amazon, while the African inland drainage area is greater than that of any continent but Asia, in which the corresponding area is 4,000,000 square miles
The principal African lakes have been mentioned in the description of the East African plateau, but some of the phenomena connected with them may be spoken of more particularly here. As a rule the lakes which occupy portions of the great rift-valleys have steep sides and are very deep. This is the case with the two largest of the type, Tanganyika and Nyasa, the latter of which has depths of 430 fathoms.
Others, however, are shallow, and hardly, reach the steep sides of the valleys in the dry season. Such are Lake Rukwa, in a subsidiary depression north of Nyasa, and Eiassi and Manyara in the system of the eastern rift-valley. Lakes of the broad type are of moderate depth, the deepest sounding in Victoria Nyanza being under 50 fathoms.
Besides the East African lakes the principal are: - Lake Chad, in the northern area of inland drainage; Bangweulu and Mweru, traversed by the head-stream of the Congo; and Leopold II. and Ntomba (Mantumba), within the great bend of that river. All, exceot possibly Mweru, are more or less shallow, and Chad appears to by drying up. The altitudes of the African lakes have already been stated.
Divergent opinions have been beld as to the mode of origin of the East African lakes, especially Tanganyika, which some geologists have considered to represent an old arm of the sea, dating from a time when the whole central Congo basin was under water; others holding that the lake water has accumulated in a depression caused by subsidence. The former view is based on the existence in the lake of organisms of a decidedly marine type. They include a jelly-fish, molluscs, prawns, crabs, etc.
Islands
With one exception - Madagascar - the African islands are small. Madagascar, with an area of 229,820 square miles, is, after New Guinea and Borneo, the largest island of the world. It lies off the S.E. coast of the continent, from which it is separated by the deep Mozambique channel, 250 miles wide at its narrowest point. Madagascar in its general structure, as in flora and fauna, forms a connecting link between Africa and southern Asia. East of Madagascar are the small islands of Mauritius and Réunion. Sokotra lies E.N.E. of Cape Guardafui. Off the north-west coast are the Canary and Cape Verde archipelagoes. which, like some small islands in the Gulf of Guinea, are of volcanic origin.
Climate and Health
Lying almost entirely within the tropics, and equally to north and south of the equator, Africa does not show excessive variations of temperature.
Great heat is experienced in the lower plains and desert regions of North Africa, removed by the great width of the continent from the influence of the ocean, and here, too, the contrast between day and night, and between summer and winter, is greatest. (The rarity of the air and the great radiation during the night cause the temperature in the Sahara to fall occasionally to freezing point.)
Farther south, the heat is to some extent modified by the moisture brought from the ocean, and by the greater elevation of a large part of the surface, especially in East Africa, where the range of temperature is wider than in the Congo basin or on the Guinea coast.
In the extreme north and south the climate is a warm temperate one, the northern countries being on the whole hotter and drier than those in the southern zone; the south of the continent being narrower than the north, the influence of the surrounding ocean is more felt.
The most important climatic differences are due to variations in the amount of rainfall. The wide heated plains of the Sahara, and in a lesser degree the corresponding zone of the Kalahari in the south, have an exceedingly scanty rainfall, the winds which blow over them from the ocean losing part of their moisture as they pass over the outer highlands, and becoming constantly drier owing to the heating effects of the burning soil of the interior; while the scarcity of mountain ranges in the more central parts likewise tends to prevent condensation. In the inter-tropical zone of summer precipitation, the rainfall is greatest when the sun is vertical or soon after. It is therefore greatest of all near the equator, where the sun is twice vertical, and less in the direction of both tropics.
The rainfall zones are, however, somewhat deflected from a due west-to-east direction, the drier northern conditions extending southwards along the east coast, and those of the south northwards along the west. Within the equatorial zone certain areas, especially on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea and in the upper Nile basin, have an intensified rainfall, but this rarely approaches that of the rainiest regions of the world. The rainiest district in all Africa is a strip of coastland west of Mount Cameroon, where there is a mean annual rainfall of about 390 in. as compared with a mean of 458 in. at Cherrapunji, in Assam.
The two distinct rainy seasons of the equatorial zone, where the sun is vertical at half-yearly intervals, become gradually merged into one in the direction of the tropics, where the sun is overhead but once. Snow falls on all the higher mountain ranges, and on the highest the climate is thoroughly Alpine.
The countries bordering the Sahara are much exposed to a very dry wind, full of fine particles of sand, blowing from the desert towards the sea. Known in Egypt as the khamsin, on the Mediterranean as the sirocco, it is called on the Guinea coast the harmattan. This wind is not invariably hot; its great dryness causes so much evaporation that cold is not infrequently the result. Similar dry winds blow from the Kalahari in the south. On the eastern coast the monsoons of the Indian Ocean are regularly felt, and on the south-east hurricanes are occasionally experienced.
While the climate of the north and south, especially the south, is eminently healthy, and even the intensely heated Sahara is salubrious by reason of its dryness, the tropical zone as a whole is, for European races, the most unhealthy portion of the world. This is especially the case in the lower and moister regions, such as the west coast, where malarial fever is very prevalent and deadly; the most unfavourable factors being humidity with absence of climatic variation (daily or seasonal). The higher plateaus, where not only is the average temperature lower, but such variations are more extensive, are more healthy; and in certain localities (e.g. Ethiopia and parts of British East Africa) Europeans find the climate suitable for permanent residence. On tablelands over 6500 ft. above the sea, frost is not uncommon at night, even in places directly under the equator.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed
- See also : Africa
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Geography of Africa."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The following is an outline of African history, followed by a list of articles about the history of particular places in Africa. The text may be dated in parts because it was taken originally from a 1911 encyclopedia— please modernise and update as required.
Origins of the Name
The name Africa came into European use through the Romans, who administered as the province of Africa the territory formerly of Carthage (location of modern Tunisia) The historian Leo Africanus attributes the origin to the Greek word phrike (φρικε, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with the negating prefix a-, so meaning a land free of cold and horror. But the change of sound from ph to f in Greek is datable to about the first century, so could not really be the origin of the name. Others have suggested it is from a name Afer, related to the modern name Berber. Egypt was considered part of Asia by the ancients, and first assigned to Africa by the geographer Ptolemy, who made 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.
Circumnavigating Africa
Prehistory
For the evolution of hominids, which occurred in East and Central Africa, and particularly of Homo sapiens, see under paleontology and other entries.
The earliest human migration out of Africa and within the continent are indicated by linguistic and cultural evidence, and increasingly by computer-analyzed genetic evidence (see Cavalli-Sforza). The Khoisan languages are almost unique in using glottal clicks - the only other languages that do this are the Nguni Bantu languages of southern Africa, such as Xhosa and Zulu. Khoisan languages are now spoken mostly by isolated islands of genetically and culturally distinct populations of hunter-gatherers on marginal lands such as the Kalahari Desert.
