Sub-Saharan Africa: Geography, History, and Economics

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the physical geography, pre-colonial history, colonial impact, and modern economic/social landscape of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Homo erectus

Meaning "upright man," these early ancestors of humans first walked in East Africa between one and two million years ago.

Tropic of Cancer

A coordinate located $23^{\circ}$ north of the Equator that is characterized by high atmospheric pressure and dry conditions.

Tropic of Capricorn

A coordinate located $23^{\circ}$ south of the Equator; it is the only other tropic besides the Tropic of Cancer to cross the African continent.

Pangaea

The last supercontinent that existed around 300 million years ago, with Africa situated at its heart.

Great Rift Valley

A physical feature formed by tectonic plate movement that is slowly splitting away from the African Plate at a rate of around $6$ to $7\,mm$ each year.

Lake Tanganyika

The second-largest and second-deepest freshwater lake in the world, located along the rift valley and dipping down to $1,470\,m$ ($4,820\,ft$).

Horn of Africa

A protruding peninsula in East Africa that contains the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Congo Basin

The largest tropical basin in Sub-Saharan Africa, serving as the drainage area for the deepest river in the world and considered a biodiversity hotspot.

Nile River

Regarded as the longest river in the world, it flows from Lake Victoria north through 11 different countries.

Sahel

A transitional ecoregion composed mostly of grassland located just south of the Sahara, connecting the dry desert to the tropical regions of the south.

Desertification

The process of previously fertile land becoming desert due to factors such as climate change, overgrazing, and erosion of fertile topsoil.

Partible inheritance

A social tradition where land is divided among heirs, preventing the development of a landed aristocracy in pre-colonial Africa.

Primogeniture

A tradition practiced in places like the United Kingdom where land is passed down exclusively to the firstborn male.

Tribes

Groups of families united by a common ancestry and language that controlled distinct tracts of territory in pre-colonial Africa.

Kingdom of Kush

An empire established in 1070 BCE located on the Nile River just south of the Egyptian Empire.

Kingdom of Aksum

A powerful pre-colonial empire in present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia that existed from 100 CE to 940 CE, minted its own currency, and built religious monuments.

Empire of Ghana

The first state in West Africa, lasting from around 350 CE until its conquest by the Mali Empire in the 1200s CE.

Shifting cultivation

A form of agriculture where land is farmed for a period and then abandoned until its fertility naturally restores.

Slash-and-burn

The practice of burning vegetation on an abandoned plot of land to return nutrients to the soil.

Berlin Conference

An 1884 meeting of 13 European countries and the United States to establish the procedure for Western countries to formally control African territory.

Colonialism

The control of a territory by another group; by the early 20th century, approximately 90 percent of Africa was under this form of European control.

Paternalism

A racist ideology used in the Belgian Congo where Africans were viewed as children needing a fatherly authority to educate them in Western ways.

Assimilationist policy

A French colonial policy that emphasized spreading French culture through language, laws, and education.

Indirect rule

A British colonial practice of partnering with local rulers and making them representatives of the British crown.

Commodities

Easily sold raw materials or agricultural goods that colonial empires focused on exporting from Africa.

Dependency ratio

The ratio of people not in the labor force to the number of productive workers.

Endemic

A term describing illnesses, like hepatitis and hookworm, that are found within a population in relatively steady numbers.

Epidemic

A disease outbreak that affects large numbers of people on a regional scale.

Malaria

The deadliest disease in Sub-Saharan Africa, spread by mosquitoes, which accounts for 90 percent of all malaria deaths worldwide.

Trypanosomiasis

Also known as sleeping sickness, this insect-borne disease is transmitted by the bite of the tsetse fly.

Ebola

A viral hemorrhagic fever that killed 11,000 people in West Africa between 2013 and 2015.

Failed state

A government that has deteriorated to the point where it is no longer functional.

Genocide

The systematic elimination of a group of people, such as the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda.

Refugees

People who have been forced to leave their country, often due to violent conflict or genocide.

Apartheid

A policy of racial separation in South Africa instituted by the Afrikaners to maintain minority rule.

African Union

An interregional organization formed in 2001 consisting of every African state, seeking unity, integration, and sustainable development.

Lingua franca

A common language spoken between speakers of different languages, such as English, French, or Swahili.

Neocolonialism

The practice of exerting economic rather than direct political control over a territory.

Dual economy

An economic system where plantations or commercial agriculture exist alongside traditional agricultural methods.

Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)

Economic changes stipulated by the IMF and World Bank that a country must make to be better able to repay loans.

Microcredit

Small loans provided to low-income individuals that do not require collateral or extensive employment history.