Geography Of Africa Summary

This chapter of Africa by Phyllis Martin covers the beginning of Africa as a group of ideas, the physical landscape of the continents, how it’s interaction of its people and others around the world have changed it. It also goes into detail about the geography of the continent in terms of its climate and biomes. The chapter begin with look at thing from a more abstract level. Delehanty explains that a place is not only something physical but also a conglomeration of ideas adopted by people who lived there or have been there. The idea of Africa was conceived in Europe as many European sailors and travelers found their way to the coasts of Africa and reported their findings. Delehanty states that It was the Greeks and Romans - during the

He states that the parts of Africa are along the east and in the south; with the highest peaks being Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya. “Low Africa” Delehanty calls is where the rain forests are. The volcanic regions are highly fertile and the tropical soils are nutrient poor because all of the nutrients in the soil goes the huge forest trees. In terms of climate, he reports that the equatorial regions of Africa receive direct solar radiation. The northern region has climate similar to that of the Mediterranean (high heat but cool from December to March). Deserts have fluctuation in temperatures: hot days and cool nights. The rainfall patterns are separated in three parts, the first being equatorial low pressure. Because the equatorial regions receive direct solar radiation, the temperatures are very high. That hot air then rises with moisture and eventually cools to become precipitation in the form of rain (hence heavy rainfall almost year round). In subtropical high pressure, rising air flows north and south at high elevation. As it sinks, the air holds moisture causing dry weather in places 20 degrees north and south of the equator. The third part is the seasonality that occurs in Africa. There are two seasons: wet and dry. While there is heavy rainfall at the equator, the amount of rainfall decrease as you go 20-30 north or south of the equator. You also have the ITCZ (Inter

He discourages dividing Africa’s history into only three parts. He argues that it is an oversimplified way of looking at Africa’s history. Being that humans livelihood began in Africa, our first impacts on Africa’s environment began as hunters and gatherers. We salvaged the land for desirable game and fruits. This obviously affected the populations that we were consuming. We affected the physical environment when we burned grassland to draw game. Then we move to herding (which was invented in the northern parts of Africa about 7 millennia ago); we herded and domesticated cattle, camels, goats, and sheep. In doing that we changed the African environment when we altered a mix of plants or only grazing and amassing herds at one water source during dry seasons. We cause a decrease in crop diversity when we began practicing agriculture and encouraging specific crops such as millet, sorghum and