The continent of Africa is the second largest in the world and has one of the most interesting environments. Africa consists of many different land types like deserts, savannas, highlands and rain forests. Each of these areas has different ecosystems and how it supports Africa as a whole. People live in various locations throughout the continent, even in places that would seem impossible to live to the average American. Rivers are a huge part of how African people live and survive, many people depends on them for their crops and natural resources. War and diseases also play a huge role throughout Africa, many common diseases and wars fight for resources is very common. Each of Africa’s geographical and environmental aspect is essential to the …show more content…
The Sahara covers most of Algeria and Libya, and parts of Nigeria and Mali. Since the Sahara receives very little rainfall most of the population residing here live in oasis, which is a part of the desert where water resides. Even though this area is only about eight hundred miles long, it is how people are able to survive raise crops and animals in the Sahara. The desert is very hot and dry and has an average temperature of eighty-six degrees, but can get as hot as one hundred and four degrees in the …show more content…
Many natural resources that inhabit are gold, diamonds, uranium, oil, copper, tin, coal, and coltan. Coltan is one of the most wanted resources in Africa, especially the Congo because it creates electronics that are widely used around the world. This is an issue because it is exploiting the land of the Congo and other countries that do no have coltan as a natural resource are believed to be smuggling it out of the country and making a profit on it. This is a serious problem that is occurring in Africa because mining is being done daily and there are almost no
The Sahel zone has been made virtually uninhabitable from the effects of Desertification. There is a lot less amount of crops being produced by the Sahelian farmers. About 50 years ago farmers use to produce 7 times as much produce as now. [IMAGE] [IMAGE] This is a climate graph for Ethiopia, which is in the Sahel zone, and as you can see on the Temperature is very high and the average precipitation is low for what the temperature is in most months.
Niger has few natural resources and even less arable land it needs help from a lot of countries. Niger receives most of their imports from France; however, they do get much needed help from donations as sixty-four percent of Nigerians are in poverty. For example, used clothing is a big import they receive, along with medicines. With lots of diseases and one doctor for every 41,500 patients medicine is a coveted object. Other goods imported to Niger are rolled tobacco, radioactive chemicals, and petroleum products. Niger is a uranium rich country. Uranium is one of the heaviest natural occurring metal in the world. It is 18.7 times more dense than water. It is energy filled which is the reason why they use it in nuclear bombs. They also export cow peas and onions.
Bryant H. McGill once said “Education should prepare our minds to use its own powers of reason and conception rather than filling it with the accumulated misconceptions of the past” (McGill ). There are misconceptions all around us; people look at certain things in a particular manner but what each person sees comes from their background. I have recently come to the realization that there are many misconceptions held about the African continent; my current class has helped me see these misconceptions and understand why they are incorrect and how I formed them. With the help of our Western society, I developed beliefs that Africa was a continent full of poverty, civil unrest, and in desperate need of help. Much of the media coverage in Africa showed droughts, famine, the need for clean drinking water; everything that was exposed to the American population about Africa through these channels carried a negative connotation. I was never taught or informed about the complex culture and fascinating traditions that make up such a diverse continent. The ancient kingdoms of West Africa were complex, developed civilizations that had rich culture, traditions, values, norms and skills that exceeded those of societies of the rest of the world such as European ones. In this paper, I will first further explain some of the common misconceptions that I had about African in general and about their ancient kingdoms.
Africa has a regular coastline characterized by few indentations. Because of the smooth coastline, natural harbors were non-existent. Today, however, there are important coastal cities, such as Lagos and Dakar. With the exception of the Mediterranean coast, most of the coastline is low-lying , generally narrow and rising sharply to high elevations. The African climate and topography varies greatly. Although temperatures are usually high, due to being so close to the equator, rainfall, soil quality and elevations are of various degrees. Because most of the African continent has not been covered by water for millions of years, soils have developed according to their weathering e...
...o parallel in any part of human history. And in order to truly understand how this effects Africa and its many lost generations, one must know the past, and how it came to be so one can truly know how it affects the present, and how to prevent future monstrosities like this.
