Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers six percent of Earth's total surface area and 20.4 percent of its total land area. With 1.1 billion people as of 2013, it accounts for about 15% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states (countries), nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition.

Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4.Algeria is Africa's largest country by area, and Nigeria by population. Africa, particularly central Eastern Africa, is widely accepted as the place of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago, including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones.

Scramble for Africa

The "Scramble for Africa" was the invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the period of New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914. It is also called the Partition of Africa and the Conquest of Africa. In 1870, only 10 percent of Africa was under European control; by 1914 it had increased to 90 percent of the continent, with only Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and Liberia still being independent. The only colony the United States had claim to was Liberia which was established by the American Colonization Society on January 7, 1822.

The Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonization and trade in Africa, is usually referred to as the starting point of the Conquest of Africa. Consequent to the political and economic rivalries among the European empires in the last quarter of the 19th century, the partitioning of Africa was how the Europeans avoided warring amongst themselves over Africa. The latter years of the 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" (hegemony), by military influence and economic dominance, to the direct rule of a people which brought about colonial imperialism.

Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference of 1884–85, also known as the Congo Conference (German: Kongokonferenz) or West Africa Conference (Westafrika-Konferenz), regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period, and coincided with Germany's sudden emergence as an imperial power. Called for by Portugal and organized by Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of Germany, its outcome, the General Act of the Berlin Conference, can be seen as the formalization of the Scramble for Africa. The conference ushered in a period of heightened colonial activity by European powers, which eliminated or overrode most existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance.

Early history of the Berlin Conference

Before the conference, European diplomacy treated African indigenous people in the same manner as the New World natives, forming trading relationships with the indigenous chiefs. By the mid-19th century, Europeans considered Africa to be disputed territory ripe for exploration, trade, and settlement by their colonists. With the exception of trading posts along the coasts, the continent was essentially ignored.

The Scramble for Africa (book)

The Scramble for Africa is a comprehensive popular history of the Scramble for Africa written by Thomas Pakenham.

Content

One of the book's central themes is the contrast between the humanitarian motives of David Livingstone, and the profit-making of King Leopold II, and how the different people dealt with the conflict. The book addresses underlying motives and economics, without losing sight of the individuals whose personalities and actions drove much of the Scramble. It has been reprinted a number of times since its first appearance in 1990. It is an overall fascinating historical account about a very dark time period in world history.

Awards

The book won the WH Smith Literary Award and the Alan Paton Award.

Colonisation of Africa

The history of external colonisation of Africa can be divided into two stages: Classical antiquity and European colonialism. In popular parlance, discussions of colonialism in Africa usually focus on the European conquests that resulted in the scramble for Africa after the Berlin Conference in the 19th century.

In nearly all African countries today, the language used in government and media is a relic inherited from one of these waves of colonisation. The existence of a vast African diaspora is largely the legacy of the practice of transporting millions of African slaves out of the continent by these external colonisers. Some modern scholars also blame the current under-development of Africa on the colonial era.

Chronological overview