This seems to indicate that the Bantu people have emigrated into former Khoisan ranges and displaced them. The Bantu used a distinct suite of crops suited to tropical Africa, including cassava and yams. This farming culture is able to support more persons per square mile than hunter-gatherers. The traditional Bantu range goes from the northern deserts right down to the temperate regions of the south, in which the Bantu crop suite fails from frost. The Bantu peoples tend to be large, prone to fat, with wide lips and noses. Their primary weapons historically are bows and short stabbing spears with shields.
Farther in the north central area, the people that speak Swahili were the traditional prey of Arab slave-traders. Some scholars believe that Swahili, an agglutinative language with peculiar root words, was actually an early synthetic language imposed on a slave culture by slave owners in order to avoid learning the numerous prehistoric languages believed to exist in the slave-capturing regions. Traces of these languages exist all through the regions, and oddly, many root-words of Swahili seem to come from these other languages.
Ethiopia is a distinct, ancient culture with an intermittent history of contact with Eurasia (such as Christianity). It has a unique language, culture and crop system. The crop system is adapted to the dry northern highlands and does not partake of any other area's crops. The most famous member of this crop system is coffee, but one of the more useful plants is sorghum, a dry-land grain.
Neolithic North Africa and Phoenician and Greek colonization
Neolithic rock engravings, or 'petroglyphs' and the megaliths in the Libyan desert attest to early hunter-gatherer culture in the dry grasslands of North Africa during the glacial age. The region of the present Sahara was an early site for the practice of agriculture. However, after the desertification of the Sahara, settlement in North Africa became concentrated in the valley of the Nile, where the pre-literate Nomes of Egypt laid a base for the culture of ancient Egypt, usually considered separately from the other cultures of the continent. Egyptian culture had considerable contact with the upper Nile valley, south of the cataracts of the Nile: see Nubia, history of Sudan, etc.
Separated by the 'sea of sand', the Sahara, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa have had separate histories, tenuously linked by fluctuating trade routes. Phoenician, Greek and Roman history of North Africa can be followed in entries for the Roman Empire and for its individual provinces in the Maghreb, such as Mauretania, Africa, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Egypt etc.
(For the period of recorded history, much of Africa was dominated by Asiatic and European conquerors and colonizers, Ethiopia being the only state which throughout historic times had (except for a brief period during World War II) maintained its independence. The countries bordering the Mediterranean were first exploited by the Phoenicians, whose earliest settlements were made before 1000 B.C. Carthage, founded about 800 B.C., speedily grew into a city without rival in the Mediterranean, and the Phoenicians, subduing the Berber tribes, who then as now formed the bulk of the population, became masters of all the habitable region of North Africa west of the Great Syrtis, and found in commerce a source of immense prosperity.)
In the meantime, the first European colonists had planted themselves in Africa. At the point where the continent approaches nearest the Greek islands, Greeks founded the city of Cyrene (c. 631 B.C.). Cyrenaica became a flourishing colony, though being hemmed in on all sides by absolute desert it had little or no influence on inner Africa. The Greeks, however, exerted a powerful influence in Egypt. To Alexander the Great the city of Alexandria owes its foundation (332 BC), and under the Hellenistic dynasty of the Ptolemies attempts were made to penetrate southward, and in this way was obtained some knowledge of Ethiopia.
Neither Cyrenaica nor Egypt was a serious rival to the Carthaginians, but all three powers were eventually supplanted by the Romans. After centuries of rivalry for supremacy, the struggle was ended by the fall of Carthage in 146 BC. Within little more than a century from that date Egypt and Cyrene had become incorporated in the Roman empire. Under Rome the settled portions of the country were very prosperous, and a Latin strain was introduced into the land. Though Fezzan was occupied by them, the Romans elsewhere found the Sahara an impassable barrier. Nubia and Ethiopia were reached, but an expedition sent by the emperor Nero to discover the source of the Nile ended in failure. The utmost extent of geographical knowledge of the continent is shown in the writings of Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.), who knew of or guessed the existence of the great lake reservoirs of the Nile and had heard of the river Niger.
Still "Africa" for the European world remained simply the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The continual struggle between Rome and the Berber tribes; the introduction of Christianity and the glories and sufferings of the Egyptian and African Churches; the invasion and conquest of the African provinces by the Vandals in the 5th century; the passing of the supreme power in the following century to the Byzantine Empire—all these events are told fully elsewhere.
Islamic North Africa
In the 7th century A.D. occurred an event destined to have a permanent influence on the whole continent. Beginning with an invasion of Egypt, a host of Arabs, believers in the new faith of Islam, conquered the whole of North Africa from the Red Sea to the Atlantic and continued into Spain. Throughout North Africa Christianity well-nigh disappeared, save in Egypt (where the Coptic Church was allowed to continue), and Upper Nubia and Ethiopia, which were not subdued by the Muslims.
In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries the Arabs in Africa were numerically weak, holding the countries they had conquered only by military superiority; but in the 11th century there was a great Arab immigration, resulting in a large absorption of Berber blood. Even before this the Berbers had very generally adopted the speech and religion of their conquerors. Arab influence and the Islamic religion thus became indelibly stamped on northern Africa. Together they spread southward across the Sahara. They also became firmly established along the eastern seaboard, where Arabs, Persians and Indians planted flourishing colonies, such as Mombasa, Malindi and Sofala, playing a role, maritime and commercial, analogous to that filled in earlier centuries by the Carthaginians on the northern seaboard. Of these eastern cities and states both Europe and the Arabs of North Africa were long ignorant.
The first Arab invaders had recognized the authority of the caliphs of Baghdad, and the Aghlabite dynasty—founded by Aghlab, one of Haroun al-Raschid's generals, at the close of the 8th century—ruled as vassals of the caliphate. However, early in the 10th century the Fatimid dynasty established itself in Egypt, where Cairo had been founded AD 968, and from there ruled as far west as the Atlantic. Later still arose other dynasties such as the Almoravides and Almohades. Eventually the Turks, who had conquered Constantinople in 1453, and had seized Egypt in 1517, established the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli (between 1519 and 1551), Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan dynasty, which had its beginnings at the end of the 13th century.
Under the earlier dynasties Arabian or Moorish culture had attained a high degree of excellence, while the spirit of adventure and the proselytizing zeal of the followers of Islam led to a considerable extension of the knowledge of the continent. This was rendered more easy by their use of the camel (first introduced into Africa by the Persian conquerors of Egypt), which enabled the Arabs to traverse the desert. In this way Senegambia and the middle Niger regions fell under the influence of the Arabs and Berbers, but it was not until 1591 that Timbuktu—a city founded in the 11th century—became Muslim. That city had been reached in 1352 by the great Arab traveller Ibn Battuta, to whose journey to Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa) was due the first accurate knowledge of those flourishing Muslim cities on the east African seaboards. Except along this seaboard, which was colonized directly from Asia, Arab progress southward was stopped by the broad belt of dense forest which, stretching almost across the continent somewhat south of 10° N., barred their advance as effectually as had the Sahara that of their predecessors, and cut them off from knowledge of the Guinea coast and of all Africa beyond. One of the regions which came latest under Arab control was that of Nubia, where a Christian civilization and state existed up to the 14th century.
