1. Geography of West Africa
Sahara, Sahel, Savannah, and Rainforest

2. Identify the area people mean when they say “West Africa.”
Objectives
What divides Africa into two major areas? Who lives to the north and who lives to the south of this great divider?
Identify the area people mean when they say “West Africa.”
Name the greatest river in West Africa.
Name the religious idea in which people believe that spirits inhabit trees, animals, bodies of water, and even rocks.

3. Rifts are valleys formed when tectonic plates pull apart.
Terms and People
Rifts are valleys formed when tectonic plates pull apart.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the continent south of the great desert.
Sahel is the border or the desert. Little grows here.
Savannah is an open grassland with scattered trees.
Where is the African rainforest?
Where are the major savannah areas of Africa?
Rain forest is a moist, densely wooded area.

4. Terms and People
Extended family is not just parents and children, but grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.
animism is a belief in the spirits of water, forest, and animals.

5. When people talk about West Africa, they don’t generally mean this area:
Nor do they mean this area:
Generally, when people talk about West Africa, they mean this area:

6. The Sahara Desert divides Africa into two ethnic areas.
North of the Sahara live Arabs and Berbers.
The Sahara Desert
The Sahara Desert is difficult to cross and has divided people for thousands of years.
South of the Sahara live many different peoples.

9. Most early African kingdoms were in west Africa.
Here flows the great Niger River.
Civilizations grew up around the Niger River.

11. Animism is the belief that all parts of nature have spirits: water, trees, rocks, as well as animals.
Before the arrival of Christianity and of Islam, most of the religious or spiritual beliefs here focused on animism.

12. Masks are important to animism.
When a participant in a ritual wore a mask, he was taking on the identity of a spirit or inviting in the spirit into his body.

16. Poverty continues to plague Sub-Saharan Africa.

17. The Congo Basin has a low population.
The Sahara Desert has almost no population.
Nigeria
Ethiopia
The Congo Basin has a low population.
The Lakes
South Africa

18. What landform divides Africa into two major ethnic regions?
Which religion believes that trees, rocks, and bodies of water have spirits of their own?
The Niger River
The Sahara Desert
Animism
The rainforest
The Nile Delta
Who lives to the north of the Sahara Desert?
What is the name of the geographical feature in which water flows downward and inward?
Arabs and Berbers
A rift valley
What great religious change began 500 years ago and is still occurring in Africa?
A basin
A delta
A savannah
Islam is driving out animism.
Animism is driving out Christianity.
Christianity is driving out Islam.
Animism is driving out Buddhism.

19. Around what geographical feature did most of Sub-Saharan Africa’s early civilizations develop ?
What is the name of the geographical feature in which the Earth’s plates pull away from each other?
The Niger River
A rift valley
The Sahara Desert
A mountain
The Great Rift Valley
A volcano
The central rainforests
A savannah
What large land feature makes living and travel difficult in central Africa?
The Great Rift Valley
The Congo Basin
The Nile Delta
The Great African Savannah

22. Sahara Desert
Rift Valleys

31. Examine this chart. What two factors does it compare?
However, most of these nations are better off than many Central and Southern African nations.
Many nations of Western Africa are among the worst places to live in the world.
Examine this chart. What two factors does it compare?