The Geography of Africa

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The Geography of Africa
By Eleanor Joyce City of Salem Schools
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Main Ideas

• Fertile soil along the Nile River encouraged the
  rise of great civilizations (ex. Egypt)?
• Many geographic features in Africa have prevented
  contact, trade unity among peoples
• Many of these same features limit European
  knowledge of Africa the Dark Continent

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Physical Geography

• PHYSICAL FEATURES
• Sahara Desert
• smooth coastline
• lack of navigable rivers
• Great Rift Valley
• high plateau

• RESULT
• Groups are kept separate - -
• 800 different languages are spoken in modern
  Africa

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Desert
Rainforest
Savanna
Desert
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Black line shows the Great Rift Valley
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This is what Africa will look like in about one
million years. Notice that the Persian Gulf does
not exist and the horn of Africa is a separate
peninsula. This is caused by the movement of
tectonic plates.
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Diversity leads to Imperialism

• Raw materials and resources lead to European
  interest in Africa
• Africas geographical divisions prevents the
  Africans from cooperating to resist

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Interesting Statistics

• 2nd largest continent- - 11,700,000 square miles!
• Thats 20.2 of the earth
• And 3x the size of the USA
• 778,000,000 people
• 55 countries

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Topography

• Deserts
• 40 of the land surface of Africa
• slows cultural diffusion - does not totally
  prevent it
• Sahara -- North Africa
• 1/3 of the continent ( to the USA!!)?
• majority is rock and gravel
• Kalahari--Southwest Africa

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Desert spreads into semi-arid regions
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Desertification - Causes

• Farmers use semi-arid land next to desert -
  yields poor crop
• Overgrazing by cattle and goats
• Overcutting of trees for firewood
• With no grass or tree roots, the topsoil blows
  away, the desert advances

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Solutions

• Crop rotation
• Terracing to prevent soil from washing away
• Tree belts to stop erosion and hold soil in place

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Mountains

• East Africa-
• caused by volcanic activity
• section of the land sank - causing the Great Rift
  Valley
• Atlas (NW)?
• Drakensberg (SE)?
• Ethiopian Highlands
• Famous peaks - Mt. Kenya Mt. Kilimanjaro

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Atlas Mountains
Ethiopian Highlands
Mt. Kilamanjaro
Drakensburg Mountains
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Rivers

• Depth varies depending on the season-if its the
  rainy season or the dry season
• Plateaus prevent easy navigation due to water
  falls.
• Therefore, the interior of Africa remained
  largely unexplored

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Can you name the rivers?
Nile
Niger
Congo
Zambezi
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Nile River

• 4,180 miles long (worlds longest!!)?
• flows NORTH
• Source - - Lake Victoria
• Delta - - Egypt
• Floods annually
• One of the most densely populated region in Africa

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Congo, Niger Zambezi Rivers

• Waterfalls and rapids prevent easy navigation
• Congo - 3000 miles long
• Niger - ancient civilizations flourished here
• Zambezi - Victoria Falls, used for hydro-electric
  power

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Coastline

• Smooth coastline
• Few natural harbors - hard to land ships
• Narrow continental shelf

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Climate - determined by rainfall, latitude and
elevation

• Savanna - 40 of the land, safari!!
• Tropical Rainforest - 8 of the land,
• Desert - 40 of the land
• Mediterranean - 12 of the land, good farm land
• About 85 of the land is not suited to farming

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Natural Resources

• Farming
• peanuts, cotton, cocoa, coffee
• Minerals
• diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt
• Water
• hydroelectric power

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Diseases in Africa

• Tropical climate creates incubator for disease
• Poverty spreads disease
• polluted water
• open sewers
• bathing in parasite infected water
• poor medical care

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Diseases in Africa

• Ebola
• Encephalitis
• Guinea worm
• Sleeping sickness
• Aids
• Malaria
• Leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease transmitted by
  the sand fly, is almost always fatal if left
  untreated.

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Diseases in Africa

• Ebola- is one of the deadliest viruses in the
  world, killing up to 90 of its victims in days.
• The disease begins with high fever, diarrhea,
  bleeding from the nose and gums, and can
  eventually induce massive internal hemorrhages.

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Diseases in Africa

• African Sleeping Sickness (Trypanosomiasis)
  This disease occurs in several countries of
  Central and East Africa. Most risk to tourists
  occurs when visiting game parks. Travelers to
  rural areas should take measures to prevent
  insect (tsetse fly) bites.

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Diseases in Africa

• Arboviral Fevers Few if any cases of dengue are
  reported from North Africa. Sandfly fever is
  widely distributed, especially in Egypt, Libya,
  and Tunisia. Rift Valley fever and West Nile
  fever are significant risks in Egypt.

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Diseases in Africa

• Cholera occurs in areas with inadequate
  sanitation, such as urban slums and rural areas.
  Travelers should consider vaccination. Prevention
  consists primarily in adhering to safe food and
  drink guidelines.

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Diseases in Africa

• Many diseases are carried by mosquito bites,
  rodent bites or tick bites.
• World Bank officials say diarrhea causes the
  deaths of more than 800 000 African children each
  year. Many of the deaths are in West Africa,
  where intestinal illnesses claim more young lives
  than malaria or AIDS.
• Programs are in place that encourage people to
  wash their hands with soap after using the
  toilet.

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Diseases in Africa

• Guinea Worm
• Guinea worm disease is caused by a threadlike
  parasitic worm that grows and matures in people.
  Worms grow up to 3 feet long and are as wide as a
  paper clip wire.
• People get infected when they drink standing
  water containing a tiny water flea that is
  infected with the even tinier larvae of the
  Guinea worm.
• Inside the human body, the larvae mature,
  growing as long as 3 feet. After a year, the worm
  emerges through a painful blister in the skin,
  causing long-term suffering and sometimes
  crippling after-effects

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Guinea Worm
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Guinea Worm
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Guinea Worm
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Sleeping Sickness
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Sleeping Sickness

• African sleeping sickness affects as many as
  500,000 people, 80 percent of whom eventually
  die, and the bite of the fly causes more than 4
  billion in economic losses annually.
• The tsetse fly has turned much of the fertile
  African landscape into an uninhabited "green
  desert," spreading sleeping sickness -- and
  killing 3 million livestock animals every year

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AIDS IN AFRICA
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AIDS IN AFRICA
Two orphaned children stand next to the graves of
their parents who died from the AIDS virus.
An infected mother with her child who has the
disease as well.
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70 of the worlds estimated 40 million people
living with HIV/AIDS are located in Sub-Saharan
Africa.
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Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 90 of the worlds
HIV infected children.
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Of 30 children born in sub-Saharan Africa- 10
will acquire the virus simply by being born- 4
will be infected from breast feeding .
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Most of these children will notlive to see their
5th birthdays.
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12 million African children have been orphaned
due to the AIDS virus.
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17 million Africans have already died since the
epidemic began in the late 1970s.
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In recent years the government budget for Health
care per person in Kenya has dropped from 9.50
to less than 3.00.
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Within 10 years the average life expectancy in 11
countries in Africa will drop below 40 as
HIV/AIDS continues to shorten life spans.