For a time the Muslim conquests in South Europe had virtually made of the Mediterranean an Arab lake, but the expulsion in the 11th century of the Saracens from Sicily and southern Italy by the Normans was followed by descents of the conquerors on Tunisia and Tripoli. Somewhat later a busy trade with the African coastlands, and especially with Egypt, was developed by Venice, Pisa, Genoa and other cities of North Italy. By the end of the 15th century Spain had completely thrown off the Muslim yoke, but even while the Moors were still in Granada, Portugal was strong enough to carry the war into Africa. In 1415 a Portuguese force captured the citadel of Ceuta on the Moorish coast. From that time onward Portugal repeatedly interfered in the affairs of Morocco, while Spain acquired many ports in Algeria and Tunisia.
Portugal, however, suffered a crushing defeat in 1578 at al Kasr al Kebir, the Moors being led by Abd el Malek I of the then recently established Sharifan dynasty. By that time the Spaniards had lost almost all their African possessions. The Barbary states, primarily from the example of the Moors expelled from Spain, degenerated into mere communities of pirates, and under Turkish influence civilization and commerce declined. The story of these states from the beginning of the 16th century to the third decade of the 19th century is largely made up of piratical exploits on the one hand and of ineffectual reprisals on the other. In Algiers, Tunis and other cities were thousands of Christian slaves.
Sub-Saharan Africa: Medieval empires
See' Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, Mali, Oba of Benin
European exploration and conquest
Portuguese
With the Battle of Ceuta Africa had ceased to belong solely to the Mediterranean world. Among those who fought there was one, Prince Henry "the Navigator son of King John I, who was fired with the ambition to acquire for Portugal the unknown parts of Africa. Under his inspiration and direction was begun that series of voyages of exploration which resulted in the circumnavigation of Africa and the establishment of Portuguese sovereignty over large areas of the coastlands.
Portuguese ships rounded Cape Bojador in 1434, Cape Verde in 1445, and by 1480 the whole Guinea coast was known. In 1482 Diogo Cão discovered the mouth of the Congo, the Cape of Good Hope was rounded by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama, after having rounded the Cape, sailed up the east coast, touched at Sofala and Malindi, and went thence to India. Over all the countries discovered by their navigators Portugal claimed sovereign rights, but these were not exercised in the extreme south of the continent.
The Guinea coast, as the first discovered and the nearest to Europe, was first exploited. Numerous forts and trading stations were established, the earliest being Sao Jorge da Mina (Elmina), begun in 1482. The chief commodities dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The discovery of America (1492) was followed by a great development of the slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been an overland trade almost exclusively confined to Muslim Africa. The lucrative nature of this trade and the large quantities of alluvial gold obtained by the Portuguese drew other nations to the Guinea coast. English mariners went there as early as 1553, and they were followed by Spaniards, Dutch, French, Danish and other adventurers. Much of Senegambia was made known as a result of quests during the 16th century for the "hills of gold" in Bambuk and the fabled wealth of Timbuktu, but the middle Niger was not reached. The supremacy along the coast passed in the 17th century from Portugal to the Netherlands and from the Dutch in the 18th and 19th centuries to France and England. The whole coast from Senegal to Lagos was dotted with forts and "factories" of rival powers, and this international patchwork persisted into the 20th century though all the hinterland had become either French or British territory.
Southward from the mouth of the Congo to the inhospitable region of Damaraland (in what is present-day Namibia), the Portuguese, from 1491 onward, acquired influence over the Bantu inhabitants, and in the early part of the 16th century through their efforts Christianity was largely adopted in the Kongo Empire. An incursion of cannibalistic tribes from the interior later in the same century broke the power of this semi-Christian state, and Portuguese activity was transferred to a great extent farther south, Sao Paulo de Loanda (present-day Luanda) being founded in 1576. Prior to Angolan independence, the sovereignty of Portugal over this coast region, except for the mouth of the Congo, had been once only challenged by a European power, and that was in 1640-1648, when the Dutch held the seaports.
Neglecting the comparatively poor and thinly inhabited regions of South Africa, the Portuguese no sooner discovered than they coveted the flourishing cities held by Arabized peoples between Sofala and Cape Guardafui. By 1520 all these Muslim sultanates had been seized by Portugal, Mozambique being chosen as the chief city of her East African possessions. Nor was Portuguese activity confined to the coastlands. The lower and middle Zambezi valley was explored (16th and 17th centuries), and here the Portuguese found semi-assimilated Bantu tribes, who had been for many years in contact with the coast Arabs. Strenuous efforts were made to obtain possession of the country (modern Zimbabwe) known to them as the kingdom or empire of Monomotapa, where gold had been worked by the natives from about the 12th century AD, and whence the Arabs, whom the Portuguese dispossessed, were still obtaining supplies in the 16th century. Several expeditions were despatched inland from 1569 onward and considerable quantities of gold were obtained. Portugal's hold on the interior, never very effective, weakened during the 17th century, and in the middle of the 18th century ceased with the abandonment of the forts in the Manica district.
At the period of her greatest power Portugal exercised a strong influence in Ethiopia also. In the ruler of Ethiopia (to whose dominions a Portuguese traveller had penetrated before Vasco da Gama's memorable voyage) the Portuguese imagined they had found the legendary Christian king, Prester John, and when the complete overthrow of the native dynasty and the Christian religion was imminent by the victories of Muslim invaders, the exploits of a band of 400 Portuguese under Christopher da Gama during 1541-1543 turned the scale in favor of Ethiopia and had thus an enduring result on the future of North-East Africa. After da Gama's time Portuguese Jesuits travelled to Ethiopia. While they failed in their efforts to convert the Ethiopians to Roman Catholicism they acquired an extensive knowledge of the country. Pedro Paez in 1615, and, ten years later, Jeronimo Lobo, both visited the sources of the Blue Nile. In 1663 the Portuguese, who had outstayed their welcome, were expelled from the Ethiopian dominions. At this time Portuguese influence on the Zanzibar coast faded before the power of the Arabs of Muscat, and by 1730 no point on the east coast north of Cape Delgado was held by Portugal.
It has been seen that Portugal took no steps to acquire the southern part of the continent. To the Portuguese the Cape of Good Hope was simply a landmark on the road to India, and mariners of other nations who followed in their wake used Table Bay only as a convenient spot wherein to refit on their voyage to the East. By the beginning of the 17th century the bay was much resorted to for this purpose, chiefly by English and Dutch vessels.
In 1620, with the object of forestalling the Dutch, two officers of the East India Company, on their own initiative, took possession of Table Bay in the name of King James, fearing otherwise that English ships would be "frustrated of watering but by license." Their action was not approved in London and the proclamation they issued remained without effect. The Netherlands profited by the apathy of the English. On the advice of sailors who had been shipwrecked in Table Bay the Netherlands East India Company, in 1651, sent out a fleet of three small vessels under Jan van Riebeeck which reached Table Bay on the April 6, 1652 when, 164 years after its discovery, the first permanent white settlement was made in South Africa. The Portuguese, whose power in Africa was already waning, were not in a position to interfere with the Dutch plans, and England was content to seize the island of Saint Helena as her half-way house to the East. Until the Dutch landed, the southern tip of Africa was inhabited by a sparse Xhosa-speaking culture of hunter-gatherers. Europeans found it a paradise for their temperate crop suites.