Works Cited Attoh, Samuel Aryeetey, ed. Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa. 3 rd. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. Book.
Sub-Saharan Africa refers to the diverse landscape of more than 50 countries of Africa, which are south of the Sahara Desert. There are over nine million square miles of valleys, plateaus, and mountains in this region of Africa. Because of the prevalence of plateaus, Africa has been nicknamed the “continent of plateaus”. Between the plateaus, there are steep slopes, or escarpments. This continent has the highest overall elevation because of the plateaus it has. This area is mountainous with such mountains as the Atlas Mountains in the Northwest, Drakensburg Mountains and Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest peak. The Great Rift Valley is also in this region. There are many rivers in this region, including the “Nile, Congo, Niger, and the Zambezi Rivers” (Physical Geography).
The question to be answered in this paper is to what extent has the resource curse affected the Nigerian economy and government? Resource curse is a term that states the observation that countries that have a plethora of natural resources (e.g. oil, coal, diamonds etc.) usually have unstable political and economic structures (Sachs, 827). Nigeria is categorized as a nation that has succumb to the resource curse as it has an abundance of, and an overdependence on, oil, and a decreasing gross domestic product (GDP) (Samuels, 321-322). Nigeria is known for its specialization and overdependence on oil and according to Ross, nations of such nature tend to have high levels of poverty, large class gaps, weak educational systems, more corruption within the government, and are less likely to become democracies (Ross, 356). The political instability and regime change in Nigeria will be observed in this paper. The resource curse has greatly weakened Nigeria as it has led to the numerous regime changes, the hindering of the nation’s democratization, corruption in the government, as well as, civil conflict.
1,700 km (1,060 mi long and 100 km (60 mi) wide, the desert is bordered on the
Another problem for people of Africa is clear access to clean water. Clean drinking water is very rare for the people of Africa. Unclean water and sanitation problem leads to many diseases in African countries. Main problem which occurs due to unclean water is child morality. Around 2000 children’s die from diarrhoea which spread due to poor sanitatio...
The African continent is rich with natural and intellectual resources. Northern Africa has rich oil deposits that, once discovered, have made billions of dollars. Sub-Sahara Africa is rich with deposits of precious minerals such as gold and diamonds. Throughout much of history Africa has been thought of as a rich land. But the Africa we know today as being plagued by famine, poverty and war came about at a much later date.
There is no doubt that European colonialism has left a grave impact on Africa. Many of Africa’s current and recent issues can trace their roots back to the poor decisions made during the European colonial era. Some good has resulted however, like modern medicine, education, and infrastructure. Africa’s history and culture have also been transformed. It will take many years for the scars left by colonization to fade, but some things may never truly disappear. The fate of the continent may be unclear, but its past provides us with information on why the present is the way it is.
...e value, protect the wild species. By creating this mutual relationship between the African people and their environment both sides can thrive.
The Sahara Desert is the world’s largest desert area. The word Sahara comes from the Arabic word sahra’, meaning desert. It extends from the Africa’s Atlantic Ocean side to the Red Sea and consists of the countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan. It is about 5,200 miles long. Overall, the Sahara Desert covers 3,500,000 square miles. The geography of the desert is varied. In the west, the Sahara is rocky with varied elevation. It does contain underground rivers, which sometime penetrate the surface, resulting in oases. The central region of the Sahara has more elevation than the other areas, with peaks such as Emi Koussi and Tahat. Even though the area lacks rainfall, these peaks are snowcapped during the winter. The Eastern part of the Sahara, the Libyan Desert, is dry with very few oases.
Throughout history, Africa has been a vulnerable player in the eyes of the rest of the world. From the slave trade to various civil right injustices that have taken place over in every century, from what we have studied in this class, we have been able to see the lasting impact on the continent as a ramification of certain events occurring. Using various sources from the text, which serve as evidence, and help prove how the western world exercised its power in order to capitalize on the African continent and exploit the African people and land.