Sub-Saharan Africa

SSWG4: The student will describe the interaction of physical and human systems that have shaped contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa.

Standard Covered

a. Describe the location of major physical features and their impact on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Bell Ringer:

List what you already know about the continent of Africa, think about the physical geography:

List what you would like to know about Africa:

Africa

Includes 48 countries

1/5 of earth’s total land area

Is world’s second largest continent

Africa

Separating the plateaus are steep cliffs or slopes called escarpments. A steep slope with a nearly flat plateau

on top Cataracts, thundering waterfalls fall

over the escarpment

Escarpment

Cataract

Africa

Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest mountain and is located in Tanzania.

Mt. Kilimanjaro is located on the edge of the Great Rift Valley (it is believed to have emerged during Pangaea What is Pangaea?

Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift Valley divides Kenya in half

Faults are cracks in the land; caused by pressure on the land resulted in the formation of mountains.

Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria is the second largest freshwater lake in the world, surrounded by Kenya, Tanzania, & Uganda What affect does

Lake Victoria have on those 3 countries?

Water

4 rivers slice through Africa: the Nile, Congo, Niger, & Zambezi

Longest river system south of the Sahara is the Congo River (2100 miles long) 10,000 gallons of water flow through the

Congo each second

Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls is the highest waterfall in Africa; discovered by British explorer David Livingston who named it after Queen Victoria. The native people call is Mosi-oa-Tunya

which means “the smoke that thunders”

Victoria Falls

Escarpments

Serengeti Plain

Kalahari Desert

Cataracts

Resources

Africa’s minerals make it one of the world’s richest continents.

Diamonds, gold, copper, platinum, chromium, cobalt, copper, phosphates, and oil are important natural resources in this region

More than 1/3 of the world’s gold comes from South Africa along with 4/5 of the worlds platinum.

Resources Uses

Essential Question

How has Africa’s physical geography affected its ability to use its resources for economic development?

Pg. 419

Map and Graph Skills 1-3

Standard Covered

b.Describe the major climates of Sub-Saharan Africa and how they have affected the development of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Climate

Three tropical latitudes define the region: the Tropic of Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, and the Equator No other continent

touches all 3 zones

Climate

Wetter climates are found along escarpments

Deserts cover a larger percentage of Africa than any other continent (2/5 of the total land area)

Deserts

Little rain falls on the deserts; temperatures range from 120o during the day and 50o or lower at night

The Kalahari desert covers most of Botswana

Climate

To protect wildlife, governments have created a huge game preserve such as Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains and Kenya’s Nairobi National Park.

Savannas, tropical grasslands containing scattered trees

Standard Covered

c. Describe the pattern of population distribution in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa in relation to urbanization and modernization.

Economic Problems

Sub-Saharan Africans suffers the lowest standards of living in the world.

The 625 million people of the region generate a combined gross domestic product (GDP),total output of goods and services within a country or region, of about $150 billion, this is roughly the same GDP as Belgium, a country in Europe with about 10 million people

Standard Covered

e. Analyze how the migration of people such as the Bantu and Zulu has had an impact on the economic, cultural, and political aspects of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Bantu Patterns

AFRICA BANTU MIGRATIONS

1. Bantu People

These Bantu people probably originated in eastern Nigeria in west Africa…

1. Was a group of individuals who spoke the same language

Refered to themselves as Bantu meaning “persons” or “people”

Question

What does all Bantu people have in common?

What does the term Bantu mean?

Bantu Migrations

Bantu migrations were not mass movements of people but a gradual occurrence

By 3000BC they were slowly spreading south into the West African forest, and after 2000BC they expanded rapidly to the south toward the Congo River basin and east toward the great Lakes…

2. Key to African History

Their languages differentiated into more than five hundred distinct but related tongues Today more than 90 million people speak

Bantu languages

Question

How many people speak Bantu languages today?

Lasting Affects

Two features of Bantu society were especially important for the earliest migrations1. Bantu peoples made effective use of

canoes2. Agricultural surpluses enabled the

Bantu population to increase more rapidly than the populations of hunting, gathering, and fishing peoples▪ Why would surplus enable population to

increase?

Bantu Migrations

After about 1000BC the pace of Bantu migrations quickened, as Bantu peoples began to produce iron tools and weapons Enabled Bantu cultivators to clear land ▪ How would iron aid in the spread of Bantu

people?

Standard Covered

f. Analyze strengths and weaknesses in the development of Sub-Saharan Africa; include factors such as linguistic, tribal, and religious diversity; literacy levels; and the colonial legacy.

Ethnic groups

In the mid-1800s, central Africa consisted of hundreds of different ethnic groups, which followed traditional religions and spoke hundreds of different languages

Europeans had been in Africa since the mid-15th century but had stayed on the coast

3. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to become a part of the slave trade.