In its inception the settlement at the Cape was not intended to become an African colony, but was regarded as the most westerly outpost of the Dutch East Indies. Nevertheless, despite the paucity of ports and the absence of navigable rivers, the Dutch colonists, freed from any apprehension of European trouble by the friendship between Great Britain and the Netherlands, and leavened by Huguenot blood, gradually spread northward, stamping their language, law and religion indelibly upon South Africa. This process, however, was exceedingly slow.
During the 18th century the slave trade reached its highest development, the trade in gold, ivory, gum and spices being small in comparison.
19th Century European explorers
See also: Colonization of Africa, Scramble for Africa
Although the Napoleonic Wars distracted the attention of Europe from exploratory work in Africa, those wars nevertheless exercised great influence on the future of the continent, both in Egypt and South Africa. The occupation of Egypt (1798-1803) first by France and then by Great Britain resulted in an effort by Turkey to regain direct control over that country, followed in 1811 by the establishment under Mehemet Ali of an almost independent state, and the extension of Egyptian rule over the eastern Sudan (from 1820 onward). In South Africa the struggle with Napoleon caused Great Britain to take possession of the Dutch settlements at the Cape, and in 1814 Cape Colony, which had been continuously occupied by British troops since 1806, was formally ceded to the British crown.
Meantime considerable changes had been made in other parts of the continent, the most notable being the occupation of Algiers by France in 1830, an end being thereby put to the piratical proceedings of the Barbary states; the continued expansion southward of Egyptian authority with the consequent additions to the knowledge of the Nile. The city of Zanzibar, on the island of that name, founded in 1832 by Seyyid Said of Muscat, rapidly attained importance. Accounts of a vast inland sea, and the discovery in 1840-1848, by the missionaries Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johann Rebmann, of the snow-clad mountains of Kilimanjaro and Kenya, stimulated in Europe the desire for further knowledge.
At this period, the middle of the 19th century, Protestant missions were carrying on active propaganda on the Guinea coast, in South Africa and in the Zanzibar dominions. Their work, largely beneficent, was being conducted in regions and among peoples little known, and in many instances missionaries turned explorers and became pioneers of trade and empire. One of the first to attempt to fill up the remaining blank spaces in the map was David Livingstone, who had been engaged since 1840 in missionary work north of the Orange. In 1849 Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert from south to north and reached Lake Ngami, and between 1851 and 1856 he traversed the continent from west to east, making known the great waterways of the upper Zambezi. During these journeyings Livingstone discovered, November 1855, the famous Victoria Falls, so named after the queen of England. In 1858-1864 the lower Zambezi, the Shire and Lake Nyasa were explored by Livingstone, Nyasa having been first reached by the confidential slave of Antonio da Silva Porto, a Portuguese trader established at Bihe in Angola, who crossed Africa during 1853-1856 from Benguella to the mouth of the Rovuma.
Henry Morton Stanley, who had in 1871 succeeded in finding and succouring Livingstone, started again for Zanzibar in 1874, and in one of the most memorable of all exploring expeditions in Africa circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika, and, striking farther inland to the Lualaba, followed that river down to the Atlantic Ocean—reached in August 1877 -- and proved it to be the Congo.
While the great mystery of Central Africa was being solved explorers were also active in other parts of the continent. Southern Morocco, the Sahara and the Sudan were traversed in many directions between 1860 and 1875 by Gerhard Rohlfs, Georg Schweinfurth and Gustav Nachtigal. These travellers not only added considerably to geographical knowledge, but obtained invaluable information concerning the people, languages and natural history of the countries in which they sojourned. Among the discoveries of Schweinfurth was one that confirmed the Greek legends of the existence beyond Egypt of a "pygmy race". But the first discoverer of the dwarf races of Central Africa was Paul du Chaillu, who found them in the Ogowe district of the west coast in 1865, five years before Schweinfurth's first meeting with them; du Chaillu having previously, as the result of journeys in the Gabon region between 1855 and 1859, made popular in Europe the knowledge of the existence of the gorilla, perhaps the gigantic ape seen by Hanno the Carthaginian, and whose existence, up to the middle of the 19th century, was thought to be as legendary as that of the Pygmies of Aristotle.
Partition among European Powers
For details, see the main article Scramble for Africa.In the last quarter of the 19th century the map of Africa was transformed. After the discovery of the Congo the story of exploration takes second place; the continent becomes the theatre of European expansion. Lines of partition, drawn often through trackless wildernesses, marked out the possessions of Germany, France, Great Britain and other powers. Railways penetrated the interior, vast areas were opened up to Western occupation, and from Egypt to the Zambezi the continent was startled into new life.
The causes which led to the partition of Africa may now be considered. They are to be found in the economic and political state of western Europe at the time. Germany, strong and united as the result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was seeking new outlets for her energies—new markets for her growing industries, and with the markets, colonies.
Yet the idea of colonial expansion was of slow growth in Germany, and when Prince Bismarck at length acted Africa was the only field left to exploit, South America being protected from interference by the known determination of the United States to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, while Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain already held most of the other regions of the world where colonization was possible.
For different reasons the war of 1870 was also the starting-point for France in the building up of a new colonial empire. In her endeavour to regain the position lost in that war France had to look beyond Europe. To the two causes mentioned must be added others. Great Britain and Portugal, when they found their interests threatened, bestirred themselves, while Italy also conceived it necessary to become an African power. Great Britain awoke to the need for action too late to secure predominance in all the regions where formerly hers was the only European influence. She had to contend not only with the economic forces which urged her rivals to action, but had also to combat the jealous opposition of almost every European nation to the further growth of British power. Italy alone acted throughout in cordial co-operation with Great Britain.
It was not, however, the action of any of the great powers of Europe which precipitated the struggle. This was brought about by the ambitious projects of Leopold II, king of the Belgians. The discoveries of Livingstone, Stanley and others had aroused especial interest among two classes of men in western Europe, one the manufacturing and trading class, which saw in Central Africa possibilities of commercial development, the other the philanthropic and missionary class, which beheld in the newly discovered lands millions of "savages" to Christianize and "civilize". The possibility of utilizing both these classes in the creation of a vast state, of which he should be the chief, formed itself in the mind of Leopold II even before Stanley had navigated the Congo. The king's action was immediate; it proved successful; but no sooner was the nature of his project understood in Europe than it provoked the rivalry of France and Germany, and thus the international struggle was begun.
