History UsefulNotes / Africa

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter. And despite what you may have heard, [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa is not a country.]][[note]](although the section of the Mediterranean coast between Tunis and Tripoli briefly held by the Siculo-Normans [[TheHighMiddleAges during the 12th century]] was [[InNameOnly styled]] "The Kingdom of Africa")[[/note]]

Generally not a prosperous or safe place to be. Africa has never had much of an economic boom: It has pretty much always been a source of wealth for developed nations--never the beneficiary of its own resources.

!!!! Wetter West Africa

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter. And despite what you may have heard, [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa is not a country.]][[note]](although the section of the Mediterranean coast between Tunis and Tripoli briefly held by the Siculo-Normans [[TheHighMiddleAges during the 12th century]] was styled [[InNameOnly "The Kingdom of Africa"]])[[/note]]

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter. And despite what you may have heard, [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa is not a country.]][[note]](although the section of the Mediterranean coast between Tunis and Tripoli was briefly held by the Siculo-Normans [[TheHighMiddleAges during the 12th century]] and styled [[InNameOnly "The Kingdom of Africa"]])[[/note]]

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter. And despite what you may have heard, [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa is not a country.]][[note]](although the section of the Mediterranean coast between Tunis and Tripoli was briefly held by the Kingdom of Sicily [[TheHighMiddleAges during the 12th century]] and styled [[InNameOnly "The Kingdom of Africa"]])[[/note]]

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter. And despite what you may have heard, [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa is not a country.]][[note]](although a part of the Mediterranean coast that was briefly held by the Kingdom of Sicily [[TheHighMiddleAges during the 12th century]] was styled "The Kingdom of Africa")[[/note]]

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter. And despite what you may have heard, [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa is not a country.]][[note]](a loose collecton of cities styled the "Kindgom of Africa" existed [[TheHighMiddleAges between 1135 and 1160]])[[/note]]

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter. And despite what you may have heard, [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa is not a country.]]

[[/index]]

-->'''Toto's "Africa"''', a song about a white man trying to write about Africa but struggling because he's never been there.

The majority of people in this part of Africa speak Arabic and often (but not always) feel closer affinity to other Arabic speakers in Asia than to other people of the African continent, or even to certain parts of southern Europe, with which they share the history and culture of the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, all these countries participate in various pan-African institutions, and all but Morocco are part of the African Union.

All of these countries were at one point in time part of the ancient and medieval Ethiopian empires (the best-known of which is the Kingdom of Axum), and share in the heritage of ancient Ethiopian civilization. All also speak languages of the Afro-Asiatic family, primarily of the South Semitic and Cushitic branches.

[[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Africa's a big country, right by India]]...[[VerbalBackspace er, let's try that again.]]

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter.

* UsefulNotes/{{Guinea-Bissau}}

For Africa in fiction, see AncientAfrica, DarkestAfrica, and {{Bulungi}}. See also MightyWhitey, GreatWhiteHunter.

Except for Mozambique and Namibia, all were once British colonies; Namibia, for its part, was administered as part of South Africa for the better part of a century. All states are or were members of TheCommonwealth (Mozambique having been given special dispensation for its close relationship with the neighbouring members, while Zimbabwe was suspended for bad behaviour and subsequently left in the international-affairs equivalent of a petulant pout). South Africa has a powerful influence on the region, acting as a regional bully duringTheApartheidEra, and as a sort of friendly-if-slightly-overbearing regional hegemon since 1994.

* UsefulNotes/{{Gambia}}

[[/index]] The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Community East African Community]] is an attempt to develop regional integration at a smaller level than Africa. As all of these countries have certain cultural elements and political interests in common--rather than the huge and unwieldy thing that is the African continent--their leaders felt there was a better chance of real integration, particularly economically. This is eased by the inland countries' gradual adoption of Swahili as a commercial ''lingua franca'', and Burundi and Rwanda's moves away from French and towards English as the foreign language of choice; Rwanda has even been admitted to TheCommonwealth--to which Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda belong--as a sort of encouraging gesture, with Burundi not sure about whether to follow suit.[[index]]

[[/index]] The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Community East African Community]] is an attempt to develop regional integration at a smaller level than Africa. As all of these countries have certain cultural elements and political interests in common--rather than the huge and unwieldy thing that is the African continent--their leaders felt there was a better chance of real integration, particularly economically. This is eased by the inland countries' gradual adoption of Swahili as a commercial ''lingua franca'', and Burundi and Rwanda's moves away from French and towards English as the foreign language of choice; Rwanda has even been admitted to TheCommonwealth as a sort of encouraging gesture (with Burundi not sure about whether to follow suit).[[index]]

The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Community East African Community]] is an attempt to develop regional integration at a smaller level than Africa. As all of these countries have certain cultural elements and political interests in common--rather than the huge and unwieldy thing that is the African continent--their leaders felt there was a better chance of real integration, particularly economically. This is eased by the inland countries' gradual adoption of Swahili as a commercial ''lingua franca'', and Burundi and Rwanda's moves away from French and towards English as the foreign language of choice.

!!! Southern Africa
Except for Mozambique and Namibia, all were once British colonies; Namibia, for its part, was administered as part of South Africa for the better part of a century. South Africa has a powerful influence on the region, acting as a regional bully during [[/index]]TheApartheidEra[[index]], and as a sort of friendly-if-slightly-overbearing regional hegemony since 1994.

Africa covers one-fifth of the Earth's land surface and contains 54 countries[[hottip:*: 56 if you include the separatist states of Western Sahara and Somaliland, from Morocco and Somalia respectively. While 81 nations recognize Western Sahara, the arguably more legitimate Somaliland has absolutely no recognition from anybody at all.]], two thousand languages and upwards of a billion people. Its primary cultural divide is between the Muslim states north of the Sahara, which have more in common with the rest of the Arab world than with the rest of the continent, and "Black Africa" or sub-Saharan Africa further south. There are a ''lot'' of other divisions, though, including the difference between East Africa and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and the transition zones just south of the Sahara: the primarily-Arab [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahel Sahel]] and primarily-African [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan_(region) Sudan]] (which confusingly does not include the country of Sudan, where the people are for the most part physically black but culturally Arab).