Colonization Begins

King Leopold II of Belgium developed an interest in the Congo after it had been explored in the 1870s.

6. He changed the way Europeans viewed Africa by going into the interior of Africa for trade

7. Why is he pictured as a snake?

He used forced labor to take goods from the Congo.

He is estimated to have killed around 10 million people.

If quotas weren’t met he would use cruel punishments like beatings and amputations.

Colonialism

In the 19th century, Europe’s industrialized nations became interested in Africa’s raw materials. European nations wanted to colonize and control parts of Africa to obtain those resources

To prevent European wars over Africa 14 nations convened the Berlin Conference in 1884-85 to lay down the rules of dividing Africa..

Berlin Conference

Divided Africa without regard to where African ethnic or linguistic groups were.

Division of Africa is often cited as one of the root causes of the political violence and ethnic conflicts in Africa.

Conflict Begins

By the 1970s, most of Africa had regained independence from Europe. However, internal disputes and civil wars became a serious problem. For example, colonialism inflamed the

peoples of Rwanda and helped to cause a bloody conflict in the 1990s.

Colonial Legacy

BEFORE AFTER

Colonial Legacy

Colonial legacy has created many problems for African nations Misplaced political boundaries Underdevelopment Lack of political experience Rise of military dictatorships

Apartheid

In South Africa, the white dominated government enforced a policy known as apartheid-strict separation of the races Similar to Jim Crow

Laws denied blacks political rights and forced them to live in separate areas

People protested for many years

Apartheid

Apartheid ended in 1991

1994, held its first election based on universal suffrage – equal voting rights for all ethnic groups

Nelson Mandela was later elected as South Africa’s first black president

Pg. 457

2-4

Urbanization

Although Africa is the least urbanized of any continent, it is urbanizing at the world’s fastest rate. How is this

possible? Most of the major

cities lie along the coast or next to large rivers.

Urbanization

Urbanization, the movement of people to cities. Why would people

move to cities? There are many

ethnic groups in this region

Together, Africans speak more than 800 languages and numerous dialects.

Education

Since independence, more children are going to school and the literacy rate is rising

Literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest in the world Why do you think this is the case?

Population

In recent years, huge expanses of land have been exhausted through intensive cultivation, loss of soil fertility and crippling droughts. What affect could these events have on

a population?

Population

Famine and poor nutrition claims many lives, especially infants and young children.

Impure water is one common cause of death ( only about 40% of Sub-Saharan Africans have clean water to drink.)

Healthcare

Sub-Saharan Africa face many health care problems.

The most critical is acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which spread throughout Africa in the 1980s and 90s

Sub-Saharan Africa suffers the lowest standards of living in the world

AIDS

AIDS has become a pandemic, an uncontrollable outbreak of a disease affecting a large population over a wide geographic area

Medical geographers predict that the populations of Africa’s worst affected countries could decline by 10-20 percent.

AIDS

In 2000 AIDS took the lives of 3 million people worldwide 2.4 million were in sub-Saharan Africa

In Swaziland, 3 out of 4 deaths are because of AIDS Life expectancy dropped from 58 to 39

Writing Prompt

Using the knowledge that you know about AIDS and the issues in Africa, explain why YOU THINK, this has become such a pandemic. (5-7 sentences)

Diseases

African nations are threatened by a variety of diseases. Cholera Malaria Tuberculosis

Cholera

Cholera, is an infection that comes from inadequate sanitation and lack of clean water. Infection of the small intestine, leads to

watery diarrhea.

Malaria

Mosquitoes carry malaria, an infectious disease marked by chills and fevers Muscle pains, fever, bloody stool

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a respiratory infection spread between humans Cough, coughing up blood, fevers

Standard Covered

h. Analyze the impact of drought and desertification on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Desertification

Sahel means “shore of the desert” in Arabic

The shift of the desert is called desertification. Desertification is an expansion of dry

conditions in to moist areas that are next to deserts

Around 2000 B.C., the Sahara began to grow warmer and drier People began to migrate, causing

cultural diffusion.

Desertification

Causes: overgrazing of vegetation by livestock exposes

the soil animals also trample the soil, making it more

vulnerable to erosion. Farming ▪ when farmers clear the land to plant crops, they

expose the soil to wind, which can cause erosion Increasing population▪ More people require more food. As a result, farmers

continue to clear more land for crops and burn more wood for fuel

Oil

More than 4,000 oil spills have occurred in the Niger delta in the last 40 years Results in fires causing acid rain which

leads to respiratory problems Between 98 and 2000 pipeline

explosions killed more than 2,000 people Many of these were done on purpose