Conflicting ambitions of the European powers
The part of the continent to which King Leopold directed his energies was the equatorial region. In September 1876 he took what may be described as the first definite step in the modern partition of the continent. He summoned to a conference at Brussels representatives of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia, to deliberate on the best methods to be adopted for the exploration and Westernization of Africa, and the opening up of the interior of the continent to commerce and industry. The conference was entirely unofficial. The delegates who attended neither represented nor pledged their respective governments. Their deliberations lasted three days and resulted in the foundation of "The International African Association," with its headquarters at Brussels. It was further resolved to establish national committees in the various countries represented, which should collect funds and appoint delegates to the International Association. The central idea appears to have been to put the exploration and development of Africa upon an international footing. But it quickly became apparent that this was an unattainable ideal. The national committees were soon working independently of the International Association, and the Association itself passed through a succession of stages until it became purely Belgian in character, and at last developed into the Congo Free State, under the personal sovereignty of King Leopold.
For some time before 1884 there had been growing up a general conviction that it would be desirable for the powers who were interesting themselves in Africa to come to some agreement as to "the rules of the game," and to define their respective interests so far as that was practicable. Lord Granville's ill-fated treaty brought this sentiment to a head, and it was agreed to hold an international conference on African affairs.
The Berlin Conference of 1884-85
Main article: Berlin ConferenceFrom 1885 the scramble among the powers went on with renewed vigour, and in the fifteen years that remained of the century the work of partition, so far as international agreements were concerned, was practically completed. 1900s. Conflict between the UK and Dutch settlers.
The Boer War.
- Relationship to "Victorian Era" in the UK.
Africa at the start of the 20th century
Map of Africa just before World War I
Large image (456kb)All of the continent claimed by European powers, except for Ethiopia ("Abyssinia") and Liberia.
Africa Between the World Wars
After World War I, the formerly German colonies in Africa were taken over by France and Great Britain.
In 1935 Benito Mussolini had Italian troops invade Ethiopia, the last African nation not dominated by a foreign power.
World War II Era
1940s. Pre-WW2 and World War II in Africa.
- North Africa. Deutche Africa Korps. Tank warfare in the desert.
- Importance of Egypt to the UK.
- US invasion of Algeria.
1940s - 1990s
Apartheid in South Africa.
1960s. De-colonialization of much of sub-Saharan Africa.
- Conflict between Afrikaans-speakers and English-speakers.
- Establishment of "homelands".
- South African military efforts in Angola.
- International trade sanctions.
- Conflict between ANC and Zulu factions.
- End of Apartheid and establishment of new constitution.
See historical African place names for names not used in present-day states.
History of African Nations
Central Africa
- History of Equatorial Guinea
- History of the Central African Republic
- History of Chad
- Congo Free State
- History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- History of the Republic of the Congo
Eastern Africa
- History of Burundi
- History of Comoros
- History of Djibouti
- History of Eritrea
- History of Ethiopia
- History of Kenya
- History of Seychelles
- History of Rwanda
- History of Tanzania
- History of Uganda
Northern Africa
- History_of_Algeria
- History_of_Ceuta
- History_of_Egypt
- History of Libya
- History of Mauritania
- Melilla
- History of Morocco
- History of Sudan
- History of Tunisia
- History of Western Sahara
Southern Africa
- History of Angola
- History of Botswana
- History of Lesotho
- History of Madagascar
- History of Malawi
- History of Mauritius
- History of Mozambique
- History of Namibia
- History of Reunion
- History of Swaziland
- History of South Africa
- History of Zambia
- History_of_Zimbabwe
Western Africa
- History of Benin
- History of Burkina Faso
- History of Cameroon
- History of Cape Verde
- History of Gabon
- History of The Gambia
- History of Ghana
- History of Guinea-Bissau
- History of Liberia
- History of Mali
- History of Niger
- History of Nigeria
- History of Sao Tome and Principe
- History of Senegal
- History of Togo
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "History of Africa."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Carthage and the Berbers
Phoenician traders arrived on the North African coast around 900 BC and established Carthage (in present-day Tunisia) around 800 BC. By the sixth century BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa (east of Cherchell in Algeria). From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements (called emporia in Greek) along the North African coast; these settlements eventually served as market towns as well as anchorages. Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda) are among the towns of Carthaginian origin on the coast of present-day Algeria.As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organization supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others. By the early fourth century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars; in 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the second century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilization, unequaled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the second century BC. After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until AD 24, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.
The Roman Era
Increases in urbanization and in the area under cultivation during Roman rule caused wholesale dislocations of Berber society. Nomadic tribes were forced to settle or move from traditional rangelands. Sedentary tribes lost their autonomy and connection with the land. Berber opposition to the Roman presence was nearly constant. The Roman emperor Trajan established a frontier in the south by encircling the Aurès and Nemencha mountains and building a line of forts from Vescera (modern Biskra) to Ad Majores (Hennchir Besseriani, southeast of Biskra). The defensive line extended at least as far as Castellum Dimmidi (modern Messaad, southwest of Biskra), Roman Algeria's southernmost fort. Romans settled and developed the area around Sitifis (modern Sétif) in the second century, but farther west the influence of Rome did not extend beyond the coast and principal military roads until much later.The Roman military presence in North Africa was relatively small, consisting of about 28,000 troops and auxiliaries in Numidia and the two Mauretanian provinces. Starting in the second century AD, these garrisons were manned mostly by local inhabitants.
Aside from Carthage, urbanization in North Africa came in part with the establishment of settlements of veterans under the Roman emperors Claudius, Nerva, and Trajan. In Algeria such settlements included Tipasa, Cuicul (modern Djemila, northeast of Sétif), Thamugadi (modern Timgad, southeast of Sétif), and Sitifis. The prosperity of most towns depended on agriculture. Called the "granary of the empire," North Africa, according to one estimate, produced 1 million tons of cereals each year, one-quarter of which was exported. Other crops included fruit, figs, grapes, and beans. By the second century AD, olive oil rivaled cereals as an export item.
The beginnings of the decline of the Roman Empire were less serious in North Africa than elsewhere. There were uprisings, however. In AD 238, landowners rebelled unsuccessfully against the emperor's fiscal policies. Sporadic tribal revolts in the Mauretanian mountains followed from 253 to 288. The towns also suffered economic difficulties, and building activity almost ceased.
The towns of Roman North Africa had a substantial Jewish population. Some Jews were deported from Palestine in the first and second centuries AD for rebelling against Roman rule; others had come earlier with Punic settlers. In addition, a number of Berber tribes had converted to Judaism.
Christianity arrived in the second century and soon gained converts in the towns and among slaves. More than eighty bishops, some from distant frontier regions of Numidia, attended the Council of Carthage in 256. By the end of the fourth century, the settled areas had become Christianized, and some Berber tribes had converted en masse.
A division in the church that came to be known as the Donatist controversy began in 313 among Christians in North Africa. The Donatists stressed the holiness of the church and refused to accept the authority to administer the sacraments of those who had surrendered the scriptures when they were forbidden under the Emperor Diocletian. The Donatists also opposed the involvement of Emperor Constantine in church affairs in contrast to the majority of Christians who welcomed official imperial recognition.
The occasionally violent controversy has been characterized as a struggle between opponents and supporters of the Roman system. The most articulate North African critic of the Donatist position, which came to be called a heresy, was Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius. Augustine maintained that the unworthiness of a minister did not affect the validity of the sacraments because their true minister was Christ. In his sermons and books Augustine, who is considered a leading exponent of Christian truths, evolved a theory of the right of orthodox Christian rulers to use force against schismatics and heretics. Although the dispute was resolved by a decision of an imperial commission in Carthage in 411, Donatist communities continued to exist as late as the sixth century.
