The Plateau Continent

 Much of central Africa is a high, dry plateau  Sahara – world’s largest desert  Nile River – longest river in the world  Lake Victoria – world’s second largest freshwater lake  Lake Tanganyika – longest freshwater lake in the world

 What landform dominates Northern Africa?  What is the climate type found along the equator?

Largest Cities: Cairo, Egypt Lagos, Nigeria 1. Where is most of the population concentrated in Egypt? 2. Have you noticed a pattern in the northern part of Africa?

 What natural resource is found mainly in the southern part of Africa?  What land use dominates most of Africa?  What land use is the least common in Africa?

 53 countries  Largest: Sudan  Smallest: Seychelles  At least 2,000 languages spoken in Africa  Swahili and Arabic are two of the most common languages

 Africa was divided up by 8 countries in Europe during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries.  Europeans wanted power and strategic advantage, exploited the resources of Africa, established settlements, and converted Africans to Christianity.  In general, Europeans took what they wanted from Africa with very little concern about the quality of life for Africans.

 Africans fought European imperialism since its beginnings, but this opposition gained strength after World War I and again after World War II.  Many Africans resented European presence.  Africans desired self-rule because they were generally treated as second-class citizens by Europeans.  The World Wars also demonstrated that Europeans were imperfect and raised questions about European racism.  Finally, many African soldiers were exposed to other places and they saw that European powers were weakened by the wars in Europe.

 In 1945, many prominent leaders of Africa met in Manchester, England and drafted a resolution as an appeal to their colonial powers and a warning of what would come if this appeal was ignored.  By 1960, Africa had 27 independent states. That number grew to 39 six years later, and the number became 47 by 1975.

 Social life revolves around the extended family.  Extended families are linked to clans, kin groups, and tribes.  Religion and language is closely tied to the group that one joins by birth.

 Niger-Congo: spoken by one out of every two Africans, spread by Bantu migrations  Afro-Asiatic: second-most-spoken on the continent, mainly in North Africa  Nilo-Saharan: western bend of the Niger River through the Sahel region into parts of east Africa  Khoisan: smallest number, found in Southern Africa, known as “the click languages”  Because there is usually such a wide variety of languages spoken in one country, trade languages, such as Swahili, Hausa, Fulani, and Creole have developed for cross-cultural communication.

 Africa is largely a rural continent.  Many young Africans are moving to the cities to find work, however, many Africans stay in the rural villages and practice subsistence farming and livestock raising.

 46 % are Christian (mainly in West, East, Central, and Southern Africa)  40% are Muslim (mainly in North and West Africa)  Over 100 million practice indigenous religions