World Geo Sub Saharan Africa Vocab

Rifting

 breaking apart or separating through faulting caused by plate tectonics

Great Rift Valley

*  Home of the highest mountains Volcanoes formed by thin crust

Intertropical Convergence Zone

* warm winds that meet from the north and south at the equator, pushing air upward and causing rainfall 

Inland Delta

*  place where a river reaches a flat inland area and splits into multiple channels

Sahel

* band of arid grassland traveling east to West along the southern edge of the Sahara

Carbon Sequestration

*  The removal and storage of carbon taken from the atmosphere. (what trees do)

Agroforestry

* Growing economically useful crops of trees on farms, in conjunction with the usual plants and crops.

Subsistence Agriculture

* farming that provides food for only the farmer’s family usually on small farms that are 2-10 acres

Fallow period

*  The period of time agricultural plots are allowed to sit dormant and regain their nutrients.

Pastoralism

*  A way of life based on herding; practiced primarily on savannas, on desert margins, and in the mixture of grass and shrubs called open brush.

Desertification

*  A set of changes where a dry area with some vegetation is turned into a desert

Cottage Industry

*  A small scale, decentralized manufacturing business often operated out of a home rather than a purpose built facility.

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Aksum

* important civilization emerged in present-day Ethiopia along the coast

Berlin Conference

*  Conference of 14 European nations in 1884-1885 to establish rules for political control of Africa

Cash Crops

* crops grown for a profit

Maasai

*  East African ethnic group that lives on the grasslands of the rift valleys in Kenya and Tanzania

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Goree Island

*  island off the coast of Senegal - symbol of the slave trade

Stateless Society

* society in which people govern themselves instead of having an elected government or monarchs

Ashanti

*  live in Ghana, known for work in weaving colorful asasia or kente cloth

King Leopold II

*  Belgian king that developed interest in Congo

Mobutu Sese Seko (MSS)

*  DRC leader 1967-1997, brought businesses under national control

Fang Sculpture

* carved boxes containing the skulls and bones of deceased ancestors

Great Zimbabwe

* city established by the Shona people - eventually became

the country of Zimbabwe

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Mutapa Empire

* spread through present day Zimbabwe, except for the Eastern part

Apartheid

* complete separation of people based on race

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Nelson Mandela

* Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life’s work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected President of the ANC