Vandals and Byzantines
Led by their king, Gaiseric, some 80,000 Vandals, a Germanic tribe, crossed into Africa from Spain in 429. In the following year, the invaders advanced without much opposition to Hippo Regius, which they took after a siege in which Augustine died. After further advances, the Vandals in 435 made an agreement with Rome to limit their control to Numidia and Mauretania. But in 439 Gaiseric conquered and pillaged Carthage and the rest of the province of Africa.The resulting decline in trade weakened Roman control. Independent kingdoms emerged in mountainous and desert areas, towns were overrun, and Berbers, who had previously been pushed to the edges of the Roman Empire, returned.
Belisarius, general of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I based in Constantinople, landed in North Africa in 533 with 16,000 men and within a year destroyed the Vandal kingdom. Local opposition delayed full Byzantine control of the region for twelve years, however, and when imperial control came, it was but a shadow of the control exercised by Rome. Although an impressive series of fortifications were built, Byzantine rule was compromised by official corruption, incompetence, military weakness, and lack of concern in Constantinople for African affairs. As a result, many rural areas reverted to Berber rule.
Reference
- Original text: Library of Congress Country Study of Algeria
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "North Africa during the Classical Period."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| AF | English | Africa Division | N/A |
| Afr. | Italian | Africa,africano | Geography |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Crosswords: Africa |
| English words defined with "Africa": Black Africa ♦ capital of Central Africa, capital of South Africa, Central Africa ♦ Horn of Africa ♦ Republic of South Africa ♦ South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Africa": Africa South of the Sahara, Africa, Central, Africa, Eastern, Africa, Western ♦ Special Facility for Africa, Special Facility for Sub-Saharan Africa. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "Africa": Voortreker. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Africa" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Asturian (Africa), Italian (Africa), Latin (Africa, African, from the southwest, Libya, the continent), Portuguese (Africa), Provencal (Africa), Romanian (Africa), Spanish (Africa). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I had a farm in AfricaI had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills (Out of Africa; writing credit: Isak Dinesen; Kurt Luedtke) When do you go to Africa to shoot, dear (The Women; writing credit: Anita Loos) In Africa there's eggs, but never chickens (The English Patient; writing credit: Anthony Minghella) Then Fish runs in the alley and he leaps over us like one of those, what do you call those things in Africa that run and leap in the air (Barney Miller; writing credit: Danny Arnold) Africa is God's country, and he can have it. (Animal Crackers; writing credit: George S. Kaufman; Morrie Ryskind) | |
Lyrics | I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa (Africa; performing artist: Toto) Some people in Africa have never seen ice (Ice Machine In The Desert; performing artist: Brave Combo) All the way from New York back to Africa (UNDERCOVER OF THE NIGHT; performing artist: Rolling Stones) | |
Clever | Equator: A menagerie lion running around the Earth through Africa. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | I Dreamed of Africa (2000) Africa violenta Africa nuda (1974) B.B. King: Live in Africa (1974) Shaft in Africa (1973) Africa ama (1971) | |
Song Titles | Africa (performing artist: Toto) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References |
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Books | |||
Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | In the 1950's, an Irish surgeon Denis Burkitt identified a jaw cancer in Ugandan children as an unusual form of malignancy as cancer tumors, now known as Burkitt's Lymphoma. Burkitt discovered that this cancer existed in Africa in hot, humid regions plagued by mosquitoes that spread malaria and viruses. Credit: Unknown photographer/artist. |  | West Nile virus is a flavivirus commonly found in Africa, West Asia, and the Middle East. It is closely related to St. Louis encephalitis virus found in the United States. The virus can infect humans, birds, mosquitoes, horses and some other mammals. Credit: CDC. |
 | Vaccination of boys in West Africa while standing in front of a poster announcing Smallpox Eradication and Measles Control Programs. Note the use of jet guns. Credit: CDC. |  | View of Africa and Saudi Arabia from Apollo 17.Probably the most requested picture of the Earth, this picture was taken by the Apollo17 astronauts as they left earth orbit en route to the Moon. Taken on Dec. 7, 1972,it was the first time that the trajectory of an Apollo mission enabled a view ofthe south pole. Credit: NASA. |
 | These are the Anti-Atlas Mountains, part of the Atlas Mountain range in southern Morocco, Africa. The region contains some of the world's largest and most diverse mineral resources, most of which are still untouched. Credit: NASA. |  | Guinea-Bissau is a small country in West Africa. Complex patterns can be seen in the shallow waters along its coastline, where silt carried by the Geba and other rivers washes out into the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: NASA. |
 | Johannesburg, South Africa. Credit: Geodesy - Measuring the Earth. |  | Bass photographed by ROV in Lake Malawi, Africa. Credit: National Undersea Research Program (NURP). |
 | A view of part of Capetown, South Africa, from the NOAA Ship RONALD H. BROWN. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |  | Science party from Aerosols cruise (RB-99-02) sailing on NOAA Ship RONALD H. BROWN from Norfolk, Virginia, to Capetown, South Africa. This was the beginning of the 1999 RONALD H. BROWN around the world cruise. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "People of Africa 3" by Henk Badenhorst Commentary: "This is a couple of photo's I've taken accross south africa." | "Nelson Mandela Bridge 2" by Laura Kennedy Commentary: "Johannesburg has the largest cable-stayed bridge in southern Africa. Who else to name it after but Nelson Mandela, the man who led South Africa across the apartheid divide? Opened July 21, 2003 ." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Play | Caption | Play | Caption |
 | Drum styles from West Africa with synthesized flute melody typical of South America. | | A group of drums closely resembling those from West Africa; West African drums. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Cecil Rhodes | If there be a God, I think he would like me to paint Africa British-Red as possible. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Treaty of Versailles | 1919 | Germany renounces all rights under the Conventions and Agreements with France of November 4, 1911, and September 28, 1912, relating to Equatorial Africa. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I'm old fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | The huge barricade extended like a cliff upon which broke the strategy of the generals of Africa. |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | He went from country to country in the east, from Africa to India, from India to Japan, baptising the people |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | It is as much Asia or Africa as New England |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Marburg virus is indigenous to Africa. (references) | |
Yellow fever occurs only in Africa and South America. (references) | ||
Dracunculiasis now occurs only in 13 countries in Africa. (references) | ||
Business | Transtel of South Africa is servicing National Railways. (references) | |
BTC uses the hub earth station of Transtel in South Africa. (references) | ||
Telkom and Transtel of South Africa are currently the VSAT service providers. (references) | ||
Children | Mozambique | There were reports that a small number of children were trafficked to South Africa and Swaziland for prostitution. (references) |
Cote d'Ivoire | A forum of approximately 15 NGO's, such as Children of Africa and the BICE, work with approximately 8,000 street children. (references) | |
Morocco | The members adopted the "Marrakech Declaration," pledging to "promote, protect, and consecrate girls in Africa." On October 31, Princess Lalla Hasna presided at the official opening of the SOS Children's Village south of Casablanca, the third one to open in Morocco. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Congo | Local rebroadcasts of the Gabon-based Africa Number One also continued during the year. (references) |
Ethiopia | The state-run ETV continued to broadcast "TV Africa," which is contracted from a South African company. (references) | |
Cote d'Ivoire | The RFI, BBC, and Africa Number One stations all broadcast news and political commentary about the country. (references) | |
Economic History | Burundi | Location: Central Africa. (references) |
Zambia | A notable exception is South Africa. (references) | |
Swaziland | Some Swazis work in the mines in South Africa. (references) | |
Human Rights | Somalia | The Horn of Africa Human Rights Watch Committee monitored human rights in Somaliland. (references) |
Libya | Government agents reportedly periodically detain and torture foreign workers, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa. (references) | |
Gambia | A member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa visited the three prisons during the year. (references) | |
Minorities | Equatorial Guinea | Several thousand citizens of Nigeria, Ghana, and Francophone Africa continued to reside in the country. (references) |
Andorra | A small but growing group of immigrants, especially from North Africa, work mostly in agriculture and construction. (references) | |
Zimbabwe | That position was rejected, primarily because its opponents argued that Christianity had brought about colonization in Africa. (references) | |
Political Economy | SOUTH AFRICA | From 2001, South Africa has moved to a residence based income tax system. (references) |
SOUTH AFRICA | The short and medium term prospects for South Africa are generally upbeat. (references) | |
SOUTH AFRICA | The number of antidumping petitions filed in South Africa, however, remains high. (references) | |
Political Rights | Congo | While no agreement was reached by year's end, the participants agreed to resume the dialog in South Africa in February 2002. In March 2000, church groups attempted to hold a National Consultation, an initiative that the Government seized to carry out its own agenda; it filled meetings with its own supporters. (references) |
Trade | Ghana | The limit for the West Africa region is USD 50 million. (references) |
South Africa | DBSA membership is open to any country in Southern Africa. (references) | |
Travel | South Africa | Within South Africa a courier or Postnet service is recommended. (references) |
South Africa | U.S. citizens traveling to South Africa require a valid passport. (references) | |
South Africa | A foreign driver's license is valid for six months in South Africa. (references) | |
Women | South Africa | The Rape Crisis Organization of South Africa reported that only 8.9 percent of reported rapes resulted in a conviction. (references) |
South Africa | In 2000 approximately 52,860 rapes were reported; however, according to a 1998 SAPS survey cited in the Statistics South Africa report, only half of all respondents who were raped reported the incident to the police. (references) | |
Saudi Arabia | Female genital mutilation (FGM), which is condemned widely by international health experts as damaging to both physical and psychological health, is practiced among some foreign workers from East Africa and the Nile Valley. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Malawi | It is believed that Malawian women are trafficked to South Africa. (references) |
Portugal | Some women from Brazil and Lusophone Africa also are trafficked into Portugal. (references) | |
Mozambique | Many citizens working illegally in South Africa and Swaziland are subject to abuses there. (references) | |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | ZANZIBARI, n. An inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago. The American consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy beach between. Greatly to the scandal of this official's family, and against repeated remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city persisted in using the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down to the edge of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair of sandals) when the consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge of bird-shot into the most conspicuous part of her person. Unfortunately for the existing entente cordiale between two great nations, she was the Sultana. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | Take your complaints to the former eastern bloc of the Soviet Union or to Africa, or Third World nations, wherever you want, and tell them to clean up. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
James Monroe | 1817-1825 | Vessels have likewise been employed in cruising along the Atlantic coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, and in the neighboring seas. |
Harry S. Truman | 1945-1953 | That is true in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere. |
John F. Kennedy | 1961-1963 | This story is the same in Africa, in the Middle East, and in Asia. |
Lyndon B. Johnson | 1963-1969 | More and more our programs for Africa are going to be directed toward self-help. |
Gerald Ford | 1974-1977 | America is committed to the side of peace and justice and to the principle that Africa should shape its own future, free of outside intervention. |
Jimmy Carter | 1977-1981 | Africa is a continent of poor nations for the most part. |
Ronald Reagan | 1981-1989 | From the Middle East to southern Africa to Geneva, American diplomats are taking the initiative to make peace and lower arms levels. |
Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | Last spring, with some of you, I traveled to Africa, where I saw democracy and reform rising, but still held back by violence and disease. |
George W. Bush | 2001-2005 | Together with friends and allies from Europe to Asia, and Africa to Latin America, we will demonstrate that the forces of terror cannot stop the momentum of freedom. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Africa" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Africa" is used about 7,812 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 100% | 7,812 | 1,240 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "Africa" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Africa | Last name | 300 | 29,392 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
| The following table summarizes names derived from the word "Africa". | |||
| Name | Gender | Language | Meaning |
| Potiphar | N/A | Biblical | Bull of Africa |
| Teman | N/A | Biblical | Africa |
| Temani | N/A | Biblical (Variant) | Africa |
| Africa | Female | English | Africa |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references.
| |||
| Country | Name | Country | Name |
| Israel | Africa Israel Investments | South Africa | Africa Glass Industries Limited |
| United Kingdom | Lonrho Africa Plc | Zimbabwe | Meikles Africa Limited |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expressions using "Africa": Africa South of the Sahara ♦ black africa ♦ capital of Central Africa ♦ capital of South Africa ♦ central Africa ♦ crin de Africa ♦ east africa ♦ eastern africa ♦ economic Commission for Africa ♦ horn of Africa ♦ north africa ♦ Republic of South Africa ♦ south africa ♦ Special Facility for Africa ♦ West Africa. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "Africa": africa-american, Africa-based, Africa-cairo, Africa-educated, africa-get, Africa-homelands. | |
Ending with "Africa": Wacc-africa. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
south africa | 10,926 | durban south africa | 431 |
africa | 10,163 | south africa safari | 403 |
travel africa | 5,946 | west africa | 367 |
africa tour | 4,881 | south africa accommodation | 347 |
history of africa | 4,455 | africa namibia | 332 |
africa map | 2,752 | africa bbc focus | 315 |
johannesburg south africa | 1,810 | africa news | 307 |
africa safari | 1,789 | africa book | 305 |
south africa hotel | 1,722 | angel nude africa | 305 |
nude africa | 1,553 | university of south africa | 303 |
cape town south africa | 1,536 | pretoria south africa | 297 |
east africa | 1,436 | port elizabeth south africa | 281 |
africa big brother | 1,003 | africa big brother south | 269 |
africa free trade zone | 880 | out of africa | 261 |
south africa vacation | 844 | nowhere in africa | 241 |
africa culture | 812 | tanzania africa | 210 |
africa hotel | 558 | bbc africa | 207 |
travel to south africa | 462 | africa online | 203 |
map of south africa | 447 | focus on africa | 169 |
aids in africa | 434 | africa dstv south | 158 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "Africa"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | Afrika. (various references) | |
Arabic | جنوب القارة الأفريقية (south africa), جنوب أفريقيا (south africa), أفريقيا الشرقية (eastern africa), شمال أفريقيا (north africa). (various references) | |
Asturian | Africa. (various references) | |
Cebuano | Aprika. (various references) | |
Chinese | 非洲 (African). (various references) | |
Czech | Afrika. (various references) | |
Danish | Afrika. (various references) | |
Dutch | Afrika. (various references) | |
Esperanto | Afriko. (various references) | |
Faeroese | Afrika. (various references) | |
Farsi | افریقا. (various references) | |
Finnish | Afrikka. (various references) | |
French | afrique. (various references) | |
Frisian | Afrika. (various references) | |
German | Afrika (afrika). (various references) | |
Greek | Αφρική. (various references) | |
Hebrew | ְפריקה. (various references) | |
Hungarian | Afrika. (various references) | |
Icelandic | Afríka. (various references) | |
Indonesian | afrika. (various references) | |
Irish | An Afraic. (various references) | |
Italian | Africa. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 阿弗利加 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | あふりか. (various references) | |
Kongo | Afrika. (various references) | |
Korean | 아프리카 (African). (various references) | |
Macedonian | Afrika. (various references) | |
Manx | Yn Affrick. (various references) | |
Norwegian | Afrika. (various references) | |
Papiamen | Afrika. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | africaay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | África. (various references) | |
Provencal | Africa. (various references) | |
Romanian | Africa. (various references) | |
Romansch | Africa dal sid (South Africa). (various references) | |
Ruanda | Afrique du Sud (South Africa). (various references) | |
Russian | Африка (the Dark Continent), африка. (various references) | |
Samoan | Aferika. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | afrika. (various references) | |
Spanish | África. (various references) | |
Swazi | í-Afríka. (various references) | |
Swedish | Afrika. (various references) | |
Tagalog | Apriká. (various references) | |
Turkish | Afríka. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | Африка. (various references) | |
Welsh | yr Affrig. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | africa. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | Nahum Chapter 3, Verse 9 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | Kai aiqiopia h iscuV authV kai aiguptoV kai ouk estin peraV thV fughV kai libueV egenonto bohqoi authV |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Aethiopia fortitudo et Aegyptus et non est finis Africa et Lybies fuerunt in auxilio tuo |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | Ethiopie the strengthe therof, and Egypt, and ther is noon eende; Affrik and Libie weren in help therof. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | Cush and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | Ethiopia was her strength and Egyptians without number; Put and Lubim were her helpers. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Nahum Chapter 3, Verse 9 |
| Albanian | Etiopia dhe Egjipti ishin forca e tij dhe nuk kishin kufi; Puti dhe Libianët ishin aleatët e tij. |
| Cebuano | Ang Etiopia ug ang Egipto mao ang iyang kalig-on, ug kana walay kinutoban; ang Put ug ang Libia mao ang imong magtatabang. |
| Croatian | Njezina snaga bila je Etiopija, Egipat; nije imala granica. Narodi Puta i Libije bili su joj pomoænici. |
| Danish | Dets Styrke var Ætiopere og Ægyptere uden Tal; Put og Libyer kom det til Hjælp. |
| Dutch | Morenland en Egypte waren haar macht, en er was geen einde; Put en Lybea waren tot uw hulp. |
| Finnish | Sen väkevyytenä oli Etiopia ja egyptiläiset, joilla ei ollut määrää. Auttajinasi olivat Puut ja liibyalaiset. |
| French | L`Éthiopie et les Égyptiens innombrables faisaient sa force, Puth et les Libyens étaient ses auxiliaires. |
| German | Mohren und Ägypten war ihre unzählige Macht, Put und Libyen waren ihre Hilfe. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Tebe memerintah atas Sudan dan Mesir, dan kuasanya tak ada batasnya; Libia dan Put adalah sekutunya. |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Bahwa negeri Kusy dan Mesir itulah kuatnya dengan tiada berkeputusan; orang Puti dan Libim itu akan pembantunya. |
| Italian | L'Etiopia e l'Egitto erano la sua forza che non aveva limiti. Put e i Libi erano i suoi alleati. |
| Maori | Ko tona kaha ko Etiopia, ko Ihipa, kahore hoki he mutunga; he awhina nou a Putu, a Rupimi. |
| Norwegian | Etiopere i mengde og egyptere uten tall, puteere og libyere var dets hjelp. |
| Rumanian | Etiopia wi Egiptenii fqrq numqr erau tqria ei, Put wi Libienii erau ajutoarele ei. |
| Russian | еЖЙПРЙС Й еЗЙРЕФ У ВЕУЮЙУМЕООЩН НОПЦЕУФЧПН ДТХЗЙИ УМХЦЙМЙ ЕНХ РПДЛТЕРМЕОЙЕН; лПРФЩ Й мЙЧЙКГЩ РТЙИПДЙМЙ ОБ РПНПЭШ ФЕВЕ. |
| Spanish | Etiopía y Egipto eran su poderío ilimitado; Fut y los libios acudían en su ayuda. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Misspellings | |
"Africa" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Adriko, Afaria, Affreca, Af-i, Afic, Afric, Africas, afrika, Afrlca, Aprika, arica, Arici, Aricia, Arikha, Aruca, Arvika, Aufiria, Fanica, Farida, Farika, Farrucca, iafrika, Iftikar. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-f-i-r" | |
-1 letter: acari, facia, farci. | |
-2 letters: afar, aria, fair, fiar, raia. | |
-3 letters: air, arc, arf, car, far, fir, ria, rif. | |
-4 letters: aa, ai, ar, fa, if. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-f-i-r" | |
+1 letter: faradic. | |
+2 letters: aircraft, artifact, faradaic, farcical. | |
+3 letters: affricate, artifacts, cafeteria, cafetoria, fabricant, fabricate, factorial, picofarad. | |
+4 letters: affirmance, affricates, artificial, cafeterias, fabricants, fabricated, fabricates, fabricator, factorials, farcically, fascicular, fascinator, fractional, fricandeau, handicraft, microfarad, microfauna, paraffinic, picofarads, saccharify, ultramafic. | |
+5 letters: acriflavine, affirmances, affricative, artifactual, fabricating, fabrication, fabricators, facilitator, farcicality, farinaceous, fascinators, flagrancies, fractionate, fragrancies, frantically, fratricidal, fricandeaus, fricandeaux, handicrafts, interfacial, microfarads, microfaunae, microfaunal, microfaunas, pacificator, parfocality, parfocalize, rarefaction, sacrificial, scalariform, trafficable. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Sounds | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Historic 11. Quotations: Fiction 12. Quotations: Non-fiction | 13. Quotations: Spoken 14. Quotations: Speeches 15. Usage Frequency 16. Names: Frequency | 17. Names: Derived from 18. Names: Company Usage 19. Expressions 20. Expressions: Internet | 21. Translations: Modern 22. Translations: Ancient 23. Bible Trace 24. Abbreviations | 25. Acronyms 26. Derivations 27. Anagrams 28. Bibliography |
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